McChrystal's "Ground Truth": Need Half a Million Boots on the Ground

Journalist Andrea Mitchell has noted that General McChrystal's report to President Obama calls for 500,000 troops in Afghanistan. [That's not 500,000 U.S. troops, but 500,000 troops overall.] Mitchell correctly notes that if you don't believe that the goals in McChrystal's report for increasing the size of the Afghan army are realistic, that should lead you to question agreeing to send more U.S. troops, because the premise of the request for more troops is that if you add more U.S. troops there's going to be "success," and that success, apparently, requires 500,000 boots on the ground. If you don't believe there's going to be success even if you add more U.S. troops, then you shouldn't add more U.S. troops - you should do something else.

McChrystal has suggested that without more U.S. troops we will "fail" - but the same logic says that without more Afghan troops we will also "fail." If adding the additional U.S. troops will not lead to the required addition of Afghan troops, then U.S. policy will "fail," even with the additional U.S. troops.

Some have dismissed the concern occasioned by Mitchell's comments by saying of course there aren't going to be half a million U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It's certainly true that there aren't going to be half a million U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But supporters of sending more troops have to answer this: to defend sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, they have to defend their scenario that there's going to be 350,000 Afghan boots on the ground. Otherwise - according to General McChrystal - their plan is not going to work. Furthermore, they should say now what they will propose then if adding 40,000 more U.S. troops does not produce 350,000 Afghan troops. Do they promise not to ask for more U.S. troops? Would anyone believe such a promise?

Those who fear a slippery slope don't have to point to a hypothetical future. If you look at the debate happening in Washington, it's clear that we're already on the slippery slope. It's already being argued that it's "too late" to revisit the decisions that President Obama made earlier this year - under pressure from the military. We're committed, they say. Can we trust supporters of military escalation not to argue in six months that "now we're really committed"?

They wanted a surge; they got a surge. Their surge didn't work. In particular, dramatically increasing the deployment of foreign troops did not establish security for the Afghan election. Now they want another surge. How many surges must they get, before we can try something else - like, for example, dramatically pruning our list of enemies, as we did in Iraq, and talking about a timetable for military withdrawal, as we did in Iraq?

Andrea Mitchell:

And the other big issue, of course, that's on everyone's mind, not discussed so overtly, is Afghanistan. And, with the leaks that have come, most likely from the military, about the troop strengths and all this, you have to really wonder, what would people expect? The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops - boots on the ground - and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way.

So, you have to ask, would you prefer to have a president who doesn't shift strategy when he gets this kind of 'ground truth' from the commanders? Would you like to be locked in, to 8 years, 10 years of this? I mean, I think that those are some reasonable questions before everyone says Barack Obama's shifting position.

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Comments

[provgrays]

Ain't happening.

[offred]

Excellent interview on Bill Moyers Journal last night with Rory Stewart, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He walked across Afghanistan, talking with the real Afghan population, which is mostly rural and illiterate and knows only subsistence living.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09252009/profile.html

"People aren't going to put up with over 100,000 troops on the ground and this level of casualties forever. So, probably better for us, better for the Afghans, would be to step back and say, "Hey, we're not going to try to do all this stuff. We've got two very limited objectives. We'd like to make sure that Al Qaeda doesn't significantly increase its ability to harm the United States. And we'd like to do something for the Afghan people. And we recognize that doing those things is a very long term process, and so, we probably need fewer troops, not more."

[chiefjbw]

I'm curious how many of you making comments have ever been to an undeveloped country, friendly or not to America?

[offred]

It sounds like you've been to such countries. What's your opinion of US strategy in Afghanistan?

[oldgeek1]

And,..... a Bizzillon dollars, a pony, season tickets to the red skins on the 50 yard line and promotion to 5 star General.

[Fez]

Well, we can now say that General Eric Shinseki was right when he told George W. Bush that we needed 500,000 troops in Iraq and was fired for his efforts.

[cupcake65]

It's SEANCE time! Let's call up the ghosts of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara - throw in Gen, Westmorland, too. THEY would be good advisors.

[PAsteelers]

According to reliable intelligence sources in Washington, General Stanley McChrystal, slated to become the top American commander in Afghanistan, directed an entity known as the Terrorist Screen Center (TSC) in Iraq in 2003, which held Iraqi suspects in secret facilities in violation of the Geneva Conventions requirement that the Red Cross have access to all detainees.

The TSC existed before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal exploded in 2004, during a period when the United States, as an occupying power, fell under the Geneva obligation to provide Red Cross access.

McChrystal's appointment could be threatened if an investigation establishes his direction over the secret facilities. Under international law, delayed access for the Red Cross can be justified only due to a "military necessity," such as extreme battlefield conditions, a far different scenario from detaining and interrogating prisoners in secret locations.

