Oil Spots Keep Falling On My Head

John McCain has generally been my favorite Republican politician. Unlike most other politicians of both parties he seems to be more outspoken and honest. On the other hand, on John Stewart the other night he was defending Cheney - sort of.

I think McCain is quite wrong on the war though. His latest strategic idea is the so-called "oil spot" strategy - the idea that we concentrate our forces in a few areas, establish order and drive out the bad guys, and expand from there. There are a lot of things wrong with this idea, starting with the fact that our soldiers don't know the language, don't know the culture, and can't tell the "good guys" from the bad. Also, we don't have nearly enough soldiers.

Juan Cole has one of his usual perceptive analyses here. He also has this pertinent quote:
Where have I heard this theory of fighting wars before? Here is what an Afghan general and his coauthor said about Soviet tactics in Afghanistan:

"The Soviet concept for military occupation of Afghanistan was based on the following:

# stabilizing the country by garrisoning the main routes, major cities, airbases and logistics sites;
# relieving the Afghan government forces of garrison duties and pushing them into the countryside to battle the resistance;
# providing logistic, air, artillery and intelligence support to the Afghan forces;
# providing minimum interface between the Soviet occupation forces and the local populace;
# accepting minimal Soviet casualties; and,
# strengthening the Afghan forces, so once the resistance was defeated, the Soviet Army could be withdrawn.

Sound familiar?

I think we tried that in Vietnam too.

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