Tim Lynch On What We Should Have Done In Afghanistan
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 4 months ago
Killing Osama and ending our intervention in Afghanistan then and then would have been worth 10 Mogadishu’s. The only senior player in theater who recognized that was a young Marine general named Jim Mattis who was begging to throw his Marines into the mountains to block bin Laden. That he, as the current Secretary of Defense, is the guy left holding the bag is a bitter irony that is lost on virtually everyone. But not me and now not you either.
I had long ago said that the war should have been comprised of battling the Taliban and AQ out of their positions and then dropping several MAGTF of the U.S. Marines near the Pakistani border (perhaps along with the 82nd or 101st Airborne divisions if necessary, all reporting to the Marines for purposes of ensuring consistency of the task force) and blocking the escape of the worst actors and killing them all – not capturing them or making peace with them, but killing them, even if they surrendered.
But Mr. Bush had to play armed social science, so here we are today with an abject failure on our hands. My way is vicious and brutal. Bush’s and Obama’s way lost. By the way, Tim has a nice video embedded in this post that is worth your time. Again, no one knows more about Afghanistan and our war there than Tim Lynch.
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