What is our military going to do in Afghanistan that others have not?

the best chance we have of getting out of Afghanistan WITHOUT it looking like a defeat of some sort or another, is hearts and minds and getting the Afghan army and police force into some sort of respectable shape, we are failing to gain the trust and co-operation of the Afghan people, it is something the west has been trying to do since it arrived but it is proving very difficult to maintain because as soon as we kick the taliban out of one area they are into another, so we go and defeat them in that area and they return to the original area,

it makes it very difficult for the average Afghan to have any trust in our ability to actually defeat the taliban.

we have gone into so many villages there, pushed out the taliban, at considerable cost in lives then we have brought in schools, electricity, running water etc, we then leave and hand over to the local police/army etc but the taliban return, they destroy the school, kill the teachers, gang rape and beat any female who dared go to the schools, take the boys into their army and force the villagers to pay them for the use of the electricity and water.meanwhile the police there disappear into the wilderness or just stand by and watch, (of course in the time between us leaving and the taliban arriving THEY themselves are charging the villagers for the use of the resources!!!) the army without western support gets overwhelmed and we have to go in to help them out

so when we do come back later to the village and kick the taliban out again the people there are less than impressed with the NATO war effort.

we also have so far not offered the average Afghan farmer a viable alternative to growing poppies, we have converted some to growing grain/corn etc, but to get each farm converted and trained in dealing with a totally new crop is time consuming and expensive and not something that can be left to common soldiers to do.

so our options are a bit limited, we can either flood every village in Afghanistan with western troops and have more stationed permanently on the pakistan and iranian borders and even more doing nothing but hunting down the taliban in the mountains, deserts etc, or we can write off large areas of the country, focus on getting 100% security on some parts and leave the rest to who ever wants it.

neither option is particularly impressive.

The additional troops are intended to go after the poppy crops and thus cut the Taliban off from their funding. Since most of the people fighting for the Taliban are little more than mercenaries - cutting off their funding will cripple them.

And I agree that the biggest issue in Afghanistan is corrupt and ineffective government. If you are looking for a historical model to use here - I suggest Columbia. Ten years ago Columbia was where Afghanistan is today.

The trick here is to convince the enemy that we will never give up and go home. As long as they think that we will quit - they will keep on fighting.

1. Interfacing with the Afghan people in a positive manner. The Soviets, Russians, Mongols and others did not do this. Just about everybody else was in A-stan simply to conquer more land. The US is in there to knock out Al-Queda, and to build a stable government that will not allow terrorism to flourish there again.

2. Establishing a legitimate democratic government, as opposed to puppet or proxy states established by other invaders.

3. We also have international support, something other nations fighting in A-stan did not have.

They are protecting the cultivation of the poppy fields and the transportation of the “product” they yield.

Edit:

It is a known fact that the Taliban had all but eliminated the cultivation of opium poppies in the country of Afghanistan prier to the U.S. invasion. It was not until the toppling of the Taliban government did the poppy production climb to it’s highest yields in decades.

The military is struggling in Afghanistan right now. We haven't accomplished much. There are not enough troops, equipment and this is a war that our troops have never fought before. The terrain is so rocky and hilly while their are millions of caves. It takes the troops hours to climb one mountain. It is a horrific situation as of now.

Not much.