Community | October 26, 2009 | 16 comments

Wither Afghanistan: More troops or less troops?

source: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/10/26/afghanistan-round-up-helicopters-and-a-third-surge/

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afitzgerald
FROM THE NEWS BLOG:
With the two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan today (killing 14 Americans), we wanted to check in real quick on how war #1 of our two wars is going.

Wired's Danger Room talks about how today's crashes reveal that helicopter are the "achilles' heel of the Afghan War", absolutely necessary in a country with few roads and constantly undersupplied. Maintenance on those that are there is apparently critical as well:
"Earlier this year, Popular Mechanics reporter Joe Pappalardo spent some time with the wrench-turners who keep the helicopters flying in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan,” he concluded, “is hell on helicopters.” Here’s a list of just a few of the things he noted that can go wrong: Temperature extremes that destroy seals and gaskets; “high/hot” flying conditions that reduce engine performance; dust and sand that ruin rotor blades and clog up hydraulics. And, of course, there’s the enemy. (Soviet helicopter operations were also vulnerable, albeit for a different reason: The delivery of the Stinger missile, courtesy of the United States.)"

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria looks at the question of troop levels in Afghanistan and points out that Obama is considering not "a surge" but "a third surge":
"The number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in January 2008 was 26,607. Over the next six months, the Bush administration raised the total to 48,250. President Bush described this policy as "the quiet surge," and he made the standard arguments about the need for a counterinsurgency capacity—the troops had to not only fight the Taliban but protect the Afghan population, strengthen and train the Afghan Army and police, and assist in development. In January 2009, another 3,000 troops, originally ordered by President Bush, went to Afghanistan in the first days of the Obama presidency. In February, responding to a request from the commander in the field, Obama ordered an additional 17,000 troops into the country. In other words, over the past 18 months, troop levels in Afghanistan have almost tripled. An additional 40,000 troops sent in the next few months would mean an almost 400 percent increase in U.S. troops since 2008. (The total surge in Iraq, incidentally, was just over 20,000 troops.) It is not dithering to try to figure out why previous increases have not worked and why we think additional ones would."

Boston.com's Big Picture also has another amazing set of photographs from Afghanistan, all taken in the month of October. (LINK BELOW)

Question of the day for you: What should Obama do with Afghanistan? Should he send more US troops to pacify rural areas? Reduce the troop levels and focus on urban areas? Or should he "Why not do the Petraeus plan [counterinsurgency] for the major population centers and the Biden plan [counterterrorism] for the rest of the country?" (Defense expert Tom Ricks in the Zakaria article)
  1. groups:
    Community,   Afghanistan News,   News_Featured,   Afghanistan War
  2. tags:
    Obama,  War,  Afghanistan,  Congress,  8 more
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16 comments // Wither Afghanistan: More troops or less troops?

  • NuclearLullaby
    • 0
      NuclearLullaby  

    • We really can't solve anything there weather we add troops our bring them all home! The wars in the middle east were something the US should have just never got involved in! Things were bad there long before we ever went there! The US only made things worse! The war will never end! Take them all out or put every single American there,it would not make the slightest change to anything really!

    • 2 years ago
  • 402Chicago
    • 0
      402Chicago  

    • Cynic, c'mon now. Why even post that we have no right there? This has been stated at least a million times and i'm sure everyone knows that most people on this site believe we have no right to be there. you're making your liberal buddies look bad because you seem to only copy and paste your view on the war onto every article with the topic of the war. This is about how we are there already (pretty damn deep too) and what we need to do now. Not whether or not we have business there. Please, make relevant posts...

    • 2 years ago
  • Cynic2
    • 0
      Cynic2  

    • We had no business in Vietnam either. Almost 60 grand dead outright plus more due to disease and suicides in the following years and for WHAT?? To make a few scumbags rich?? Same situation, 40 years later! Wait till GI's start coming back heroin-addicted. It's only a matter of time. The US needs to stop trying to police the world and take care of its own problems.

    • 2 years ago
  • 402Chicago
    • 0
      402Chicago  

    • We need more troops there, like it or not we do. We cannot leave Afghanistan like we did Vietnam and we're doing much better there than we did in Vietnam. We have worked too long and hard and lost too many lives to simply leave and have all we've worked for be lost. People need to start trusting these men in uniform with the stars on their chest, they know what they're doing. Unfortunately we hired a man with no prior military service so he may not trust or have faith that our troops are able to do what this calls for. Why have advisors if you're not going to listen to them?

      This brings up another point, our military needs to learn to trust those of other countries, we seem to have a large ego when we think of implementing military plans... we need to discuss with Russia how their experience in Afghanistan was and what they did wrong/right, as we should have with the French about Vietnam.

      Fact is, we need to send more troops, can't leave.

    • 2 years ago
  • Wegg
    • 0
      Wegg  
    • 402Chicago:

      Dude Vietnam is doing fine! We'd still BE in Vietnam if we hadn't left. Just leave. People are smart. There will be some disruption but they will sort it out using their own customs, culture and experience by trial and error.

    • 2 years ago
  • Mikeysfake1
    • 0
      Mikeysfake1  

    • Send more troops. I think Obamas hesitations will only increase the numbers of casualties in the war.

      The options are on the table. What Obama is waiting for is beyond me.

    • 2 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • If we want to win in Afghanistan, we need 150,000 or so more troops, a whole load of contractors, doctors, educators and other nation builders and an open-checkbook, long-term financial commitment to developing the nation's infrastructure.

      If we just want to GTFO, we need to establish civil stability and make damn sure the country is not going to harbor terrorists anymore. Of course, this is done at the cost of plunging Afghanistan quite possibly into another civil war and the terror of groups like the Mujahideen and the Taliban will reign once again.

      Your choice America, but those seem to be the options available to us. Either hurt our pocketbook and our military or our pride and our morality.

    • 2 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  
    • Saladin:

      If only it were that simple.

      What if in your quest for death, you only find dishonor? The dichotomy doesn't exist.

      The right thing is seldom a glorious task brought down by golden chariots from the gods. Usually, it's a brutal fistfight that ends in broken teeth, discontent and is never presented without a bitter irony that cuts to the bone.

      We're going to come out of this, one way or another, scarred.

      It's just a question of whether or not the Afghan people can lift themselves up out of the Islamic hellhole they've put themselves in.

    • 2 years ago
  • Makavelli45
  • Wegg
    • 0
      Wegg  

    • Yea cause. . . synchronized bomb blasts killing 138 people is WAY better than what was there before we invaded.

      We need to just leave other countries alone.

    • 2 years ago
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  

    • I just wish we could find some way to exit Afghanistan and Iraq with dignity.
      I think we opened another box of Vietnam and no country has been able to win in Afghanistan. The amount of money that it would take to bring this 12 century nation up to the 21st century is not available in the USA and the rest of the world seems uninterested.

    • 2 years ago
  • Wegg
  • afitzgerald
  • afitzgerald
  • remanns
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