That's not the reason for failure (that 900,000 dead Afghans wasn't enough). The reason for failure is that for most of the time, about 50% of the US forces were not part of the ISAF mission (remember what the acronym stood for), but instead were busy hunting ghosts, blowing up chunks of mountainsides, when all along your quarry was in Pakistan. It was a muddled mission, with wasted resource. The German's tried your preferred tactics in Eastern Europe, in WW2. They lost the war. And local culture and customs is NOT scorched earth. The Afghan way is deals between tribal elders As a multi-ethnic state, its always been that way (read The Places in Between. its illuminating). Ultimately the failure of Afghanistan (depending on your perspective), is failure to understand the locals, lack of mission clarity, and you backed the wrong mob. An enormous amount of treasure went into Afghanistan over a 20 year period, and looking at the country now, there is precious little to show for it. Lets see how it looks in 10 years. Afghanistan deserves some time not being meddled about by the Great and Local Powers, be that Russia, America, India, Iran, Pakistan.
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