Friday, September 25, 2009
Galloways SitRep on Afghanistan
It isn't hopeful. The two main points are really quite clear.
They'd appear to have boxed the president into a lose-lose position. Either Obama gives Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal the as many as 40,000 more troops he apparently thinks he must have to stave off defeat — locking us into an open-ended commitment of American lives and scarce American resources to an effort that seems likely to fail — or he turns him down and begins a withdrawal from an eight-year war that Republicans will claim is proof that the Democrats and Obama are cutting and running and weak on defense.And
Heads I win; tails you lose.
Gen. McChrystal's Afghanistan report left unsaid whether he thinks that a large infusion of additional American forces would turn the tide and lead to success, and if so how many years he thinks that might require.Salad shooter, indeed! Any way you look at it, the Stan is a total waste of time and money.
It also left unsaid, among other things, whether there's a chance that his effort could fail even if he gets more troops; how he can succeed in Afghanistan without help from Pakistan that no one thinks is forthcoming; and why it's smart to expand the Afghan National Army when so many Afghans consider their government corrupt and illegitimate.
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