I want to tell you all how to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So this is about "AfPak" military strategy and as well as direct advice for US, British & NATO generals, it is to inform the public so our political leaders know what can be done and what to ask of our military.
I am suggesting that our forces bomb the Taliban Headquarters known as "the University of Jihad" or Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the provincial capital, Peshawar.
More about the place in this BBC webpage http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3155112.stm The significance of this place is that it is the main recruitment and command centre for the Taliban which must be known to our military intelligence officers and so it is a mystery why they have not advised our generals to bomb this place before now or if they did advise our generals to bomb it why they didn't actually bomb it? It makes no sense in a war to give the enemy headquarters a free pass and immunity from being targeted. It just makes their commanders feel untouchable which is not how we want them to feel. We want them arrested or dead or in great fear that soon they will be arrested or dead and bombing their HQ gives them that idea.
Our forces do not have ground forces close enough to use artillery to destroy this target so that leaves NATO to use its aerial power - drones and bomber planes, to bomb the target from the air. So apart from not wanting to use nuclear weapons on such a weak target which would be over-kill, I think bombing using the very heaviest conventional bombs, MOABs or heavy bombing from a B52s or C130s is appropriate.
Heavy bombing could be used to totally level such targets, or turn the target site into one huge crater field - obliterate it. Give the Jihadis a demonstration that they won't ever forget! Then if the Taliban and Jihadi leaders relocate to a new recruitment, indoctrination and command base, blast that to pieces as well. Our forces will have to establish air superiority over the target areas to allow not only unmanned drones but piloted heavy bombers with a much heavier bomb load to over-fly the area reasonably safely. If and when Pakistan objects to our plans to aerial bomb these enemy indoctrination bases we should tell them that because our view is that Pakistan does not control the ground there to our satisfaction - because Pakistani police or military have not arrested and handed over the likes of the Darul Uloom Haqqania and other Taliban leaders operating
on
the ground for removal to Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and not closed down the University of Jihad and other Taliban bases then the Pakistan military don't deserve control of the air space over that ground which they don't satisfactorily control. So we can say "Sorry" if the Pakistanis don't like this violation of their sovereignty but the needs of war mean this is something we must do. We wouldn't intend to permanently deprive Pakistan of control over its air space; this would be a temporary measure until the war on terror is won. Pakistan had their chance to arrest or kill the Taliban leaders in their Pakistan bases but now it is too late so we are going to flatten the Taliban bases in that part of Pakistan from the air and we need total air superiority over the target area in order to protect our pilots. The Pakistan government and military has complained about drone strikes in parts of
Pakistan
but Pakistan has not gone to war with us about it, thankfully.
Hopefully, the Pakistanis will not want to contest air superiority with their military but if they do decide to fight to resist our air-superiority where we need it to bomb the Taliban then we must be prepared to take out all nearby Pakistani ground to air missile batteries and any air fighters they send against us to contest air superiority. If the Pakistanis decide to fight us over control of Pakistan's air space then of course there is a risk this could escalate to all-out war if the Pakistanis really want to make a casus belli out of the sovereignty issue and the matter of us requiring to destroy the Taliban so possibly we should make it clear to the Pakistanis that the US President or the NATO supreme commander have the option to use nuclear weapons against Pakistani military bases anywhere in Pakistan if that was necessary to win an all-out war with Pakistan.
That's not our aim to escalate to an all-out war with Pakistan here but Pakistan should be careful not to escalate the situation from one where we need to go after the Taliban only into one where the official Pakistan military gets dragged into a war with us unnecessarily.
This risk of having to fight and win an all-out war with Pakistan is a lesser risk than failing to defeat the Taliban, withdrawing from Pakistan having achieved little to secure Afghanistan and thereby giving encouragement to Jihadis the world over to commit more acts of terrorism and war elsewhere in the world including in our homelands. So Pakistan should not force us to make that choice of two risky options because their defeat is preferable to our own defeat in our opinion.
Pakistan should avoid war with the West by stepping back and allowing us to destroy the Taliban in Pakistan because it is the Taliban and the Jihahis who are the true enemies of the Pakistani and Afghan people. We are the friends of the people of Pakistan and we will prove that by defeating their and our enemy, the Taliban and associated Jihadis. Hopefully the Pakistanis will back off and let us bomb the Taliban without threat from Pakistan's air defences. We should tell Pakistan that we are doing them a favour which they will thank us for in the long run though we appreciate the embarrassment for them in the short term. I did suggest drone strikes against this target 5 months ago in my following video commentary.
Peter Dow comments:
So the Deans of Jihad have dictated terms to the West, the terms they propose of the West's surrender to the Jihadis in the war on terror.
So what should the response of the West be? Should we surrender to the Jihadis, or should we fight to win?
This guy Sami ul Haq should be a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp along with his University of Jihad colleagues, his controllers from the Pakistani ISI and his financial backers from Saudi Arabia.
The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as "state sponsors of terrorism".
There ought to be drone strikes on the University of Jihad. (Darul Uloom Haqqania,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akora_Khattak)
We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West.
It just seems very poor tactics for our military to be risking life and limb in the minefields of Afghanistan yet at the strategic level our governments and businesses are still "trading with the enemy". 
As the Star Trek character Commander Scott might have said -
"It's war, Captain but not as we know it." 
From the For Freedom Forums -
"No surrender to the Taliban. Afpak strategy for victory."
Peter Dow can be heard speaking his commentary in this video after a CBS news report.
CBS News wrote: CBS News: Divisions within Taliban make peace elusive http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57370804/divisions-within-taliban-make-peace-elusiveDefense Secretary Leon Panetta made news Wednesday when he said the combat role for U.S. troops in Afghanistan could end next year instead of 2014. On Thursday, he took a step back -- insisting U.S. forces will remain combat ready -- even as they transition into their new role of training Afghan troops. Another part of the U.S. strategy involves getting the
Taliban to hold peace
talks with the Afghan government. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward spoke with some top Taliban representatives where they live in Pakistan. They call Sami ul Haq the "Father of the Taliban," one of Pakistan's most well-known and hard-line Islamists. Ward visited ul Haq at his religious school near the Afghan border. Many Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters studied there, earning it the nickname the "University of Jihad." Ul Haq said that top Taliban figures are receptive to the idea of peace talks, but that three key conditions must be met first: The Americans must leave Afghanistan, he told Ward. Secondly, Taliban leaders should be released from Guantonamo. The third demand is there should be no outside interference in Afghanistan. It's unlikely that American negotiators will accept these terms, though a release of some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay has been discussed. While some elements of the
Taliban's
leadership may be supportive of peace talks, there are clear signs that divisions exist within the group. Many of the younger, more militant foot soldiers insisting that they are not ready to stop fighting. At a small guesthouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, CBS News had the rare chance to sit down with a young Taliban commander from Helmand province. For security reasons, he asked that his face be not shown. "If these talks in Doha are successful and Taliban leaders tell you and your fighters to put down your arms, will you do it?" asked Ward. "No, it will not happen," he said. "And those who are talking to the political wing of the Taliban should understand that real peace is only possible by talking to the ground fighters." "So the bottom line is you're not willing to compromise, you're not willing to collaborate? Is there any chance of peace?" "If the Afghan government announced tomorrow that strict
Islamic
law would be reinstated, we would accept that," he said, "but those in power now will never go along with that." For the moment, there is a huge gulf between what the Taliban and their backers want and what America would be willing to accept.
Peter Dow is a supporter of Condoleezza Rice.
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