Sending More Troops to Afghanistan Would Be Tragic Mistake.

HeraldTribune.com ^ | November 13, 2009 | Gene Jones, President, Florida Veterans for Common Sense

[samsmom]

In a press release about his recent trip to Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan asked the public for its views on American policy.

Florida Veterans for Common Sense agrees with Buchanan that the Obama administration should consider all options for troop levels in Afghanistan. But our organization considers the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal to increase troop levels by 40,000 to be the worst option.

We are extremely proud of our troops, and there is no doubt they are highly skilled and motivated.

Yet, no matter how well our soldiers execute their orders, they cannot prevail if the mission is not well defined.

And, we ask, “What is the mission?” Is it to prop up a corrupt, illegitimate, unstable central government in Afghanistan?

In our view, our troops should be brought home from Afghanistan before more lives and treasure are wasted in misadventure.

No cogent national security interest justifies the costs to maintain troops in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon acknowledges, al-Qaida in Afghanistan has been decimated. Furthermore, al-Qaida doesn’t need to use Afghanistan to plan and execute operations against the United States and its allies.

Al-Qaida is dispersed around the world. As we and Buchanan know, some al-Qaida training for the 9/11 attack took place in our own congressional district.

Should America invade and occupy Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and other unstable countries where al-Qaida is able to operate?

Taking sides in a civil war

Matthew Hoh, a former officer in both the Marines and State Department, resigned from State to protest the occupation in Afghanistan. Hoh stated in his Sept. 10 resignation letter:

“The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies.

“The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.

“In both the \ East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.”

As in Vietnam and Iraq, America is taking sides in a civil war.

Another military misadventure in Asia is a national security threat to America. How do Gen. McChrystal and others arguing for more troops in Afghanistan suggest we pay the cost?

Will we Americans spend ourselves into oblivion by further mortgaging our economy on an occupation that we cannot afford? Do Congress and the president propose to raise taxes or borrow more money from China?

Strain on our economy

If the U.S. goverment takes into account the long-term price of treating our warriors wounded in Iraq — and the cost to replace the equipment expended and worn out in Iraq — the total cost for the Iraq war will be $3 trillion or more. These expenditures are already stressing the economy. Sending more troops to Afghanistan will exacerbate the strain.

An additional 40,000 troops will not be sufficient to make a long term difference in Afghanistan. The standard counterinsurgency ratio of troops to population would require roughly 600,000 troops in Afghanistan. So, 40,000 more troops is only a down payment.

Where would Buchanan propose finding the troops? Through a draft?

Florida Veterans for Common Sense sees the addition of more troops to Afghanistan as a dangerous mistake that will lead to further escalation and complicate eventual withdrawal. Our organization suggests that Buchanan call Matthew Hoh and other experts, including economists, to testify before Congress before voting to fund more troops for Afghanistan.

Gene Jones is president of Florida Veterans for Common Sense Inc. He lives in Sarasota. Contact: Flveterans@aol.com

[samsmom]

Max Boot writes in Commentary: "The risk of the counterinsurgency approach—which helps to explain why it has not been adopted in Afghanistan until now or in Iraq until 2007—is that, in the short term, it will result in more casualties for coalition forces. Placing troops among the people and limiting their expenditure of firepower makes them more vulnerable at first than if they were sequestered on heavily fortified bases and ventured out only in heavily armored convoys. But in the long term, as the experience of Iraq shows, getting troops off their massive bases is the surest way to pacify the country and bring down casualties, both for civilians and security forces."

Bottomline: We will never have enough troops for effective counterinsurgency. We will fight to a draw, cutting deals with the Taliban. In the meantime, more troops are killed and maimed. For What?

[norraad]

Horse

[Sherman Logan]

The author may be entirely correct in his analysis.

However, I’d like to register my disatisfaction with an increasing trend in American society and politics. Euphemistic naming of groups.

As in Florida Veterans for Common Sense.

While the policies promoted by this group may indeed be common-sensical, it is their job to prove so, not to assume it in their organization’s name.

This trend is widespread, on all sides of all issues, and I find it fundamentally dishonest. Your mileage may vary.

[Minn]

For What?

Non capitulation in the largest, most important struggle of our time, maybe?

[sonofagun]

I knew it was time to withdraw when the rules of engagement were changed to require enemy combatants to show proof af affiliation with either Alqueda or Taliban before our troops are allowed to shoot.

We need to get out until we have an American president in office that can deal with these situations while keeping the best interests of AMERICAN CITIZENS a top priority.

[Wolfie]

It could work in Afghanistan. There’s a first time for everything, after all.

[sonofagun]

Change all instances of “American” to “United States”.

[Spok]

The ‘bama’s Afghanistan problem is he’s going to catch unbridled political hell, whatever he does. A build up, reduction or complete withdrawal each has its own constituency that will shriek like sirens if he does anything they don’t approve of. The only rational answer is we pull out altogether, rather than leave our finest young men in women in harms’ way without a competent CIC who will listen to the military, and a CIC that has absolutely no regard for the military or the War on Terror, who’d just as soon invite the Jihadi’s to the White House for a beer. If we fight, it will be done insincerely and half-heartedly, while our elected leaders and the state run media ignores the cost in blood brought upon our troops by a dithering fool, and worries more about the ‘rights’ of terrorists; the same rights they earnestly seek to deny to their own domestic political opposition. I do not claim to be impartial on this topic, as my son is a Marine.

[samsmom]

Agree with you on the trend to adopt names that may or may not be so.

