McChrystal Wants Huge Boost In U.S. Civilians In Afghanistan

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal arrives to his assumption of a command ceremony as the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in Kabul, Monday, June 15, 2009. Daily News

From McClatchy News:

KABUL, Afghanistan — In addition to requesting some 45,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the country's top American military commander will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S. government civilian workers who are in the country.

The proposed civilian "surge" is the fourth leg of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's emerging strategy to rebuild Afghanistan's economy and government, along with more American troops, vastly expanded Afghan security forces and closer cooperation between U.S. and Afghan troops, including posting troops from both countries at the same bases.

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My Comment: If these stories are true, it appears that Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be requesting not only a massive buildup of U.S. military forces to expand the war in Afghanistan, but as a complement to this military surge he will be requesting civilian assistance and resources to conduct what in essence will be "nation building".

President Obama and Congress are not going to approve this request. Ignore the budget busting provisions and the huge amount of killing that will be the result, the political ramifications to their Democratic political base will be explosive if General McChrystal's proposals (if what the media is reporting is true) is accepted. The political bloodletting will be like 1968, when opposition to the Vietnam War split the Democratic party.

The Democratic Party may have been wrong on a lot of things .... but as politicians they are not suicidal.

Gordon Brown Ready To Defy Barack Obama Over Afghanistan Troop Surge

Gordon Brown and Barack Obama share a laugh
Photo: Getty Images (Image from The Telegraph)

From Times Online:

Gordon Brown is considering rejecting an expected request from Barack Obama, the US President-elect, to send 2,000 more British troops to Afghanistan to join the surge of US forces confronting the Taleban.

Britain is expected to come under considerable pressure from Mr Obama when he becomes President in January to send another battle group of 1,500-2,000. Turning down such a request would open a rift between Britain and the US. British military chiefs have also been clamouring for reinforcements for the beleaguered troops in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Senior military officers have begun drawing up plans for boosting the British presence in southern Afghanistan to more than 10,000. Secret planning has been under way for some time to deploy another 2,000 troops, although the Ministry of Defence has previously denied reports that reinforcements were likely to be sent next year.

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My Comment: If true, this is a huge monkey-wrench in President-Elect's Obama's stated strategy on how to win in Afghanistan. If the U.K. refuses to participate in the surge, almost all other NATO allies will use them as an example on why they should also not increase their forces in the country.

With Canada already stating that they will be gone in 2011, any surge and increase in fighting will come from U.S. soldiers .... but they will be limited for the simple reason that they will just be taking over the operations from other allied countries who are leaving the theater of operations.

Afghanistan Doesn't Need A 'Surge'

Over mountains in Afghanistan

From the Wall Street Journal:

Afghanistan needs many things, but two more brigades of U.S. troops are not among them.

Barack Obama said: "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there." Mr. Obama should have supported the surge in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that advocating one in Afghanistan makes sense.

Afghanistan's problems are not the same as Iraq's. Its people aren't recovering from a brutal, all-controlling tyranny, but from decades of chaos and centuries of bad government. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is largely illiterate and has a relatively undeveloped civil society. Afghan society still centers around the family and, for men, the mosque. Its society and traditions are still largely intact, in contrast to Iraq's fractured, urbanized and half-modernized population.

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My Comment: The journalist of this Wall Street Journal article is in agreement with the policy that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld voiced in 2005. "More problems will evolve if large groups of U.S. forces arrive in Afghanistan, and even more problems if these U.S. forces enter Pakistan".

The trend is now for U.S. and Nato forces to expand operations and to position themselves for entering Pakistan to go after safe havens. My concern is that such an operation will not only have a profound shock effect in the Tribal regions that will produce blow-back against us .... a blow-back that we are not ready to absorb, but also a blow-back from many Afghans. At the present time many Taliban groups in Pakistan and in certain parts of Afghanistan are in open conflict with each other, what better way to unite them by providing them a common enemy.

I believe that this is a situation that can still be addressed internally in Afghanistan, and Pakistan doing its best to reign in most of the groups that are in its region. The key is that both Pakistan and Afghanistan have the will to do this .... at present they do not. I can only hope that with time some will see the dangers and put pressure to do something before Nato and the U.S. do it for them.