Afgan surge reaches peak

[30ashopper]

There are now 97,000 American personnel in Afghanistan. It is unclear precisely how many take direct part in combat operations. Top commanders have long sought to reduce the number of logisticians and support staff, and increase the number of frontline troops who leave their bases on missions.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, known as the International Security Assistance Force, declined to discuss "predecisional operational plans and concepts," said Rear Adm. Vic Beck, an ISAF spokesman.

Fighting intensifies every year in Afghanistan when the snow melts in the mountain passages, allowing fighters to flow back into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

In a strategy review released in December, the White House said the Taliban's momentum has been arrested in much of Afghanistan, but warned those gains could be reversed, citing the threat posed by militants crossing the border from Pakistan.

Senior defense officials hope to build on what they see as recent military gains in clearing Taliban insurgents out of their southern strongholds, with the goal of exhausting the insurgents and forcing at least some of the movement's leaders to the negotiating table.

Come June, a senior U.S. official said, commanders should be able to assess the extent to which U.S.-led offensives over the past year have weakened the Taliban, or whether the insurgency is bouncing back.

U.S. Boosts Afghan Surge - WSJ.com

Am I the only person who seems to be able to remember we're fighting a major war in Afghanistan right now? Does the media even care? I haven't seen a news report on this war in over a year.

 

[30ashopper]

Related:

Afghanistan, February 2011 - The Big Picture - Boston.com

 

[MrMentalFitness]

Since when the heck did "OVERWHELMING FORCE" become a genius military strategy? Why, when some jackass forgot to send enough troops in the FIRST place, that's when!

Surge. Pheh. Should've been over with already, not that it should have been done at all.

You don't go into slobberknocker with a few dudes - you go in with a population, get it over with, and get the heck outta dodge. First though, you have to know when you have no business going in, period.

 

[scooterbug44]

Very interesting discussion last night on the Daily Show about how many contractors we have fighting our wars for us and how much it is costing us.

One of the WTF moments was when the guest (a prof from Middlebury college) noted that if we didn't use all these contractors to do the same job as our troops (and we pay them 3-4x as much BTW) we wouldn't have enough personnel and we would need a draft.

And THAT would be what got the public's attention and scrutiny of these wars to the level many of us would like it to be at.