Next, it ignores what he is trying to do. We do not need all U. S. troops. What we need is enough troops to keep populations and Afghan training camps and bases safe until we can bring their newly formed army up to snuff. I am amazed at the level of advance the local forces achieved in the last two years. The plan is to have 340K Afgan troops in place in the next few years. Even with lower levels of coalition forces, that will be more than enough. The Taliban is only a shadow of its former self and if we can bring most of a half million coalition and Afgan forces to the region what allies they have will flip.

The only fantasy is that of the Taliban.

“The low risk option, which McChrystal has said offers the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan, calls for 80,000 additional U.S. troops, while his medium risk option puts the number at 40,000 to 45,000, the officials said.

“This is a fully resourced COIN (counter-insurgency) strategy with the low-risk option,” one official said. The current Army counterinsurgency manual, however, estimates that an all-out COIN campaign in a country with Afghanistan’s population would require about 600,000 troops.”

You folks must read the entire piece, which you will find by clicking on “McClatchy” in Steve Newton’s piece right here.

Not only that, but we would be playing whack-a-mole with al-Qaeda, who have virtually unlimited locations from which they can organize to launch attacks.

Face it, we absolutely do not have what it takes to assure victory in a counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan, reinforcing in my mind the idea that we must focus our resources on homeland security, instead of the futility of fighting our wars on the lands of other nations, where we not only kill their people as collateral damage, but also appear as occupiers.

“The low risk option, which McChrystal has said offers the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan, calls for 80,000 additional U.S. troops, while his medium risk option puts the number at 40,000 to 45,000, the officials said.

Face it, we absolutely do not have what it takes to assure victory in a counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan, reinforcing in my mind the idea that we must focus our resources on homeland security, instead of the futility of fighting our wars on the lands of other nations, where we not only kill their people as collateral damage, but also appear as occupiers.

18. Do you support or oppose the U.S. military action in Afghanistan?
29-30 Sep 09
Support Oppose (Don’t know)
64% 27 9
Democrats 49% 39 13
Republicans 80% 14 5
Independents 66% 26 7

For reference: Do you support or oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan?
15-16 Sep 09
Support Oppose (Don’t know)
46% 45 9

Mike Protack

To me this says a vast majority of the country believes the war is able to be won. Remember this headline is basically breaking it down as follows:

45% – We Can Win
29% – We Can’t Win
26% – Undecided

More than 1/4 of the country is still undecided. I think this question is kind of the wrong one to ask though because it assumes no change in the current strategy. We have a President who will rush to push Trillions of dollars in debt across the table but won’t put any urgency behind protecting our troops.

Of the two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) this is the one we really should be focused on and should have been focused on. I understand the premise for the other one but we need to return focus to the Afghan people. The Generals on the ground need to be given the freedom to operate as needed within a general scope that should be shaped by the Presidents policies (as much as I might believe now that he is wrong, he is in charge right now). The President should take a strong stance against insurgents and we need to get some people on the ground in Afghanistan to talk to the people and the government and build the nation from the ground up. We’ve forgotten so much about how we built OUR democracy, heck, nearly every “real democracy” was built in the manner ours was…you start locally, at the village level..they elect a representative (or more than one for large villages) territories then elect a rep (or more than one), etc., etc. and you form a government that way. Instead, under both Bush and Obama we try to find the most wonderful national leader and plug him/her in. It doesn’t work, it never does and never will. You need to start at the bottom.

You should be careful regarding any temptation to say, “The public supports this, let’s do it,” because I can cite all sorts of idiotic things that polls show a majority of the public supports.