White House strategy winning in Afghanistan
No, of course it’s not. Their “withdrawal at any cost” strategy is only encouraging the Taliban. Of course, it’s just bluster, but it’s a preview of how history will write this chapter of the war. From the LA Times;
After nearly 11 years of war, the movement declared that the “criminal warmongers” — the United States and its allies in the NATO force — were “fleeing the battleground, one after the other.”
“America … is facing utter defeat in Afghanistan militarily, politically, economically and in all other facets, and it has exhausted all other means through which to prolong its illegal war,” it added.
The statement comes at a time of discord within the Taliban movement over whether to move toward negotiations with the United States or to wait until after 2014, by which time most NATO troops are scheduled to have gone home. The Taliban leadership has publicly spurned the notion of talks with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The French and New Zealanders are pulling their troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year. With their refusal to negotiate with the Karzai government, the Taliban signal that he’s going last about a minute after the US leaves. Then he’ll have some atrocities to scream about.
Category: Terror War
I’d posit that good ole Hamid will show up at the airport for the departure ceremony for NATO, and then he’ll depart, quickly. He won’t be able to spend all that money if he hangs around to get his head separated from his shoulders.
I remember when the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan. It was called “their Viet Nam”. I’m afraid that our withdrawal will soon be referred to as “Our second Viet Nam” We won the battles and lost the war. And for the same reason. Political expediency.
So, what is our alternative? Just for the mental exercise of it, not that anyone actually gives a shit about the opinions of a bunch of vets on a milblog, but just for fun. What would we do differently? There are currently 70,000 US troops in Iraq. If we decide to stay indefinitely, we can rule out any international cooperation, so we have to have a plan to do it on our own. Generals in the AO have previously stated that they need 500,000 troops. General Petraeus has said that a decent COIN strategy takes 10-12 years to get up and running. Currently there have been many complaints about the ROE. So, first I would assume we need to deploy an extra 430,000 troops. We would need to extend the length of deployments in order to avoid the problems associated with multiple short deployments where soldiers aren’t on the ground long enough to be effective and aren’t home long enough to recover. So we are looking at running a rolling deployment schedule of 18 months across 1,430,000 troops for a minimum of 54 months. This means that the troops on the latter end of the deployment schedule are currently in the 8th or ninth grade. Then we have to figure out how to fund this. The pentagon estimates that the war in Afghanistan currently costs $300 million per day. Mathematically extrapolating for the increase in troops it will cost $2.1 billion per day for the added troops across a minimum rotation of 54 months. One has to figure out how to pay for that. Raising taxes is right out, it just won’t happen. So we can either borrow from the federal reserve, and increase the national debt, or borrow from outside countries like China if they are willing to lend to us. Now about that ROE. I would get rid of it. It is more of a hindrance. The war cannot be fought effectively if the enemy can run and hide in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Iran. So we would have to allow troops to carry the fight across borders.… Read more »
I give Karzai 30 seconds to get to the US embassy if he wants to live.
@UtahVet – Two points. Where are you getting 70,000 US forces in Iraq?
And secondly, your COIN math has some merit, and while it’s hypothetical and academic….it does nothing toward eliminating al Qaeda….which as most people seem to have forgotten [since 2001], is the premise for our campaign to begin with.
Here’s an interesting news item about the income the Afghan Taliban has collected over the past year:
http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/click.phdo?i=922a15381b758034e3df5a4c5e7ba6df
$400 million? Gee, if they’d put that money to use building schools and helping farmers produce crops other than the heroin poppy, Afghanistan could have a thriving economy.
The irony of it is striking.
CI @ #5 –
Shit, meant to type Afghanistan, not Iraq. After the day I’ve had I’m surprised I can do any math at all. I need a drink.
@UtahVet – No worries…I figured I could have been waaay undercounting OSC-I and contractors.