When General McChrystal took command of the Afghan war he drastically scaled back the use of air power. His whole strategy was based on building stronger relationships between the Afghan people and the Americans, and he figured that bombing them from above wasn't the best way to form friendships. As Wired's Danger Room reports, General Petraeus has reversed this strategy:
The U.S. and its allies have unleashed a massive air campaign in Afghanistan, launching missiles and bombs from the sky at a rate rarely seen since the war’s earliest days. In October alone, NATO planes fired their weapons on 1,000 separate missions, U.S. Air Force statistics provided to Danger Room show. Since Gen. David Petraeus took command of the war effort in late June, coalition aircraft have flown 2,600 attack sorties. That’s 50% more than they did during the same period in 2009. Not surprisingly, civilian casualties are on the rise, as well.
The bombing is part of a general rise in the aggressiveness of American military operations and seems to be aimed at softening up the Taliban for a peace deal.
Link to Wired report.
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