We'll Be Out Of Afghanistan Sooner, Than Later

Thoughts and analysis from Michael Yon before the next fighting season begins. I won't be surprised to see this become a drawdown year. And all things considered, that's probably for the best. The POTUS and his party do not have a tough war in them. Afghanistan would prove much tougher than Iraq. I don't want to see our blood and treasure wasted in what would likely be a half-hearted attempt. I'm not saying that is ideal. But it may be the lesser of two evils right now. Maybe I'm wrong. But I would anticipate Obama seizing upon something not much more than a short-term objective to declare and win and bolt. The larger issue, as on points out, is that we continue to knock down al Qaeda.

While we prepare to shunt perhaps 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan (which still will not be enough), Russia continues to play the Asian chessboard. The Russians are picking off pawn after pawn, and steadily eroding our foreign policy influence with them and other Central Asian countries. The Russians know that we need a land route through their country to Afghanistan, especially as we begin the slow process of increasing our combat presence. The Pakistan land route is one Achilles' heel to our Afghanistan effort, and Russia is working hard to make sure that Russia is the other Achilles' heel, which will strengthen the Russian position on matters such as missile defense. Russia, at the present rate, will eventually exercise considerable control over the spigot to Afghanistan. The Russians are successfully wrestling us into a policy arm-lock. While Russia takes American money and gains influence over our Afghan efforts, we will continue to spend lives and tens of billions of dollars per year on Afghanistan in an attempt to civilize what amounts to Jurassic Park.

Comments

[Terry Gain]

Iraq has 600,000 security personnel- police and army. The last figure I saw for Afghanistan -from CIA Factbook one year ago (data no longer available)- was 40,000. It Afstans won't stand up we may as well leave and return for bombing runs on their terrorist training camps.

[seekeronos]

Time to save money for once:

Withdraw all US armed forces inside our territory. Let other nations fend for themselves. We simply do not need - nor can afford - to police the world.

All we need to worry about externally is maintaining the ability to deliver certain and swift nuclear retribution to whoever attacks us.