US in Afghanistan failure warning - BBC

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Just more time, more troops, and more money and we'll find the glorious light at the end of the tunnel.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

Rudyard Kipling

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8266072.stm

The US mission in Afghanistan will "likely result in failure" unless troops are increased within a year, the top general there has said in a report. Gen Stanley McChrystal made his assessment in a copy of a confidential report obtained by the Washington Post.

Gen McChrystal, who took over as military commander in May, is expected to make a separate request for tens of thousands of extra forces to be deployed. He also says that training for Afghan forces needs to be speeded up.

In his latest assessment, Gen McChrystal is quoted by the Washington Post newspaper as saying: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term ... risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

"Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us - physically and psychologically - from the people we seek to protect," he says.

[necso]

1. Among my favorite bits of poetry;

a tad grim, perhaps.

[FarCenter]

2. Field Marshall Montgomery's rules --

"The US has broken the second rule of war. That is, don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. Rule One is don't march on Moscow. I developed these two rules myself."

(spoken of the US approach to the Vietnam War) Quoted in Chalfont's Montgomery of Alamein.

[unhappycamper]

3. Like Jon Stewart said

"Afghanistan is the Gold Standard of Quagmires".

I certainly hope Obama listens.