Gates: Americans Won't Accept "Long Slog" In Afghanistan

Los Angeles Times:

After eight years, U.S.-led forces must show progress in Afghanistan by next summer to avoid the public perception that the conflict has become unwinnable, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a sharp critique of the war effort.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[t iessa]

Obama's plan includes "doubling the army's ranks to 135,000 and the police force to 80,000 by 2011" according to CNN.

This doesn't sound like he is planning to pull out any time soon to me.

Bring 'em home. Concentrate on our problems here. As someone earlier said, this will be Obama's Viet Nam and it is what his administration will be remembered for if he doesn't change his plans soon.

[totaldisbelief]

Hmmmm....s­omebody somewhere must be making a buck on this Afghan B/ullcrap

[wehrke]

I am to the point where I feel all this foreign military nonsense has to stop. This is not a war. Its a police action. Our money and our young are being waisted in the sands of Afghanistan. Why must we be the world's police force?

What are our goals? What will this war accomplish?

[totaldisbelief]

our goal is to keep using 25 cents out of every tax dollar so it can't be used for anything that actually makes any sense.

[6550orbust]

Gee, maybe we should ask the Russians how they won.

[rabiddog6708]

No nation has been able to tame this region and many have tried.

[totaldisbelief]

they won by packing up and going back to Russia.

[ThinkCreeps]

Or the british twice, alexander the great once... the graveyard of empires

[larry278]

Secty Gates, the forces who hold the American PFC, aren't going to give us, the USA, a year to be in Afghanistan. These people will demand lots of money & other considerations of us, the USA, for releasing the PFC to us, the USA. They will get everything that they are demanding of the USA. All of the musicians in the USA's armed forces are going to have to learn that old hit from the Korean War, "Bug Out Boogie". It was written 2 days after US forces landed in Korea. The GI's who will be returning from Afghanistan will be singing it now & till they get back to the states. They might sing it to the tune of the ever popular, "Maggie's Drawer's". The lyrics start, "She took them off & hung them on line. They was so...that the sun refused to shine..."

[KeysDan]

Well, the program we heard about from Obama and Gates was that there was study underway to determine what to do in Afghanistan, but in the meanwhile, we would just add more troops. It would have seemed that we would first have a plan, and then add, if necessary, troops. These guys are fighting the same kind of war as the Soviets did in Afghanistan, and we do know how that worked out, for the Soviets. Maybe, Gates should recommend that the Pentagon budget should be cut in half, with re-allocation of that money, in equal parts, to the State Department to intensify diplomatic efforts and to the CIA, for smart warfare. Military operations on the moonscape of Afghanistan are pretty old-fashioned, but, then, it is hard for these old generals to ever change despite an occasional progressive thinker.

[linton]

... or bring them home.

[mabinog]

Hasn't being in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last free kin 8 years been a long slog already?

the goof

[hulagirrrl]

These two wars have contributed to the financial trouble this country is in. Reading history books it shows that there has never been a foreign force successful in that region, another large nation tried, Russia, and finally pulled out licking their wounds. This country should have moved with caution. When I look at the way people live and dress in Afghanistan, it reminds me that they are not yet in "our time" they still live in biblical times, and when we come with our wisdom, a lot of it is lost on them, they are in a different world, culture and time zone.
To add to that, the poppy fields are still blooming, and I know that some Nato troops expressed their frustration that they were not permitted to burn them any longer, as they had done when they first came down there. Basically, the tax payers are subsidizing the protection of a whole bunch of drug dealers down there, and I think that is wrong in so many ways. I hope that they will pull out after a year.

[beaupritchard]

No ... I don't suppose we will ... but that's not a bad thing.

[MakeAWish]

Mr. Gates, THERE IS NO PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THIS WAR, not only in the short term, but also the long term. It's time to stop being the big brother of the world and making it okay and legal for the war profiteers to make out like bandits. War, is killing this country and others. It has bankrupt this country.

Why is it, that we can afford and justify wars, but not health care?

[robbep]

Why Obama expanded this war I will never know. This war is the quicksand that is going to suffocate his presidency. I suspect he expanded the war to show the repubs he wasnt weak and he is afraid of an attack on US soil. I just dont see the wisdom in his decision on this. We cant afford it, and the people who struck us on 911 died with their victims. We have spent trillions of dollars, lost thousands of soldiers, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, lost our image in the world, to fight a war against terrorism that will nvr be won. We just created hundreds of thousands of terrorist in Iraq bcz we killed their relatives for no reason. Al Queda cnt defeat us on a traditional battlefield but what they have done is bankrupt us financially and morally. Why is it that killing people is the only thing we can get our leaders to pay for and agree on. Expediting this war in Afghanistan is madness. It is easy to get into things like war but it is hard to get out of them.

[cdembrey]

I guess he just wanted to join Lyndon Johnson in the history books.

[KeysDan]

One sage comment we did hear from LBJ was that the military was so determined to save his face, that they lost his trousers. But, the lesson is never learned prospectively--only on hindsight. Iraq was Bush's war and now Afghanistan will become Obama's.

[hopefull2008]

" After eight years, U.S.-led forces must show progress in Afghanistan by next summer to avoid the public perception that the conflict has become unwinnable, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a sharp critique of the war effort."

... 'to avoid the public perception' ? ... the public can't find Afghanistan on a map and are barely aware that we are there let alone why we are there. (But of course they faithfully support the troops .. ) It might be time to start using your own judgement Mr. Secretary. If I was to guess, I'd say the Brits are about 6 months away from a pullout announcement. Well ?

[hopefull2008]

P.S. .. you might want to keep an eye on Mexico ...

[kfdan]

"U.S. forces must begin to turn the situation around in a year, he said, or face the likely loss of public support."

Gates is indulging in meaningless babble. The troops will meander around them-thar hills and their bosses in the field will increasingly become frustrated by the hugh resistance they find. Afghanistan is another Vietnam !

[toxicbrainpoison]

What is the point? They are just flying drones around and shooting people. It doesnt seem as if anything has been accomplished. They did lock some people up in Guantanamo but most of them were just sheep farmers, not terrorists. If they are trying to defeat Al Qaida the money would be better spent on schools. Well be loved forever and people would pursue intellectual pursuits and not want to bomb things.

[SamKnause]

Since when does anyone in Washington D.C. care about what we the people think? I say pack all the troops up and bring them home from Iraq and Afghanistan.