We have always been at war with East Asia

The thing about Afghanistan is that it's damn near impossible for an outside force to take it. India gave up on it long ago. You know what the name of the mountain range Hindu Kush means? Killer of Hinuds. The Brits couldn't do it at the height of empire. The Soviets failed.

Now I may be skipping the Roman empire- I don't know that they even tried for it, but the only successful occupation of Afghanistan that I know of was Persia under Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes and that was because of the fundy Zoroastrians in Bactria.

So forgive me if I am just a wee bit skeptical that this whole increase troops to decrease troops strategy will work, or the idea that to save Pakistan we have to conquer Afghanistan I mean the Taliban.

History is on my side, after all.

What I would do, if I was queen for a day- would be to pay for every girl between the ages of 8 and 18 to go to boarding schools where they would learn practical skills like medicine, engineering, etc. I would pay their families for the loss of their manual labor. I would send the boys to school too, but I wouldn't send them to a boarding school(boys don't need to worry about acid attacks to the face just for learning how to read).

Within a generation you would have educated women with earning power and the ability to choose a husband with liberal ideas or support herself and her family without a husband. Those men who hold dear to ideas of honor killings and child brides will find themselves without anyone to marry, and without anyone to marry they have no sons and no power.

That's how you kill the Taliban and other fundy, extremest religions (works for the polygamists in Utah too). Not with guns, but with school.

And if you want to save Pakistan- I suggest the same methods there.