Surge in Afghanistan (political)

[user 6507]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped a U.S. troop increase for Afghanistan would be mostly done by late spring, as his commander warned Afghan forces were three or four years from leading the fight.

When Obama takes over, he's pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan, and I agree. But, before we do it, I hope he learns a lesson from the Bush failures and does his homework. There are several critical issues. One is logistics. The U.S. military says we cannot supply our troops by air alone-we must have unfettered access to the Khyber pass-there's just too much needed to do it all by air. In order to secure the Khyber pass, we need Pakistan's help, and that's a problem as pointed out in this op-ed by Joe Klein. I rarely agree with Klein, but this time he's hit the nail on the head IMHO.

The Aimless War: Why Are We in Afghanistan? - Yahoo! News

[Jacko]

I agree that we must get tough with Pakistan (such as we are able) and I believe we actually have done this recently...lots of Predator and missile strikes in Pakistan in the past couple of months or so despite tepid Pakistani protests.......I am wondering what we will do if Pakistan doesn not agree to this approach highlighted from the article below and the jihadis do not agree to stop the drug trade...we sure don't seem to be able to stop it on the south of our own border.



The unsupervised splurge of American aid is over. The Pakistanis will have to stop giving tacit support and protection to terrorists, especially the Afghan Taliban. The Karzai government will have to end its corruption and close down the drug trade. There are plenty of other reforms necessary - the international humanitarian effort is a shabby, self-righteous mess; some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden - but the war will remain a bloody stalemate at best as long as jihadis come across the border from Pakistan and the drug trade flourishes.

[user 6507]

Originally Posted by Jacko

I agree that we must get tough with Pakistan (such as we are able) and I believe we actually have done this recently...lots of Predator and missile strikes in Pakistan in the past couple of months or so despite tepid Pakistani protests.......I am wondering what we will do if Pakistan doesn not agree to this approach highlighted from the article below and the jihadis do not agree to stop the drug trade...we sure don't seem to be able to stop it on the south of our own border.



The unsupervised splurge of American aid is over. The Pakistanis will have to stop giving tacit support and protection to terrorists, especially the Afghan Taliban. The Karzai government will have to end its corruption and close down the drug trade. There are plenty of other reforms necessary - the international humanitarian effort is a shabby, self-righteous mess; some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden - but the war will remain a bloody stalemate at best as long as jihadis come across the border from Pakistan and the drug trade flourishes.

We're sort of screwed here. How hard can we or should we push them? We give Pakistan a lot of money, and India is not happy right now-maybe they should listen a little closer? Let's hope Pakistan needs us enough. And getting rid of this shit is good for the rest of the world, so the EU ought to pony up too. It's doable, but not if we have to do it alone.

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by StephenB

We're sort of screwed here. How hard can we or should we push them? We give Pakistan a lot of money, and India is not happy right now-maybe they should listen a little closer? Let's hope Pakistan needs us enough. And getting rid of this shit is good for the rest of the world, so the EU ought to pony up too. It's doable, but not if we have to do it alone.

From Canada's perspective, I totally agree with what I bolded here. Let's go in hard and get this over with. But we can't do it alone. There are troops from other countries there, but they aren't in the regions where they are really needed- that is just you guys, us and Britain in those areas.

[Opatije]

Originally Posted by Rissask

From Canada's perspective, I totally agree with what I bolded here. Let's go in hard and get this over with. But we can't do it alone. There are troops from other countries there, but they aren't in the regions where they are really needed- that is just you guys, us and Britain in those areas.

Foreign interventions did not produce any substantial results (including 1979 Soviet invasion and the recent 2001 US led invasion). Canada should step aside and "get over with". How many more troops/innocent civilians have to die?

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by Opatije

Foreign interventions did not produce any substantial results (including 1979 Soviet invasion and the recent 2001 US led invasion). Canada should step aside and "get over with". How many more troops/innocent civilians have to die?

They haven't had results because it is has been too weak of an effort, to date. The Taliban are re-gaining power daily and have been for awhile. If not for the US troops in Iraq, it might have been over by now.

I don't really think you can compare the Soviet invasion with what we are trying to accomplish can you?



How many more have to die? Ideally? The Taliban, and all of them. That would be good, I think.

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by StephenB

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped a U.S. troop increase for Afghanistan would be mostly done by late spring, as his commander warned Afghan forces were three or four years from leading the fight.

When Obama takes over, he's pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan, and I agree. But, before we do it, I hope he learns a lesson from the Bush failures and does his homework. There are several critical issues. One is logistics. The U.S. military says we cannot supply our troops by air alone-we must have unfettered access to the Khyber pass-there's just too much needed to do it all by air. In order to secure the Khyber pass, we need Pakistan's help, and that's a problem as pointed out in this op-ed by Joe Klein. I rarely agree with Klein, but this time he's hit the nail on the head IMHO.

The Aimless War: Why Are We in Afghanistan? - Yahoo! News

You hit the nail on the head there! A land locked country with the only viable port access in Pakistan. I was looking at this at work just yesterday. There is NO easy access to get large amounts of supplies in. So, now we are about to plus up the troops and how are we going to resupply them? How are we going to get their equipment into them in a timely manner? Sure we can get the troops in, but then we ship in their heavy equipment to Karachi and overland them to Peshawar and then through the Khyber Pass. Seems to me history provides some pretty tough lessons associated with the Khyber Pass!

The only other country bordering Afghanistan with a sea port is Iran...and we all know what good friends we have there!

