AFGHANISTAN II -How to surge

bruno

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Very interesting article in the March 13th International Herald Tribune by Frederick Kagan. He offers a very thoughtful and positive assessment of what it will take to successfully surge in Afghanistan which he sees as requiring:Additional US forces beyond the new Brigades going in now (But still topping out at less than 60,000); revamping the Command structure; Increasing the size of the Afghan Army; and radically improving the Afghan Justice system.

...." Make no mistake: There is hard, costly fighting ahead in Afghanistan. But the fight is worth pursuing, and the odds of success are much better than they were in Iraq when we launched the forlorn hope known as the surge"
Link below to full article.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/13/opinion/edboot.php
 
Had my fill of college basketball yesterday, so I spent last night flipping through the channels. Saw "Charlie Wilson's War" was on cable, so I decided to catch it again from the middle to the end. Turned off the TV with the same thought I had the first time I saw it: "Man, were we short-sighted".

Spending a few million back in the late 80's to support a fledgling and struggling group of people to mold themselves into a viable Democracy makes sense now, particularly with the hindsight of seeing the thousands of lives lost from 9/11 and the 8 year war and the billions of dollars spent.

Sigh, hindsight is always 20 / 20. I just hope the current administration has learned this lesson in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan for the next decade or two. But my gut-feelign is that Americans today, with the attention span of a 2-year old in a butterfly house, is not committed to the "long-term".

I'll take the back-seat for now and see what happens, and save my voice for when I feel the country has started to forget. I'm just worried that my DS, who has decided to follow me into the AF, will be leading the same life as me in his career: deploying every year or two to some of the World's worst garbage holes. I'll just have to remeber to buy him a good pair of shower shoes and a large toiletry bag for those long walks to the Cadillacs for his first Xmas as an operational flyer.
 
My prayers and thoughts are with them too for their safe and speedy retrun
 
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