Word: afghanistans
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President Barack Obama has tied his decision to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to a pledge that they'll start returning home in 2011. But the President's West Point speech Dec. 1 was mute on his plans for the growing Afghan army, which remains the best - some would say only - way to bring home American personnel. His vagueness on the question of increasing the Afghan forces was understandable: the U.S. and its allies have already boosted target troop levels for the Afghan army four times, and the U.S. commander there, General Stanley McChrystal, wants the target...
...McChrystal warned that those totals were insufficient and called for boosting the army to 240,000 ("to increase pressure on the insurgency in all threatened areas in the country") and the police to 160,000. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' new offensive in Afghanistan...
...Tuesday afternoon, a senior White House official who declined to be quoted by name dismissed McChrystal's call for a bigger Afghan force. "We know that number's out there," the official said, without mentioning that it was put out there by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. James Dubik, a retired Army general who trained the Iraqi military and is now a senior fellow at the independent Institute for the Study of War, argues that the Obama Administration needs to embrace McChrystal's goal. "There's a significant psychological effect on the Taliban if we announce we're going...
...power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended - because the nation that I am most interested in building...
...clear: none of this will be easy. The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be an enduring test of our free society and our leadership in the world. And unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the 20th century, our effort will involve disorderly regions and diffuse enemies...