And so how do we prosecute this war? A huge build up of forces or a well equipped special ops force? Even then, what happens when we wrap up the Tali's in one area? The hydra effect...many more cells of talis and AQ pop up. What it is going to take is a whole re-learn of how our forces operate, are employed and equipped. Gates recently wrote a very good article on this Here. It's long, but it is well worth the read if you want to see what his view of our future military should look like. I happen to agree with his assessment. But, will we get there in time for Afghanistan?

And as Stephen mentions in his post, airlift will not be able to keep up. We are already stretched too thin in airlift capabilities...sure exiting from iraq will definitely help, but we have to use the very same airlift to get those forces out. Then turn around and take forces in to Afghanistan. With only a few airfields suitable for the larger aircraft. Do we invest in an airfields that can handle a big influx of large transports? That too takes time...but may be well worth the investment since they can then be used to boost the economy of the future state of Afghanistan. The C-17 is a capable transport that can operate in austere locations...but it cannot carry substantial cargo loads into/out of these austere fields. The C-130 is a true workhorse, but they are old and have many problems. Nor can they carry much cargo. The C-5 is the behemoth that can carry the cargo loads, but only to those few fields. They too have a serious logistics tail that has not been funded so there are real reliability issues there. the new Re-engined C-5M will be an amazing airlifter with capabilites that boggle the mind...but too late to have a real impact on this war. All of this brings us back to gorund transport and the Khyber Pass.

Afghanistan is going to be a real problem. I know I have said that we should have concentrated our efforts there instead of going into Iraq...but how we concentrate those efforts is not going to be an easy equation to solve.

[ryberg]

If -- just if -- Obama puts through such changes in our approach to foreign military involvement and the like, and lo and behold, we end up capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, what is the reaction going to be?

This is something I have wondered about from time to time, when the subject has come up.

Steve

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by ryberg

If -- just if -- Obama puts through such changes in our approach to foreign military involvement and the like, and lo and behold, we end up capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, what is the reaction going to be?
This is something I have wondered about from time to time, when the subject has come up.

Steve

From who?

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by horizon200

From who?

You name it: George Bush, Dick Cheney, their people in office and their supporters, the GOP in general or other supporters of the Bush/Cheney approach to Iraq, those who claimed during the campaign that our enemies in the Islamic world would love to see an Obama presidency...

And that's just to run down a few on that side of things. It's also interesting to consider the more sort of celebratory side...

Steve

[user 6507]

Originally Posted by ryberg

If -- just if -- Obama puts through such changes in our approach to foreign military involvement and the like, and lo and behold, we end up capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, what is the reaction going to be?

This is something I have wondered about from time to time, when the subject has come up.

Steve

If Obama were to accomplish the above I would kiss his butt on the courthouse square and send him a Whitman's sampler!

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by ryberg

You name it: George Bush, Dick Cheney, their people in office and their supporters, the GOP in general or other supporters of the Bush/Cheney approach to Iraq, those who claimed during the campaign that our enemies in the Islamic world would love to see an Obama presidency...

And that's just to run down a few on that side of things. It's also interesting to consider the more sort of celebratory side...

Steve

I would hope any of the above would congratulate him!

I was thinking about the International side. No matter if Obama gets him or President Miley Cyrus gets him....he is going to be a martyr in the eyes of the fanatics. You did see where Khalid Shiek Mohammed and his henchmen wanted ot plead guilty? Some speculate that this is a step to allow them to become martyrs rather than waste away serving life sentences. In the same light, I don't know if Osama being killed or captured will do much to staunch the tide of fanatics out there. I certainly hope it does and I hope we can get him soon!

Originally Posted by StephenB

If Obama were to accomplish the above I would kiss his butt on the courthouse square and send him a Whitman's sampler!

Do they still make those things?

[Jacko]

I think we are going to have to come home from Afghanistan as well at this point...there will be no money left to be prosecuting foreign wars...even if we wanted to. And unfortunately, I think our enemies know this.

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by Jacko

I think we are going to have to come home from Afghanistan as well at this point...there will be no money left to be prosecuting foreign wars...even if we wanted to. And unfortunately, I think our enemies know this.

This thought has been nagging at me as well Jacko. And while I am all for bringing our troops home and out of harms way, the fallout, vis-a-vis, perceptions by our foes, will be huge! It will strengthen them in the eyes of the impressionable youths they are trying to recruit.

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by Jacko

I think we are going to have to come home from Afghanistan as well at this point...there will be no money left to be prosecuting foreign wars...even if we wanted to. And unfortunately, I think our enemies know this.

uh huh


We really appreciated Robert Gates' comments about our role he made a couple of days ago:

Canada should continue fighting the war in Afghanistan after the mission's scheduled end in 2011, the United States' top military official hinted today.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates made a quick visit to Kandahar to speak with front-line commanders. He said they described U.S. and NATO forces as "holding their own" against the insurgents in the south.
"Everybody would agree that holding your own isn't good enough," Mr. Gates said, adding that two more U.S. combat brigades will arrive in Afghanistan in the spring.
In addition to the new American troops, Mr. Gates suggested that an extended Canadian commitment would be appreciated in the dangerous zone around Kandahar, known as Regional Command South.

The countries that have partnered with the United States and Afghanistan here in RC-South have made an extraordinary commitment," Mr. Gates said.

"Proportionally, none have worked harder or sacrificed more than the Canadians. They have been outstanding partners for us, and all I can tell you, as has been the case for a very long time, the longer we can have Canadian soldiers as our partners, the better it is."

From HERE




But Ottawa says we are still sticking to our pull-out date in 2010.

We need more countries to come in with troops for a worthwhile surge.

Or all of the soldiers we have lost and all the money spent will have been for naught.