The 30,000 U.S. troops President Obama is launching at Afghanistan could fit comfortably inside Fenway Park, that "lyric little bandbox" of a baseball field, as John Updike so memorably described it, the home of my Boston Red Sox. They would not constitute a sellout. Give bleacher tickets to the additional troops the NATO countries are sending to Afghanistan and you might attain standing-room-only status.
The U.S. troops already in Afghanistan would all find seats in the football stadium at Penn State, home of the Nittany Lions (what the heck is a Nittany Lion, anyway?).
Put them all together in Afghanistan, give each soldier his own patch of land to defend, and you would have one soldier every three-and-a-half square miles, give or take a hectare or three. Afghanistan's land area is equal to that of California -- plus Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware. Big place. But half of our men and women wouldn't be alone on that forbidding landscape -- every other coalition soldier would have the company of an Afghan National Army soldier. And if the Taliban were equally dispersed, there would be one insurgent every twenty-one square miles, giving fits to the nine coalition and ANA soldiers stationed there, plus the forty-five Afghan civilians trying to eke out a living there growing pomegranates or poppies.
Of course, that's not the way it works in real life, but the numbers do help give a sense of scale to the mission. Vast areas of Afghanistan are empty, or nearly so, and the great bulk of the coalition and Afghan forces will be concentrated around the population centers such as Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad. Still, crossing those vast empty spaces remains a problem for the movement of commerce and military supplies due to the ease with which the insurgents can plant IEDs on the roads and local bandits or militias can set up "toll booths," and someone has to patrol them. The more one does the numbers, the more The Surge looks like tokenism. And if the 30,000 are tokens, why send them at all? Some of them will die there and many others will be badly hurt.
In Iraq, the Surge was coupled with the so-called Sunni Awakening, as Sunni chiefs partnered with the U.S. forces to attack al Qaeda of Mesopotamia. A similar strategy may be possible in Afghanistan, and there may be opportunities to cut deals with local khans and empower local militias, and bring local Taliban into the economic development process. This is happening on a small scale, which is traditionally how things happen in Afghanistan, and the sooner we can give the Afghans back their traditions the sooner we can leave.
Ditto for Afghanistan.
This will be adding to the already existing 70,000 uniformed American military, an unspecified number of non-uniformed mercenary military estimated at nearly the same number as uniformed military and nearly 50,000 NATO uniformed military.
The total American commitment for Afghanistan country building is estimated to be nearly $200 Billion per year. Far less than Obama's commitment to restoring American competitiveness, helping American middle-class or American small business.
al Qaeda has already gone. They left years ago.
Would Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan recommend an investment of this size for such a small return with so litlle chance of success? I doubt it.
So, what's the point of this? Why throw good money after bad? Why risk even more American blood, limbs, and lives?
Isn't it really to protect American big-company accounting profits from the American jobs offshored to India and Pakistan?
*HELP WANTED SUPPORTING U.S. ARMED FORCES AND COALITION FORCES*
There's one thing about the discussion of whether you agree with the surge, or disagree with the surge - it is a moot point - it's happening regardless of one's political affilations or ideology.
And where will the boots-on-ground, grunt labor force providing material support come from to feed, house and take care of all those U.S. and coalition troops?? How will the daunting task concerning the logistics of receiving these troops be addressed?? Exactly who will build, maintain and sustain the infrastructure for the new and existing bases in Afghanistan?? logcap4jobs.com provides some incredibly honest, raw, unfiltered, truly *viral* information for anyone considering going to work on the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, and precisely what those intrepid enough to endure the living conditions for a hefty paycheck can expect. The U.S. and coalition troops look to civilians (primarily Americans), working on LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) for their meals, to do their laundry, take out the trash, keep their living quarters warm in the winter, cool in the summer and much, much more. Imagine for a moment all the disciplines required to build a small city and you'll begin to get an idea of the scope of work necessary to perform the monumental task required to support so many troops - from engineers, to carpenters, to plumbers, to truck drivers - the list goes on.
It's a job.....and somebody's sure gotta do it.