Matt Kaminski on what it really takes to win the Afghan War

From John Batchelor's blog on his radio interview with Kaminski:

Borderland 2011
By John Batchelor
December 22, 2010 2:02 AM

Spoke Matt Kaminski re his recent visit to ISAF and David Petraeus wrote the COIN book at Kansas, and it worked in Iraq because there was an infrastructure to protect and to use for restoration. There is nothing comparable in the bronze age AfPak borderland.

Kaminski remarks that VPOTUS Biden's remark that the US will be "outta there" by 2014 is folly and smoke-blowing.

Kaminski passes on Petraeus's opinion that Afghanistan is the frontlines against the jihadist deviltry in Pakistan, in Baluchistan, in Iran.

Will we cross the AfPak border in 2011? No clear answer. The command and control for the Haqqani Taliban is in the frontier. The CnC for the Quetta Shura is in Baluchistan. The devils find their financing in Peshawar and Karachi.

Until the US probes the borderland of Swat, Khyber, Orakzai, Mohmand, Tribal Areas, North and South Waziristan, with ground troops, with Special Operations back up by tactical air, with the forces required to take prisoners, then the enemy will continue to probe and kills us at will.

My measure of Kaminski's remarks is that Petraeus pointed toward Special Operations in the borderland. Watching.

Does the Obama administration have the heart for the long fight? No. Then again, there is no will to make the case to leave. POTUS will drift along, with the GOP (particularly John Bolton) preparing to campaign in favor of a winning plan to take the battle to the enemy in Pakistan and Iran.