However, I understand that even by Petraeus’s and McChrystal’s counts, we need more than just 40,000. They’re counting Afghan forces that don’t exist or might as well not—in the total numbers of troops for counterinsurgency.

From my perspective, with a son in the Marines—who is in line for deployment in the next two months or so depending on a decision, I question what we win if we win? How will parents who have lost sons and daughters feel if we fight to a draw, giving control of most of the country to the Taliban. Afghanistan’s corrupt government has one claim to fame—90% of the world’s heroin crop. How do you think parents feel losing sons and daughter for this? This president doesn’t want victory, he just wants to save face because he made this the “good” war during the campaign!

[Sherman Logan]

I also don’t see any particularly good reasons for staying in Afghanistan.

[RobbyS]

No doubt that the cost is what is delaying Obama's decision. He know that his proposed reforms will cost huge amounts. Not much money left for the military. On the other hand, the following is not very useful:

“The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies." < P> This ignores the unifying effect of radical islamism on the insurgency. Without Al Qaeda, there would be no Taliban. Just as without Communism there would have been no Viet Minh in Viet Nam.

[RobbyS]

Oh, Obama is likely to stay. He will just not be winning. What puzzles me is that he seems to be doing what Truman did in Korea. Kennedy and Johnson did in Vietnam, and Bush did in Iraq,until his last two years, which to use the military ineffectively.

[Logical me]

At first I was for sending more troops to Afghanistan. Now I am opposite. Bring the troops home to clean up Washington and all communists organizations.

[Law is not justice but process]

“I knew it was time to withdraw when the rules of engagement were changed to require enemy combatants to show proof af affiliation with either Alqueda or Taliban before our troops are allowed to shoot.

We need to get out until we have an American president in office that can deal with these situations while keeping the best interests of AMERICAN CITIZENS a top priority.”

Now THAT is analysis I can agree with.

I would favor further investment in lives and treasure in Afghanistan only if our government (and press, and people) were willing to do what must be done to win. Of course the very heart of that statement is the definition of “win.” To me winning is not “stablization” of Afghanistan or creation of a non-corrupt and representative government in Kabul. Those are tasks entirely within the purview of the Afghan people. To me victory is destruction of Al Quaida and their sponsors the Taliban. To achieve that end we would have to enter Pakistan and destroy their sanctuaries in the “Tribal Regions.” This would require far more than 50,000 troops, but would require much less time if the nation-building phase was omitted.

I feel it should be nothing less than a punative expedition. That is a campaign aimed solely at punishing the Taliban for supporting Al Quaida and destroying the infrastructure that has funded international terrorism. We could have declared that we had achieved such ends by 2003 and withdrawn. Instead we (including me, by the way, as I am admitting my own mistakes here) decided that the nation-building mission was vital to establishing long-term stability in a region that has never been stable at all. Now we have created a situation where the Taliban has rebounded significantly and established new bases and support. We either need to be willing to destroy those bases - be they in Afghanistan or Pakistan - or we need to pack it in.

The message needs to be “if you sponsor those who carry out terrorism against the United States you will suffer death and destruction and if you do it again, we will send in the BUFFs again - your choice.” Eventually the people of Afghanistan (or Pakistan, or Kosovo, or where ever) will decide they do not like being the battleground of the War on Terror and will take care of the terror-mongers themselves. Instead we have chosen as the message “Afghanistan must be more like America.” And we wonder why they are not embracing our message.

[BGHater]

There is no military solution to a cultural problem. Afghanistan and Iraq are both targets of transnational movements.

There is no ‘victory’. There are no borders or geographic definitions of who we are fighting. You can't defeat someone while there is no ‘border’ and groups and individuals simply arrive from different countries to attack.

Germany and Japan were set enemies. We don't have that today nor the treasury to spend to fight the entire Arab world.

Pick and choose your battles, but having Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan does not keep America safer.

If America was concerned about being safe, we would seal the S. border.

[lentulusgracchus]

Here is the link to Florida Veterans for Common Sense, in particular their position papers on the WoT (Afghanistan, Iraq).

Pure Democrat policy paper. One hundred percent trollfood.

http://www.floridaveteransforcommonsense.org/Positions.html

Notice also the polite letter to Obama thanking him for taking a photo-op up at Dover AFB with American dead returning from Afghanistan. (President Bush went up there often, but didn't take cameramen and newsies.)

[lentulusgracchus]

There is no military solution to a cultural problem.

There is if you kill them all. But there's none if you decide not to fight because Gen 3 and Gen 4 war are "icky".

You cannot pick and choose, when your enemies raise their hands to you and come after you in the middle of your biggest city in broad daylight.

You just have to man up, and go do the job.

[kenmcg]

With Bam as the CIC, victory is impossible as he would tie the military hands in knots. Better to bring the troops home now and protect the homeland. Just one person’s opinion...we shouldn’t be involved in nation building.

[BGHater]

‘after you in the middle of your biggest city in broad daylight.’

Yes, the boogeyman is gonna defeat America. Nonsense. We are our worst enemies. We are our biggest problem. We don’t have the money nor the War footing to do anything.

[Melchior]

Without the backing of the Pakistan ISI there would be no Al Qaida; in addition, the Taliban was an ISI creation. Today, the ISI is infiltrated by Islamist Pushtun officers, many of whom dream of a united Pushtunistan. As long as the Pakistan military will not purge its Islamist element, and the present situation persists in Pakistan, there is little chance of success in Afghanistan.