Key Element in Obama Afghanistan strategy: Lure foot soldiers away from Taliban

[bigtree]

March 20, 2009

A key element of Obama's plan is to erode militants' power by strengthening local leaders, who can in turn provide incentives for foot soldiers to switch sides.

{snip}

The plan is based on the assumption that top leaders of extremist groups are unlikely to switch sides wholesale and would be unreliable allies if they did. Instead, the revised military effort will focus on eroding the power of militant leaders by drawing away low-level fighters -- most of whom signed up for financial reasons.

Key to the strategy, according to administration officials, will be strengthening village elders and other local leaders as part of an overall shift in emphasis away from the country's central government.

The strategy review will address the need to build up the abilities of the central government and to expand the Afghan National Army. But many officials have concluded that local leaders and governments are even more important.

Under the plan, the administration would offer local leaders a variety of tools, including small-scale economic projects and training for local security forces, that they can use to convince insurgent fighters to lay down their weapons . . .


read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-strategy20-2009mar20,0,1531553.story

[BuyingThyme]

1. I hope they're keeping tabs on all this at the Pentagon so somebody can steal 'em

and hand 'em over to the New York Times.

[dkofos]

2. What is the excuse of the day for not having trained sufficient numbers

of soldiers in the Afghan national army??

It's been over 7 years.

WTF??

My answer is that as long as haliburton and kbr are involved,
(and making BILLIONS) nothing will actually get done.