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Title: More Troops to Afghanistan, But What Will They Do?
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Published: Nov 24, 2009
Author: wired.com
Post Date: 2009-11-24 16:24:25 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 246
Comments: 22
More Troops to Afghanistan, But What Will They Do? * By Noah Shachtman Email Author * November 24, 2009 | * 11:21 am | * Categories: Af/Pak * 090702-M-2806C-045 So the President has apparently made his decision about Afghanistan: He’ll send another 34,000 troops there, according to multiple reports. The White House is preparing for Obama’s first-ever prime-time address to formally announce the move. But for the moment, it’s not at all clear what those troops will be doing. When top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal laid out his gloomy Afghan war report in August, he cautioned that “additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.” Right now, there’s no word of any big strategy shift — just news of an influx of more forces. According to McClatchy, “the plan calls for the deployment over a nine-month period beginning in March of three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky.; the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.; and a Marine brigade from Camp Lejeune, N.C., for as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.” In addition, a 7,000-strong division headquarters would be sent to take command of U.S.-led NATO forces in southern Afghanistan - to which the U.S. has long been committed - and 4,000 U.S. military trainers would be dispatched to help accelerate an expansion of the Afghan army and police. An increase of that size “would mean deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war,” Spencer Ackerman recently noted. Yet paradoxically, it also repreents a relatively small number of extra trainers, given NATO’s stated goal of radically expanding Afghanistan’s armed forces, from under 100,000 today to 250,000 in the future. Will new NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan commander Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell will have the forces he needs to accomplish this key job? The New York Times recently speculated that an increase of 40,000 troops might mean as many as 10,000 troops in Kandahar province, 5,000 to Helmand, and another 5,000 to the country’s east. Any less than that, the Times mused, could mean a significant drop in the number of trainers that Caldwell gets. And that’s hardly the only unanswered question about these new troops. We are still waiting for real answers about the geographic focus of operations; how NATO allies will fit in to the picture; and where all the civilian reconstruction experts will come from. As McChrytsal advisor Anthony Cordesman notes, the broad recommendations for Afghanistan “can only be fully judged when they can be tied to clearly defined requests for military resources; a matching plan for civil-military action from [U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl] Eikenberry; a clear picture of the role allied forces and aid will play as part of action to create unity of effort; and a realistic net assessment of how they can affect the outcome of the war. It is a sick joke, and a devastating indictment of the U.S. interagency process in Washington, that we are still debating concepts and not resources and actions. We have to list metrics, not report on the actual status of the war, eight years after it began.” And then there’s Pakistan. Early in the new administration, a fair amount of lip service was paid to the idea that Pakistan and Afghanistan would be treated as a “single theater.” But while some of the alarming headlines in Pakistan have receded, there’s still plenty of evidence that the Taliban and their affiliates maintain their headquarters, and their recruiting base, across the border. Rory Stewart’s priceless quip about the “cat-tiger strategy” still holds true. – Noah Shachtman and Nathan Hodge [Photo: DoD]
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Like Rush says, they will kill people and break things.
"In short; racialist science is properly not an act of aggression or a cover for oppression of one group over another, but, on the contrary, an operation in defense of private property against assaults by aggressors." -- Murray Rothbard
It seems like the true objective is to completely break our ground forces. By death, disease, and DU.
That surely was Bin Ladin's intent.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" I fear this Afghan/Paki thing may make Bush look like a piker.
Go hunting for brown people.
And wedding parties.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" He's only keeping his campaign promise. This really shouldn't be a shock except for those who believe politicians are honorable people.
Pray for Obama: Psalm 1984
True but there seems to have been a glitch somewhere in the minds of his owners. McChrystal and the Army enlisted seem to have added a clinker into the mix and no one seems to know how to get rid of it. Obama admirers nation wide, government, MSM and even 4um, are hell bent on laying all our problems in the ME on the military. It wont wash. The buck stops in the Oval Office at Emanuels desk.
Cyni - Not true at all. It starts and stops with the kenyan.
You know Cyni, we HATED Bush, and we HATED his war, but these Os KNEW this SOB promised more war, yet they pulled the damn lever for Him. It makes me ill. EDIT: god bless those that have recognized the BS they were shoveled and now rejoined the only forum that has been consistently anti-war from day one.
Pray for Obama: Psalm 1984
It has been a rather sly attempt by Obama people to lay the blame and guilt of Afghan upon the military. It has taken Obama nearly three months to make a decision that was foreordained just the way we expected. Obama and his owners are now walking a tightrope, Bush can no longer be blamed for everything, the military has already made it plain they are not accepting blame, and Obama has said there will be no withdrawal. This entire Afghan/Paki thing may well blow up in their face.
Jethro... Obama and his handler know full well that if we strike into Pakistan, it may well end in a military disaster. They are playing with a situation that they are unable to manage
I just hope that we can stop this insanity.
The Chicago Jewish lefties that run their mule, Obama – want to quite talk of Afghanistan from the left and the right. They have given both a bone with this action. The world Jewish have their sights on Iran.
You couldn't be more correct on this one. As for the blame, the military takes their orders from the White House. Watching this is sickening. The joo handlers could care less about who is dying while they are lying!!!
They are playing with a situation that they are unable to manage Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan - Telegraph
Its for sure buckwheat and his handlers are keeping the numbers quiet. At the same time. they are playing with the number of soldiers they are going to send into that minefield of a country. Bastards!
Obumski and his boss have delayed for nearly three months, for a reason. They find themselves in a possible no win situation. They burned the bridges behind them, there is no withdrawal, now comes crunch time, no longer kids game.
Rush ain't sayin' it now, is he, like he did under Clinton?
If a nation expects to be diverse and free, it expects what never was and never will be.
I haven't listened to Rush for quite awhile. I try not to.
#2. To: tom007. all (#0)
#3. To: Lod (#2)
#4. To: tom007 (#3)
#5. To: Prefrontal Vortex, tom007 (#1)
Like Rush says, they will kill people and break things.
#6. To: TwentyTwelve (#5)
#7. To: All (#0)
#8. To: Jethro Tull (#7)
He's only keeping his campaign promise.
#9. To: Cynicom (#8)
Obama admirers nation wide, government, MSM and even 4um, are hell bent on laying all our problems in the ME on the military.
#10. To: Cynicom (#8)
#11. To: Jethro Tull, Lod (#10)
It makes me ill.
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#10)
#13. To: Cynicom. all (#12)
They are playing with a situation that they are unable to manage
#14. To: tom007 (#0)
#15. To: Cynicom (#8)
The buck stops in the Oval Office at Emanuels desk.
#16. To: Phant2000 (#15)
Watching this is sickening. The joo handlers could care less about who is dying while they are lying!!!
#17. To: Cynicom, Jethro Tull (#12)
Obama and his handler know full well that if we strike into Pakistan, it may well end in a military disaster.
#18. To: TwentyTwelve (#16)
(Edited)
... but who's counting?
#19. To: Phant2000 (#18)
#20. To: Cynicom, Phant2000 (#19)
They find themselves in a possible no win situation. They burned the bridges behind them, there is no withdrawal, now comes crunch time, no longer kids game.
#21. To: TwentyTwelve (#5)
#22. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#21)
Rush ain't sayin' it now, is he, like he did under Clinton?
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