#5 bits:

You have confused lack of ability with a lack of will. We can change the Taliban’s minds along with Pakistan’s. We don’t have the will.

At the end of the Third Punic War, Rome changed the Carthaginians minds…. permanently.

We could do the same with the Taliban, Pushtuns and Jihadi sympathetic Pakistanis in Baluchistan, NWFP, etc. High infertile mountains dominate the entire region. What little arable soil and potable water is available through much of the year is limited to several dozen fertile valleys and narrow river-valley corridors. Nearly the entire population of the areas in question dwell in, or are heavily dependent upon these few dozen virtual oases. Just a handful of the thermo-nuclear devices Obama is planning to discard could reduce our current problems with the whole lot of them every bit as effectively as Rome dealt with Carthage. I don’t recall a fourth Punic war, do you?