A U.S. soldier hands another soldier a round to be loaded before firing their 120mm mortars during a live-fire exercise on Forward Operating Base Lightning in Afghanistan's Paktia province, Jan. 17, 2014. U.S. Army photo by Capt. John Landry
Do U.S. Troops Really Need To Stay In Afghanistan? -- Stephanie Gaskell, Defense One
“The Taliban lost the fight in the summer of 2013.”
That’s the assessment of a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who says that the Afghan army and police are doing a great job fending off the Taliban and other fighters. It’s the most optimistic evaluation of the nascent, now 350,000-strong Afghan security force to date. And it may leave many wondering: Do the Afghans really need U.S. and NATO forces to stay beyond 2014?
Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, commander of the International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command, said Thursday that the Afghan National Security Forces were a formidable foe against Taliban and Haqqani fighters during this past fighting season. But there’s more to standing up a national army and police force than just tactical fighting, he argued.
“We know that the Afghan battalions and companies can fight. We know they can shoot, move, communicate. They can conduct combined arms operations. We know that all of the maneuver brigades and — all 24 of them — are either partially capable, capable, or fully capable. We know that the corps can conduct, plan, coordinate, synchronize, and execute combined arms operation. That’s important,” he said. “But tactics an army does not make. They have to be more than that. They have to be more than tactics.”
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My Comment: I am not in Afghanistan nor do I have the intelligence and experience that the top U.S. General in Afghanistan has when he is assessing the effectiveness of the Afghan Army. But I do have a long memory .... and I have lost count on how many times Generals have said one thing but the conditions on the ground end up producing an entirely different result.
1 comment:
Let's see, a president who wants out, an upper command structure that has seen many recent firings some political, a political party needing money for domestic purposes, how would anyone expect him to say anything else.
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