There have been problems with the Commanders NOT using a well designed, highly Mobil Reaction Force(s), is very clear.

More is not necessarily better.

The Cmdr.In Chief has given clear warning to Nations, “The US is not going to rescue you every time, you MUST take initiative in your own defense”.

Sounds pretty clear to me !

The former Soviets misused their SOF,and Hvy Conventional Forces and lost.

This should be a lesson to the Strategists of this nation, –OR– Repeat History.

Hand Holding belongs to the State Dept. NOT DoD.

Mr. Gates,is working on the “Thinking Process” of the Pentagon, and rightly so.

The Cmdr.In Chief is being slammed for “rhetoric” from the “Generals”.

He is trying to clean up the mess, caused by the “Incompetent” before he took the helm.

Stop with the Race,Religion,and Re-Election Card — It isn’t there People !

Way too many “Chicken Hawks” at the Pentagon!

LTC Shirley, evidently you don’t know squat about NATO. NATO is just a bunch of European countries on welfare from the US taxpayer. None of those countries are going to do crap over there except the bare minimum.

LTC Shirley, you can’t be a US Army LTC without being well-educated, but you didn’t learn crap in your classes.

I knew when Bush turned over Afghan ops to NATO it was going to be the flustercuck that it is… and if you could not see that, those silver leaves on your shoulders shouldn’t be there.

That’s a major part of it, but it’s NOT the essential piece. The essential piece of the plan is to come up with a battle plan that will work, and if Gen. McChrystal is as smart as I think he is, he will NOT let the moronic desk jockeys at the Pentagon plan it out, or even worse, the idiots (Bill Ayers, Axelrod, Emmanuel, or worse yet, Joe Biden) in the White House.

Gen. McChrystal’s got to use EXPERIENCED officers to map out the plan or he’s sunk.

Fact is, al-Qaeda is now mostly in Pakistan, and anyway, is a stateless terrorist movement. We should be interfering with that organization wherever it is, and not tying ourselves to COIN-nation building projects. As Col. Gian Gentile points out quite often over at Abu Muqawama, the kind of outside-in COIN we’re trying in Astan basically has never worked. Not that we have the forces to do it in any case.

The correct strategy flows from what we can do with what we have to do it. Enough of this binary rhetoric and fear-mongering. We can really do a hell of a lot, if we don’t try to do too much.

obama fool is going to kill many more Americans with his flip floppy way of doing business. I mean, come on.…not wanting to win the war in Afghanistan is like lets say, signing the death warrants for many more American soldiers fighting over seas due to emboldened terrorists, and many more here at home due to Afghanistan regaining the ground it once was as the launching pad for some of the most horrific attacks this country has witnessed in a generation.

I know government officials read this from time to time, so I will ask, obama wht side are you on, the terrorists or ours?

That’s a key point right there. Set aside for a minute the military issues and ask where do I go from here? Do I support a corrupt HoS that has lost the support of his own people and further alienate them from me, or how do I remove that HoS legally and not get the blowback from his own supporters, avoiding a civil war in the process.

Militarily, no question the logistic footprint needs to be large enough to readily support additional combat forces should they be introduced. Sending forces and supporting them on a shoestring should be criminal.

It looks like the Pentagon as well as the WH needs to come to consensus on how to define then accomplish the mission.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/world/asia/23policy.html?hp

“Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.

The Americans would accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban. But the emphasis would shift to Pakistan. Mr. Biden has often said that the United States spends something like $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 in Pakistan, even though in his view the main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan.”

While the President takes his time with health care, financial system regulation, and economic recovery, good men and women are dieing in Afghanistan, from lack of resources. If the Adminstration doesn’t want to send more troops-fine, but then scrap the whole counterinsurgency/nation building strategy. You can’t expect to accomplish the current counterinsurgency/nation building strategy without a large build up of troops on the ground. Only fools like Senator Levin think one can’t go without the other. Please hurry up and choose Mr. President!