Sir, I agree that gunships in this case have a better use. The whole point of a problem to exist is that situation might not always be conducive to your convenience and therefore adaptation is the best in such a way that increases efficiency as much as possible. Now I take it that most of the Taliban are familiar with the terrain and therefore scatter soon into the caves as you say. But what I fail to understand is that a gunship is slower that a fighter in specifically this case and a fighter can conduct bomb runs in the blink of an eye.
1) They can hear the roar of jet engines from far away and scatter, plus they have underground reinforced bunkers that can take aircraft strikes, that is we have had to keep airstrikes to a minimum and clear their compounds by over running and over whelming them, thus the large casualties.
2) Like said before, we can't bomb populated areas.
Now as Kakgeta pointed out that you are not equipped with drones to instantly shoot the taliban down. The best way then is to maintain fighters on standby while the UAVs spot Taliban's location and once that is done, clear the armed fighter to take them out.
We have a network of informers and a strong intelligence network, as soon as we have some concrete intelligence we use deadly force to deal with the situation, prisoners are not really a priority. We just need that compound.
You see, there are very less options you have in this case. I know that some people live there and that they are susceptible to getting bombed, but there isn't any room exactly to maneuver here. Either your military sends agents in disguise to mark the houses that are of innocent civilians and unofficially evacuates them at the dead of night and immediately orders a strike, or you simple have to keep a stone on your heart and carpet bomb the whole region.
We can't afford to carpet bomb our own people, there will be desertions on a massive scale among the ranks. We would much rather, as I said before take the prospect of casualties among the ranks and go clear it ourselves. We are sworn protectors, every innocent killed is a promise broken with our nation.
I
know the latter sounds inhumane and I would never recommend it, but either way the loss of lives is not stemming at all be it men in uniform or men in casuals. Your military has been losing soldiers at such an alarming rate while Taliban seems to be like the heads of Hydra--you kill one, another two emerge. In such a case and a country with limited resources you have to take brutal actions that might otherwise be considered too violent or uncivilized.
We have lost a lot of soldiers but I am proud to say we also hold more terrirory than any other party in the WoT can claim, so I would say the men's sacrifice was worth it. Heads of Hydra, that's an interesting way of putting it, I compare these guys with cockroaches, I say "These Talibs are like cockroaches, no matter how many you kill, there are always more around you".
United States and ISAF are also strung with their hands full in Afghanistan. They are as much in trouble as you are and the only difference is that they have a lot of money and firepower as compared to you. There's no point in demanding something the Americans won't give you. For example, in one another thread I read Pakistani members mentioning that how the funds that were supposed to be used against Soviets were put into your indigenous nuclear programme which was further highlighted with some good sources by a fellow countryman of yours.
Unfortunately that embezzlement of funds is an open secret, It did happen and America knew about it but couldn't offend us at the moment, as soon as the soviets withdrew, we were slammed with sanctions that crippled us for about a decade. And we don't really need a lot of fire power, just combat choppers for close air support if possible, other than that, we clear every compound on foot. No bombs, no aircraft.
If at all this has happened and the intelligence communities of both United States and yours know it, do you think that the Americans will make the same mistake twice? I doubt they would again even consider handing you critical technologies.
I'm sure they won't, and that is why I believe that most of the world chooses not recognize us as a responsible nuclear power.
A more approachable solution for both you and the Americans would be on-field information sharing and combat coordination. Let the American drones and fighters operate in tandem arrangement of your own UAVs so that both get a real-time data on whether innocents were killed or Taliban were. This way, your citizens won't be needlessly incited by extremist preachers of fake killings and at the same time your country would be assured of getting rid of the militants.
We are sharing intelligence which include Ariel recon data, intercepts and confiscated maps that point anything of interest. These drone attacks, they are being done by the GoP's consent.
Adversaries will always make your life difficult; it is upto you as to how you can reduce casualties and maximize gains through any form that is available at hand. When doors are closed, you have to consider something else and adapt fast.
Too, true and we did try a lot, we gave them a chance at reconciliation, they misused it to bring more areas under their control, we gave them the option to surrender, some did, others didn't. But rest assured friend we will continue to fight until our last drop of blood, last breath, last bullet, last man. Our morale is sky high and we will fight this war for as long as needed without any complaint.
