"Grim" has some thoughts on strategy.

Excellent thoughts. Thanks for the link, Rand. This is spot on, IMHO:

Cultural expertise is the key to unlocking these insurgent movements from the terrorists who would unify them. Local insurgencies can often be ignored by us (as in Aceh and Thailand), or put down if they need to be (as we were able to put down the Shi'ite insurgency of 2004 in Najaf and elsewhere). If they don't aggregate, they are easy to control, and can't threaten the fundamentals of our civilization. By the same token, we don't have to radically change the size of our military to deal with them.

There are two things we need to make this work. First, we need an understanding among military men (who are quickly developing it) and the rest of American/Western society (who have not begun to do so) about how to engage earlier, tribal forms of society. For the leaders of the military in a region, that understanding should be specific. I will suggest later that the US military move the Special Forces out of SOCOM and into the combatant command units exclusively. These men who are specially talented in languages and unconventional war should have the time in a specific region to learn all they can about that region; and we should give them the lead on all military missions in conflict areas designated "insurgency." They should be elevated in such cases to directing all US military involvement in such areas.

For the rest of us, we need a general understanding of tribalism. I wrote about this years ago in a piece called The Black Mail. The tribe does everything we expect a society to do: bestows legitimacy on leaders, takes care of orphans and other needy children, cares for the old and the widowed. Changing a tribal society to a modern one is the work of generations.

That's all right -- merely engaging a tribal society in modern economic life will do the work for us. We just have to be willing to wait. In the meantime, we play by their rules, and wait for the virus of freedom to work.

We must also show them the value of our society in terms that will mean something to an honor-based tribal society.

To repeat a key quote:

"That's all right -- merely engaging a tribal society in modern economic life will do the work for us. We just have to be willing to wait. In the meantime, we play by their rules, and wait for the virus of freedom to work."

That is how the Anglosphere assimilates other cultures. Play by THEIR rules while our memes sink in. Sneaky, but effective.

For fighting Islam that means soldiers learning Arabic, growing mustaches and drinking tea with tribal elders and stopping all the chest pounding nonsense about Western superiority.

We know we are better. We just need to get them to figure it out for themselves without demanding that they lose face doing it.

The Taliban were bitterly opposed to Opium.
It's an un-islamic activity. I find it implausible that
they would suddenly propose this.
The Warlords like opium because it's far more
profitable then wheat and rice.

The Bushite's and that moron Condi Rice never considered
the Taliban's drug policy before seeking to invade
and install the warlord regime

Now, that's funny, anonymous!

Back in '01-'02, the claim was that the Bushies were hypocritical for taking down the Taliban, b/c they had supposedly handed over some $83 million (or was it billion?) to the Taliban for fighting drugs.

But are you really suggesting that the Bushies should not have gone after the Taliban, in the wake of 9-11, anonymous? A simple "Yes" or "No" would suffice.

Of course that is what Anonymous Jew-Hater is saying LO.

He would not take a drink of water from the President or one of his Administration if he were dying of thirst.