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Major US troop increase in Afghanistan?
Published: 01 September, 2009, 22:00
Agghanistan, Khost :US Paratroopers wait for a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to land and depart on an air assault mission on July 28, 2009 (AFP Photo / Matthew Freire )
(18.0Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Military, NATO, Central Asia, USA
The newly-appointed head of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has announced that he wants to revise their strategy for defeating the Taliban.
McChrystal delivered a classified assessment that is widely seen as the groundwork for a fresh request to add more American forces next year, AP reports.
The general said the nearly eight-year-old war is winnable, but his report is expected to be a blunt appraisal of the Taliban’s increasing tactical prowess and diminishing popular support in Afghanistan for both the foreign-led war effort and the fragile, corruption-riddled central government.
McChrystal says “the situation in Afghanistan is serious,” and success “demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”
The general is expected to brief President Barack Obama on his classified assessment on the war in the near future.
“We’re likely to have a major increase in strength for at least two or three years,” said Tony Blankley, a contributor to The Washington Times. The troop increase, he added, would allow for more time “to build up the Afghan army and national police and perhaps tribal forces, because they are not going to be able to be anywhere near where they need to be.”
Blankley believes McChrystal is probably going to ask for 20,000 to 40,000 more American troops.
01.09.2009, 18:59
8 comments
Lawlessness imported from AmericaIraq and Afghanistan are generally painted as countries that are teeming with lawlessness, but American cases of theft, rape and murder reveal that some of the unsavory elements in the Middle East are imported. |
01.09.2009, 23:04
Pentagon’s attempt to keep US media locked and loaded fails“The press officers that we had interviewed explained why this rendering a profile of a reporter… would go against the whole spirit and rules of the embed system,” said Kevin Baron of the Stars and Stripes newspaper. |
The USA-NATO strategy is totally wrong and won't work in Afganistan even if USA and NATO will duplicate or triplicate the amount of US, NATO, NATO led ISAF forces there. The key issue is that US and NATO forces are conventional forces built against conventional Soviet Army which doesn't exist any more. What they need is a strategy for modern war and querilla war, but they have no propriate troops, arms, skills, strategy or tactics for that kind of war. And so they are in Afganistan with their far too slow, far too expensive army trying to catch quick moving querillas. The war will end as Iraqi war, the politicians in USA and in many NATO countries will not give more money for the uneffective army out in Afganistan, NATO will split even more to those who keep on fighting and those who will not fight and those who will withdraw their troops.
If the Afghan war is "winnable", as Gen McChrystal is quoted as saying, then why haven't they won it already during these 8 years? Might it be that the USA military is inefficient that much? If so, then do engage some Home Security for they are known being highly trained, extremely motivated and, above all, enormously skilled squads. If they fail too, then call for some NAHA units (North American Housewife Association). Fire brigades could also be used to engage Talibans, as their patriotic feelings are legendary for a long time. Spreading out democracy all over the globe is surely a hard and marvelous undertaking and I hope USA will not give up.
The war in Afghanistan is not a war for victory or winning the hearts and minds, it is a war which brings cash to Americas military industrial complex and what is really bad it allows the US to field test their new developed weapons. With the help of the UN Security Council one can run now even concentration/extermination camps or commit genocide or ethnic cleansing.