On Feb 21, 2009, at 8:54 PM, Kevin Callahan wrote: > > http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/21-3 > > Obama Nixed Full Surge After Quizzing Brass > by Gareth Porter > > WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama decided to approve only 17,000 > of the 30,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan, the top > commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and Gen. David > Petraeus, the CENTCOM commander, after McKiernan was unable to tell > him how they would be used, according to a White House source. >
Interesting. This part "Obama's decision to approve just over half the full troop request for Afghanistan recalls a similar decision by President Lyndon B. Johnson to approve only part of the request for U.S. troop deployments in a parallel situation in the Vietnam War in April 1965 " Echos Galloways recent piece. <http://www.michaelyon-online.com/joe-galloway-afghanistan-smells-like-south-vietnam-in-1965.htm > For as strongly that I argued that Iraq was not like Vietnam, primarily since the enemy didn't have a safe-haven or a DMZ, Afghanistan now has exactly that problem. When Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban in the tribal regions, they gave them a de-facto place to rest, regroup and train for excursions into Afghanistan. That they are looking the other way on the Reaper (Predator) strikes "for now" simply gives us an ability to harass the Taliban, not defeat it. If you take the time to look at the declassified after action reports on ambushes (there is a link to a ppt) <http://www.michaelyon-online.com/the-eagle-went-over-the-mountain.htm > You can easily tell that these folks are not half-assed jihadists with the will but not the military skills. These folks know how to lay down an ambush, control direct and indirect fire. In a number of these, the only thing that saved the day was our air assets[1]. Oh, they don't define it in the ppt but "TTP" means (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) for those that didn't know. Obama committed us to continuing in Afganistan during his campaign. So be it, but he is going to have to go "all in" or fold at some point and IMHO, Iraq is going to look like a cake walk unless we really deny the Taliban a safe haven in Pakistan. I'm not optimistic about this at all. Politically, Obama chastised Bush for ignoring Afghanistan (rightly so) but as Obama commits more and more troops into the region, and I think he must, it will become "Obama's war". (As in, be careful what you ask for, you just might get it) Personally, I think he is in a no-win situation, but I will grant that he is politically agile and has some goodwill stored up. Not what I think Obama really had in mind when he took office. <http://www.newamerica.net/files/afghanmap.pdf > =c= [1] On of the many causes of the USSR's defeat in Afghanistan was that the CIA supplied the resistance with Stingers. Russia holds the keys to our supply routes so we had better hope they don't hold grudges. _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
