The link: Ten US soldiers killed in Afghanistan (timesonline.co.uk)
A quote:
The US has suffered some of its worst casualties in eastern Afghanistan, where its soldiers have sought to control the remote passes through which Taleban fighters infiltrate from Pakistan, but it had planned shortly to withdraw from the area as part of General McChrystal’s strategy to focus on protecting population centres.
If you do one thing, it means you can’t do another. You can’t do two things at the same time. It’s the economics of time, energy, and resources.
I was skeptical when the other general was relieved by McChrystal several months ago. The upbeat impression given at the time was that McChrystal had some fandangled, amazing expertise in how to deal with counterinsurgency warfare.
From only about a week ago, this, McChrystal: Conventional Strategy Won’t Win in Afghanistan (defencetalk.com):
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan ardently believes that conventional military thinking and actions won’t win the counterinsurgency war there.
“What I’m really telling people is; the greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here,” Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal told “60 Minutes” news program correspondent David Martin during a profile segment that aired tonight.
Additionally,
Protecting the Afghan population from a resurgent Taliban and thus gaining their support is the key tenet of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, McChrystal told Martin.
“If the people are against us, we cannot be successful,” McChrystal said. “If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can’t be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically,”
It appears that casualties went up very soon after McChrystal began implementing his methods.
It’s a noble thing to die to protect another person, but positive-think is no substitute for simple manpower when manpower is what’s needed to do te job.
If the priority is protecting citizens, and it’s acknowledged that there’s a price for us to pay to do that, then maybe that’s what we should do. But without honesty, you can’t deal with reality.
Filed under: War
