Posted on 10/26/2009 6:12:10 AM PDT by La Lydia
...The real question we should be asking about Afghanistan is: "Do we need a third surge?" The number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in January 2008 was 26,607. Over the next six months, the total rose to 48,250...Put another way, over the past 18 months, troop levels in Afghanistan have almost tripled. Sending an additional 40,000 troops would mean an over 300 percent increase in U.S. troops since 2008. (The total surge in Iraq was just over 20,000 troops.) It is not dithering to try to figure out why previous increases have not worked and why we think additional ones would.
...focusing on the number of additional troops needed "misses the point entirely," says Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander Obama put in place this summer. "The key takeaway" from his now-famous assessment "is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way we think and operate."...These changes in strategy have just begun....
The Post's Greg Jaffe...concluded recently that "ceding territory to the Taliban is more effective than maintaining small, vulnerable bases in forbidding terrain...U.S. commanders, based about six miles outside the village, have detected growing friction between Wanat residents and the Taliban commanders responsible for last year's attack." So why not let the Taliban try to set up bases in these remote areas with prickly locals? NATO forces can then periodically disrupt the Taliban rather than the other way around. In these places, counter-terrorism -- now associated with Vice President Biden -- could work well with the grain of Afghan society.
...the theory that "it's 40,000 troops or no counterinsurgency" is absurd. The best evidence is that senior military officers assured me at various points over the past year that with the latest increase in troops they finally had enough forces to do counterinsurgency....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So we should listen to out of the loop pundits pimping the domestic politics driven "solution" pushed by never been right on anything beltway dinosaur Biden over the advice of the General on the ground?
Seems the Left is bound and determined to Afghanistan into Viet Nam 2.0
The amount of TIME one takes to make a decision does not of itself matter a whit as to the outcome of the decision. If you had spent all week wondering to bet on the Cardinals last night, or spent one second on it, the outcome of the bet/decision would be the same provided you reached the same conclusion.
Dithering is dithering. It’s putting something off out of fear or doubt or sheer laziness. The man has dithered. And I doubt Obamsky is being lazy about this.
I’m proud that we have military expert journalists ready to give our poor generals tactical advice.
What a country.
Perhaps in their spare time, these “journalists” might give us advice on climate change...after all, they’re so very smart.
/S
Hmmm...should we trust an editorial in the Washington Post written by a muslim or American Generals in the field????
From Wiki: “Zakaria was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India to a Muslim family. His father, Rafiq Zakaria, was a politician associated with the Indian National Congress and an Islamic scholar.”
He has been the Internation Affairs Editor of Newsweek for almost ten years and is presently a pundit for CNN.
Therefore, he is not a reliable source of any information or sound commentary.
One word: Taqiyya.
Fareed Zakaria
This is the clown who wrote “Post American World”-—Obama’s favorite (an probably only) book he read this year.
One word: “Bingo!”
Fareed Zakaria is a liar but you already know that!
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