Where did I say that? YOU said bombing never works. *I* pointed out an example where bombing HAD worked and then added that sufficient force properly applied can be very effect. However, I never used the world "atomic" or "nuclear" in connection with Afghanistan; YOU did that.[/quote]
Again, the phrase "properly applied" applies to your example. The U.S. government spent years dropping a gazillion tons of bombs on jungle trails and minor villages. But it wasn't until Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi that the North Vietnamese had their attention grabbed. But then it was too late to win the war and America's best hope was merely go get out with a half-assed peace accord. Rather than "throwing [my] theory off" it rather reinforces it.

Where exactly did I say that? Never is a very long time.

I'm saying bombing won't work with the Afghan's.

And even before Nixon bombed North Vietnam, we were dropping an ungodly amount of bombs on the country. Along with the bombing of the north, it did nothing to persuade the NVA to back off. Again, we could have stayed there forever and the Vietnamese would have continued to fight us.

You cannot fight an ideology.

The plan is not to bomb anyone into submission. It's to bomb them out of business.

Step 1 Locate poppy fields and heroin production sites in Afghanistan.

Step 2 Bomb the bejezuz out of them.

Step 3 Repeat.

While that's being done,

Step 1 Locate a mid sized town that we can get troops and supplies in and out of quickly. This town should not already be an enemy stronghold but, some known enemy activity is ok. It should not be right next to the enemy's main center of operation either. The town should ideally have some sort of modern infrastructure.

Step 2 Push from two or three sides and out the other or surround and fight to the middle. All resistance is killed. No exceptions. No warnings either. This has to a be surprise attack.

Step 3 Once the town is occupied, secure its borders. No citizens come in or go out. Disarm citizens.

Step 4 Reveal plans to improve infrastructure, education, equality, human rights and open a Starbucks or whatever else the town folk may enjoy.

Step 5 Do it. Use the citizens as labor. Pay them in food and other necessities, at first. Later, they can be paid money. Eventually, they have their own economy.

Step 6 Spread word of this great new place to live and screen any would be residents. The condition is, once you come in, you stay in. No traveling outside and no communicating to the outside. No guns allowed. Anyone failing the entry test is killed, quietly.

Step 7 Grow town larger.

Step 8 Repeat.

Think about it. This is similar to how towns form up anywhere in the world. Aside from the military occupation, severe restrictions on personal liberty and dictatorship. Even then, some have been born that way. Make a place where people want to and can live. People will live there.

These aren't new ideas. It's how conquest is done. We either do this or we start exterminating Islam the way we would roaches in our homes and it's real hard to get people to stick with a genocide.

One thing, Aint, the longer we stay in Afghanistan, the more we provide the Taliban with money. Their funding doesn't come just from the opium trade; it also comes from the markets where the Military shops, the transport needed, the protection the transport need. Think about anything the Military needs that is purchased 'on the economy.'

That's one reason we have so many Military installations around the world--they're good for the economies of the countries.