Comment on Mainlining Bill Roggio

In war civilian casualties should be expected when the civilians willingly support the combatants or the combatants hide among unwilling civilian human shields. An example of the flawed strategy to place civilian comfort above winning wars is the case when a group of Marines failed to receive air support for fear of hurting civilians. That became a disaster for the Marines.

Read this and more at The AfPak Reader.

JRH 9/13/09

US Envoy Holbrooke Walks Back Karzai Dust-up

For democracy to work in Afghanistan the heads of tribal families would have to unite and agree to binding decisions of the majority. Then the tribal heads would have to agree to cooperate with a U.S. supported Afghan government (that is wishfully lacking in corruption) to confront warlords that are not tribal leaders that fight to protect their drug business or are Islamic ideologues.

I suspect the problem that might crimp this thought would be some tribal families stretch across the Afghan/Pakistan border. Defeated or weakened warlords could simply find haven in the wild lands of Pakistan which the Pakistani government exerts little to no authority.

With these thoughts based on opinion more than on facts: read the Gary H. Johnson Jr. story on the corruption in the recent Afghan national election in which Karzai more than likely won a fraudulent election.

JRH 9/4/09