Bribing The Taliban No Way To Win This War – Five More Years In Afghanistan

A leaked memo intended to be distributed at the close of the London Conference on Afghanistan this week tells a most disturbing story:  British troops can expect to continue combat operations against the Taliban for another five years.  Governments allied with the Brits, including the United States, are expected to pony up hundreds of millions of British pounds (you can multiply that by 1.61 to compute American dollars) for bribing Taliban leaders to get them to stop fighting.

Think about all that for a minute.  The Afghanistan front opened on October 7, 2001.  The PC madness continues in our war strategy.  Winning “hearts and minds”, insane rules of engagement that handcuff our troops, putting the value of the lives of Afghan residents above our own soldiers’ and Marines’ lives, and paying big money to terrorists to get them to cease and desist is not any way to win a war.

Here’s the Times-Online UK story:

“British troops will have to fight the Taleban for another five years, according to a leaked draft of the communiqué that will conclude the London conference on Afghanistan this week.

Participating governments are also expected to agree to bribes totalling hundreds of millions of pounds which will be paid to leading insurgents in the hope that they will stop fighting…

…the most senior US commander in the war zone predicted that the violence would get worse before it got better…

… Gordon Brown… will present the plan for stabilising Afghanistan. It foresees a bloody endgame, with Afghan forces only gradually taking on their rightful role over several years…

…The centrepiece of the London conference…will be the reconciliation plan. It promises “an honourable place in society” to those who cut their ties with “al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups”.

Please.  Can we really expect the Afghani Muslims to just quit Islam and join a Lutheran Church?  Pass me the Ibuprofen.  Diana West first had the idea. When, during WWII, did we ever pay bribes to German and Japanese military officers to induce them to stop fighting?  President Obama said the Afghanistan surge will end in 2011.  The Brits believe the fighting (and bribery) are going on until at least 2015.  Wars (and fistfights) are won by beating the enemy into submission, not by giving him money.

It took from December 8^th, 1941, to August 15, 1945 to utterly destroy the Japanese Empire’s Army, Navy, and Air Forces.  The obliteration of Nazi Germany and liberation of Europe were accomplished by May 2, 1945.  That’s three years and eight months to win WWII.  We’ve been at this Afghanistan business for eight years, three months and fourteen days. There is no end in sight.  Something is terribly amiss.