Re: President Obama To Announce Details of Afghanistan Strategy On Wednesday
Mercs are fine with me. As long as they aren't fighting under an American banner I'll take em.
I was thinking more along the lines of the support troops that they are talking about pulling out first. It doesn't take a uniformed military member to pull a crate of supplies off a plane or a truck.
though towards the end of the surge in Iraq we did see some payoff with civilian-cop PTT teams; not sure how strong of a role they would have to play in more rural Afghanistan.
That said, we need to get rid of the troops that are serving in nation building capacity. We don't need to build afghani bridges and railroads and airports and increase their GDP growth.
yes...and no... if we want them to be able to supply themselves with security, then they also need to be able to
pay for their security, on top of having the ability to get a significant enough percentage of the population to "buy in" to the new government. all that comes after establishing
The number can be significantly dropped (from the current 100k) to around 50k, and we can protect the gains, train afghan forces, and mount an offensive to take control of border regions, which the Taliban for the most part control the whole Pakistani border.
how? you need a larger number to train afghans than just training or school teams - you need
co-located units capable of providing security until the Afghans can left-seat-right-seat. you can't control the border regions unless you
inundate it with small units capable of interacting with the locals and providing constant security and denial. I just don't see 50K being sufficient for
holding what we've gained, much less offense. Counterinsurgency is manpower intensive.
And your last post I agree with totally. Where are all the other liberals now who said Iraq was stupid and that we belong in Afghanistan? No idea. Really just partisanship I guess.
apparently so. The old paleo-Conservatives who used to oppose Iraq and Afghanistan used to tick me off no end because it felt like they were detracting from the effort, but at least they were principled when it came to standing up to their own side. I'm similarly disappointed with conservatives who have rushed to condemn the mission in Libya because it's a President with (D) after his name. American Foreign Policy should not be waged based on how it will help a particular political party in the next election.
These are my liberal beliefs that we can finish the job with a smaller number of troops and take care of what needs to be done without risking security, and get out by the end of 2012 or 2013.
out? no. they are nowhere near ready for us to be
out. area-dependent we could probably be starting a general left-seat-right-seat campaign by then, but we would need to retain numbers and combined arms to guarantee security while doing so. you gotta crawl before you walk, and walk before you run; and the same is true of the Afghans.
