{"id":3999,"date":"2010-03-04T00:30:54","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T08:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3999"},"modified":"2010-03-03T20:28:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T04:28:05","slug":"adversaries-use-american-virtues-as-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/04\/adversaries-use-american-virtues-as-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Adversaries Use American Virtues as Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As noted in <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/18\/nato-denies-desecrating-koran-again\/\">earlier discussions about accusations<\/a> of religious impropriety, American adversaries have begun to wage effective combat operations by using American virtues against US forces.\u00a0 In the most recent example, a somewhat overly pessimistic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/18\/opinion\/18dadkhah.html\">Op-Ed in the <em>New York Times<\/em><\/a> says the Taliban have &#8220;beaten American airpower&#8221;&#8211;a dramatic claim, given that the Taliban has no Air Force or even an anti-air capability.\u00a0 But, according to the author,\u00a0the Taliban have found a &#8220;non-military&#8221; way to &#8220;beat&#8221; American airpower:\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Taliban have found a way to beat American airpower. And they have managed this remarkable feat with American help&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>American and NATO military leaders \u2014 worried by Taliban propaganda claiming that air strikes have killed an inordinate number of civilians, and persuaded by &#8220;hearts and minds&#8221; enthusiasts that the key to winning the war is the Afghan population\u2019s goodwill \u2014 have largely relinquished the strategic advantage of American air dominance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other articles have described the Taliban taking advantage of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/35464209\/ns\/world_news-south_and_central_asia\/\">restrictive NATO rules of engagement<\/a>; in some cases, firing on troops, setting down their weapons, and walking away&#8211;knowing that they cannot be considered an enemy if they are not armed.<\/p>\n<p>There are certainly reasons to have ROE, as well as legitimate reasons to minimize infrastructure destruction and the risk to noncombatants.\u00a0 The question, however, is at what point those increased restrictions place an undue increased risk on the military men and women fighting in those battles.<\/p>\n<p>An exclusive advantage&#8211;like the supremacy of American airpower in Afghanistan, when compared to the capabilities of the Taliban&#8211;is only effective if you <em>use<\/em> it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As noted in earlier discussions about accusations of religious impropriety, American adversaries have begun to wage effective combat operations by using American virtues against US forces.\u00a0 In the most recent example, a somewhat overly pessimistic Op-Ed in the New York Times says the Taliban have &#8220;beaten American airpower&#8221;&#8211;a dramatic claim, given that the Taliban has no Air Force or even [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[58,13,228,2,229,230],"class_list":["post-3999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fighter-pilot","tag-afghanistan","tag-aircraft","tag-airpower","tag-military","tag-roe","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}