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Afghanistan Surge Limited by ‘Dwell Time’

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Posted on Aug 16, 2009
USAF / Senior Airman Sheila deVera

Giving troops more time with their families between deployments could limit the military’s ability to expand the war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, may ask for more troops, but whether he’ll get any is in doubt. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already moved to expand the Army, but getting troops the downtime they need between deployments will limit how many can be sent to the escalating war in South Asia.  —PS

Christian Science Monitor:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal is free to ask for whatever he thinks is needed for the mission. But should the general ask for tens of thousands of more forces, as some analysts involved in his Afghanistan assessment have suggested, those troops may not be available right away.

Mr. Gates indicated as much Thursday when he said that providing more forces to Afghanistan in the near term would be a challenge because the drawdown in Iraq won’t begin substantively until early next year.

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By Spike, August 17, 2009 at 4:35 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

You got it exactly right Mike.  All of Afghanistan and everything in is theirs; and, not one scrap of it is worth one American life.

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By mike112769, August 17, 2009 at 2:05 pm Link to this comment

We don’t NEED to be in Afghanistan. Whatever happened to the United States who believed in the right of the people to have self-determination? We are in Afghanistan to stop the taliban from taking over, right? Well, the taliban couldn’t take over if the people didn’t want them to. If they want the taliban, let them have it. Bring our troops home. If we are then attacked again, retaliate ruthlessly. We don’t need to invade a country, and then fail to have the political will necessary to finish the job. The truth is, we could have already killed all of our enemies there, but we were afraid of being seen as “merciless, savage, killers’” Isn’t that what war is about? If you are foolish enough to fight in an offensive war, you MUST have the balls to do what is needed to finish it. An example: when the rebels in Fallujah first started attacking us, I would have lined up every Abrams tank we had, and driven straight through the town of Fallujah until not a brick was left standing. Until we show people we can be as hard as them, we will ALWAYS be a soft target. Now, because we are so afraid of hurting “innocents”, we are bogged down and going nowhere. We are so afraid of world opinion, we were letting our troops get shot and killed from cemetaries, because we weren’t allowed to blow up mosques! That is ridiculous. ALL of the soldiers, on both sides, are innocents. Our troops signed up to protect our country, and they were told we have to kill the taliban to do this. Most of them probably realize that’s bullshit, but what are they to do? Their troops are mainly illiterate farmers, one or two generations removed from being nomads. The only book most of them will ever see or read is the koran. Well, muhhamed says it’s okay to kill the infidel. When the one you think is god tells you to do it, (through the imams), what are they to do? Both armies are being fed a bunch of bullshit from their leaders. The citizens in both countries have a great share of the blame, for allowing these things to continue.

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By godistwaddle, August 17, 2009 at 11:40 am Link to this comment

Transferring troops to Afghanistan gives the Afghans a better chance to show that they,  like the Iraqis, can demonstrate their patriotism by killing their brutal invaders, occupiers, and disrupters (with bombs) of their wedding parties.

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By coloradokarl, August 17, 2009 at 8:08 am Link to this comment

At first I could not figure out why Obama wanted to “finish the job” in Afhanistan. Was it “look I am tough too” campaign rhetoric? or maybe he is paying off campaign bribes to the Military Industrial Complex?. Maybe, Just maybe, it is pay back to all the kids in Kansas who always picked him to be the Indian and now he wants to show everyone he can be a Cowboy, A TOUGH COWBOY!!!

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