Comments on: Gen. McChrystal Says He Will Need 500,000 Troops Over Five Years in Afghanistan

By: joeaudio

joeaudio — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:55:05 +0000

Yea Ron, folks in the military are used to training up new recruits and getting them up to speed pretty quickly. This works really well 99% of the time when the recruits are Amercians (of any color, religion, financial background, etc.) Iraq had a strong professional Army, but we discarded it (making a lot of new enemies) and started from scratch. After all these years, they still can't take take care of themselves. When I was in the Army (after Vietnam was over) I heard many stories of the South Vietnamese troops that we had trained turning tail and running when attacked by the VC. Did not make our guys very comfortable working with them.
If you haven't already read the Ann Post article, wade through it. We'll never have a fighting Afghan Army that looks and fights like ours.
Take away all the heavy equipment, give them a good rifle and they can run up and down the mountains all day.
We need to change the training model or co-opt the militias that are already there. What many ignorati claim was a successful troop “surge” in Iraq was more about paying off the local militias and putting them to work.
Let the war hawks call it a “surge” in Afghanistan, hire the local militias to do the work on the ground,call it a victory and bring our troops home.

By: Ron Beasley

Ron Beasley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:34:31 +0000

You got it Joe, the mistake Westerners make is thinking of Afghanistan as a country. It is a collection of independent tribes within some boundaries drawn by someone else. Americans may be Americans and the British may be British but the Afghans are Pashtuns, Tajics etc.

By: joeaudio

joeaudio — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:21:58 +0000

Leonidas, I think you must be right that the troop figures include a huge number of Afghan troops.
No way the U.S. can send that many of our own. Unfortunately, relying on the Afghans is probably a really, awful, terribly bad idea. This is a long read, but I'll give you the link.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175116

short story:
Meet the Afghan Army
Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?
By Ann Jones

"Afghans are Afghans. They have their own history, their own culture, their own habitual ways of thinking and behaving, all complicated by a modern experience of decades of war, displacement, abject poverty, and incessant meddling by foreign governments near and far -- of which the United States has been the most powerful and persistent. Afghans do not think or act like Americans. Yet Americans in power refuse to grasp that inconvenient point."

By: Leonidas

Leonidas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:30:37 +0000

Even if it is 300,000 US soldiers over 5 years, that is a lot of stress.

What if its only 100,000 US troops total total ie 32 thousand more than now? What if its 75,000US troops Only 7,000 more? Until we have an actual request, its all just specualtion.

By: Davebo

Davebo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:03:43 +0000

So now Spencer Ackerman is a trusted source of those on the right?

And police count as "troops"?

This part of Spencer's last paragraph makes sense to me.

We’re going to have McChrystal’s request in a couple of days. Petraeus also said yesterday that we’ll have two weeks of high-level debate over strategy and resourcing questions. Until we have hard data, let’s all take a deep breath before going crazy with speculation, and certainly before we allow speculation to overtake basic contextualization.

By: ProfElwood

ProfElwood — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Iraq turned into a quagmire because we didn't have an exit plan. We have a big enough military to get into a country, but getting out isn't so easy. The 500,000 number is pretty meaningless without knowing the rest of the plan.

By: kathykattenburg

kathykattenburg — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:02:25 +0000

I'd prefer to have a president who didn't back himself into a corner with campaign promises.

Has there ever been one of those?

By: vey9

vey9 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:58:37 +0000

"I'd say YES! at least for now, give him the troops he asks for and evaluate the results after a year,"

'Course you would. And where do you think they are going to come from? There are not enough people in the US that want a college education to meet that number, so say hello to GREETINGS FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

And didn't we hear this 500,000 number from a General before? Who was that General again? Oh, yeah. Shinseki! Remember him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki Run off because he dared say the real number that would be needed in Iraq AND, that number did not guarantee success?

I guess "boots on the ground" really is important after all.

You come up with the boots, and let Obama ship them off and it will be Viet Nam all over again.

By: shannonlee

shannonlee — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:23:34 +0000

Even if it is 300,000 US soldiers over 5 years, that is a lot of stress. I am not saying the cost isn't worth what we might gain, but I think with numbers like this…we might need to step back and have a public debate.

Last week we were talking about what?…40k US? We really need to know what the total US commitment has to be…what our allies are willing to contribute…and the progress of the Afghan military.

By: Mail2Nevada

Mail2Nevada — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:08:15 +0000

This post is misleading. It implies 500k American troops – not so.

By: Leonidas

Leonidas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:02:32 +0000

Whatever McChrystal is he's not stupid and knows full well that 500,000 troops is not going to happen. It would require a draft which which both Republicans and Democrats would oppose and a huge boost in defense spending which few would support since that would require tax hikes.

Don't misread 500,000 boots on the ground as equating 500,000 US troops.

By: shannonlee

shannonlee — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:59:34 +0000

A couple days ago during a debate about the war being “winable”, I asked the question, “is the war worth winning considering the cost?”

500,000 troops over 5 years….That is one hell of a cost. Not just in money, but also stress on our military.

That is one seriously scary number.

By: Ron Beasley

Ron Beasley — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:54:24 +0000

Whatever McChrystal is he's not stupid and knows full well that 500,000 troops is not going to happen. It would require a draft which which both Republicans and Democrats would oppose and a huge boost in defense spending which few would support since that would require tax hikes.

By: zacwrites

zacwrites — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:40:44 +0000

The presence of foreign troops is bolstering the insurgency, true, but that doesn't mean the trend can't be stopped if US strategy adapts by: A: ceasing to view the insurgency as one monolithic 'Taliban' movement and B: focusing on protecting the Afghan people, thus winning the much touted hearts and minds and winning some tribal allies.

By: DaGoat

DaGoat — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:35:31 +0000

Would you prefer to have a president who doesn’t shift strategy when he gets this kind of ground troop from the commanders?

I'd prefer to have a president who didn't back himself into a corner with campaign promises.

Since we don't have that, hopefully we have a president that knows to stop playing when you have a bad hand.

By: Leonidas

Leonidas — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:17:47 +0000

So thats approximately an average of 50 thousand a year beyond what we have there now.

I'd say YES! at least for now, give him the troops he asks for and evaluate the results after a year, if progress is made continue to support the effort, if not consider pulling out.

Just make sure that they have the proper strategy and administration. Obama needs to fulfill his promise to the troops in Afgahanistan.

By: Posts about Huffington Post as of September 24, 2009 » The Daily Parr

Posts about Huffington Post as of September 24, 2009 » The Daily Parr — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:00:45 +0000

[...] about Huffington Post as of September 24, 2009 Gen. McChrystal Says He Will Need 500,000 Troops Over Five Years in Afghanistan – themoderatevoice.com 09/24/2009 That is the bombshell (you should pardon the pun) that [...]