McChrystal has been reprimanded by the Pentagon before. A 2007 Pentagon investigation found McChrystal responsible for falsifying a claim that blamed the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman on "devastating enemy fire." Tillman died of friendly fire.

[Mitzy]

350,000-500,000 is the correct troop amount according to the Powell Doctrine. It's also what Gen. Eric Shinseki, Ret. demanded of Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney and was promptly fired as a result. Without this troop force, the Afghanistan War is unwinnable and will bankrupt and collapse the U.S. as it did the Soviet Union. Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, and their stooge Bush will go down in history as three of the most ignorant leaders this country has every had.

[NCIndependant]

The failure of the US politicians and military to understand the basics of Afghanistan's long history is depressing. They don't want us there, like they didn't want the Russians there or the British before them. They will keep fighting us till we leave. The question is how much damage we let them do to us before we figure that out.

[ROFLMAO]

Independant?

[offred]

We all occasionally produce typos.

[offred]

We need to stop talking in terms of "winning" in Afghanistan. Or else we need to define realistically (narrowly) what "winning" is.

Imposing a democratic-style government on a culture that is in large part still a subsistence-living culture is impractical and undoable and a recipe for "losing."

[dosaybe]

and women?

[WilliePilgrim]

"we had to destroy the village to save it". I'm waiting for the equivalent statement from McChrystal and I think it is imminent considering the mental mindset that has once again captured the perceptions of our leadership and commanders. I know they're trying hard to make this vastly different from Vietnam, but the hardere they try, the more they ignore the reality.
Until some strategist can convince our leaders that destroying the village isn't an option and that we must address the huge amounts of money that will come to the various non-western supported forces of Afghanistan, there will be trouble...­.lots of it. Our paranoia over drugs has dimmed our vision. A perceptive leadership would create a UN agency witht he sole purpose of paying directly the farmers so they are no longer enthralled by the chieftans, warlords and taliban for protection and stability. The UN agency should be the only source of legal opiates for which there are genuine and good uses..and destroy the rest and watch the powerhungry forces of ignorance and greed fade away as their money is used up and farmers no longer need them and begin sending their children to schools. But I suspect, just as every empire has experienced since the times of Alexanders, Afghanistan will be the graveyard of armies for years to come.

[Romeover]

You can argue about whether "recreational" use of opiates is good, but there is no question that it is "genuine". For my part, I say: Legalize it. It is less dangerous and less addictive than alcohol, which is currently legal (here in the U.S, anyway). If you think opiate addicts are wasting their life, I ask you: what business is it of yours, so long as they don't hurt anyone?

[Saidas]

Since WWI and other than Gulf War I, this war thing isn't working out so well for us. Maybe we should consider something else. I'm just sayin'.

[Indra]

Obama needs an exit strategy. If he does not get one real soon, he is doomed and the legacy of his term will be garbage. The Russians have already tried it and it was their Viet Nam. Why do people forget so soon. The Russians tried like hell to bomb, maim, and kill Afghans into submission. It did not work. Leave them to their own devices and do the sanction thing. That is the only way. Also I might add that I do not feel like paying taxes so that any administration can police the world. We do not have enough money or blood for the task. Also Hillary Clinton should not be allowed to get anywhere near this issue. She is a total hawk and will only get us embroiled in the worst of ways. They should put her in the sub basement of the State Dept. pulling staples out of papers.

[Allannde]

Indeed this will be a very significant decision. As "backward" as Afghanistan seems to us, it has existed for centuries and has well established customs and practices for living. These things are deeply ingrained in their lives for good or bad. They may not be easily changed even if it seems like a good idea to us. The Taliban are mainly THEIR people. We are killing THEIR civilians. To some extent they see us as foreign occupiers. They see themselves as a collection of tribes more than as a nation.

How do we reconcile our interests with those of Afghanistan? What right do we have on their soil? After all, what really IS "winning"? How will we know it when we see it? Who is our ally and who is our enemy? "It depends" is not a good enough answer.

We bit off a lot and the chewing is hard.

[SeriousBlack]

Only one correction - "We" didn't bite off a lot. GEORGE W. BUSH DID. That is who we have to thank for this situation.

Congratulations georgie, you managed to start one disastrous war based on lies and ANOTHER disastrous war based on stupidity, that is now a quagmire.

Pathetic.

[NCAV2]

This will be Obama's single biggest foreign policy decision he will ever make. It will be one of the factors that makes or breaks his presidency. I hope he chooses wisely.

[countfloyd]

The ball is in his court.

[radicalcentrist44]

I think you are correct.