Exclusive: Gates Delays Troop Decision

if the commander on the ground wants more troops ,give them to him,or get out. we will have another Somolia, where they wanted tanks, and clinton wouldn’t give them. if it’s worth fighting, then win it, asap.

Either give the commander what it takes to make a difference, or pull out. Our government needs the guts to be decisive, one way or the other. We owe it to the troops who have volunteered to serve their country.

I’m all for adding troops into A’stan if the Gens on the ground are asking for it.
However A’stan is a different battle than Iraq. The terrain which AQ knows well will get us killed. Sending in SOF and SF would be better. Not 30000 troops that will be targets for AQ and the TB.

Greg: “Remember VN? Same strategy, same situation.”
Really? I didn’t realize the Taliban were being supported by a neighboring superpower like China.
The delay is because Obama’s team wants to take a week or two to actually HAVE a strategy before throwing our boys into a meat grinder.

This sounds familiar!!!

I smell a resignation coming. The headlines in a few days will most likely read “Secretary of Defense Gates resigns to return to Academia” or “Secretary of State Gates resigns to spend more time with his family”

I think going into Afghanistan is a decision worse than going into Iraq.
We must not forget, pakhtoons lost millions of lives, but brought down the soviet empire in the end.
They may lose million more lives, but will not yield and, in the end Americans will not be able to continue the war,exactly like Soviet Union was not able to afford it and, pulled away.
I think, Obama should open up communication channels with Pakhtoon leaders in Afghanistan & north west frontier province of Pakistan including FATA, to keep temperatures down and, reach some middle ground agreement of peace.
We cannot afford wars.
America is already broke and borrows heavily from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea.

Joy: “Congress needs to stop micromanaging, and let the battlefield commanders do their jobs. ”
? How on earth has Congress been micromanaging? Bush got everything he wanted without debate, from alliances with the local warlords to military operations in Pakistan to payoffs of local strongmen. Give one real example of Congress micromanaging this.

Look at the facts on the ground people. Kyrgyzstan is closing their airfields to us (Putin 1 – Obama 0) and the Pakistani Army cannot keep the Khyber Pass open. That Mumbai attack worked like a charm. Now that the Pakistanis are glaring over the border at the Indians the Taliban are free to blow up bridges and ambush convoys. How are we going to sustain 3 additional BCT’s plus NATO if we cannot guarantee our lines of communication? CENTCOM can’t be too happy. Gates and the Joint Staff must be having fits right now.

If you keep screwing around in Afghanistan like Bush did, we are in for a world of harm as the Taliban regroups and our dopey intelligence does not get it right!!!!

My advise to Obama’s administration is to redefine our goal in Afghan because we can not afford to have another 4-years of war.

Strategically, our troops in Afghanistan are cut off from reliable land-line supply, and we are now dependent on Russia, who wants us out of the region.
This is the result of failed Bush Administration Geopolitical Strategy and its absolute incompetence and lack of foresight.
The Obama Administration is (unlike the Bush Administration) taking a serious look at our nation’s strategic goals, situation and means.
It’s a crying shame that we’ve had troops over there for seven years without having a serious review like this until now.

We can’t afford to run our own country why are we trying to run other countries. The troops won’t have a home to come back to if we keep spending money at this rate. Does anyone remember why we are in the Middle East Anyway. Weren’t the terrorists from Saudi Arabia?

The U.S. has failed to learn the same lessons as the Russians and similarly after eight years, has not been able to attain an acceptable level of security and stability within Afghanistan. The U.S. will not achieve an acceptable level even if it “surges” “four divisions totaling 108,800 personnel (73,000 combat units)” as the Soviet 40th Army deployed between “April 1985 to April 1986” when they suffered their heaviest losses.
Building relationships with Pashtun Tribes through USSOCOM forces is the only way to go. Together they can defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban without escalating the war.
Question: Why is it that 500 (+) Native Americans don’t fall under the U.S. Gov?
Answer: They prefer tribal governance mediated through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Maybe we should review our own history.

Gates should show he is doing what the president wants, not what Gates and generals want

God already saved us from the republicans and their wanting to keep us in perpetual wars.Iraq is and will be remembered as another Vietnam. a big mistake even if Sadamm was killed.remember we helped put him in power.AS long as the one side continues to be paid not to fight maybe things will quite down .Everyone gripes about money being spent on the stimulus but forgot the billions spent on this war that should never had happened. Maybe if we had kept our eye on the real culprit bin Ladin would have been long gone.I think the Afgan people also need to take care of their affairs.WE can’t afford to fund wars without end.

Democracy building is the only way to ensure victory and long term peace. To abandon that goal is to abandon Afghanis to a future of dire violence and continued hatred.
No two democracies have ever made war on each other. Period.
What is ‘democracy?’ Purely and simply the right of the people to choose its leaders and the powers they will wield. There can be no defence of those who stand opposed to such a pure and necessary establishment.
As John F Kennedy said: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Often wars aren’t about winning or losing, but instead about what is right and just- so long as those goals are ours there can be no defeat- real or imagined.

Democracy is a noble goal for Afghanistan, but it will definitely test the bounds of “paying and price and bearing any burden”. Most of the people of Afghanistan don’t know they live in Afghanistan. They do not appreciate the need or benefit of a nation-state, let alone a central government. The country has insufficient resources to generate revenue to pay for the infrastructure it would take to create an maintain an education system, let alone a security system assure stability. The international community met an created the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS), but has failed to meet their individual commitments to support it (ref. Sec Gates trips last year). If, as a country, we are going to adopt this problem area, we need to have a clear understanding of the level and duration of the commitment involved – and do not underestimate it. We have no clear exit strategy for any course at this point. Regardless of how we got there or whether we should be there, we are there.. There is no exit or stay plan without high cost in risk and capital outlay. Even Superman can’t be everywhere.

The war in Afghanistan is a bigger loser than Iraq.

Afghan officials report foriegn fighters are pouring into Afghanistan from Iraq . Since the surge in Iraq violence has increased in Afghanistan. The 2 are connected and are not totally separate issues as Obama would like to project.

Obama is incompetent — surely that’s clear.

Afghanistan has never been a unified democratic state. Never in history. And it will not be one now.
There may be national security reasons for us to have a military force in Afghanistan, for a period of time…say a year or two. But our troops should not be used to bring about pluralistic democratic national govt there.

It is a mistake to continue the increase military build up in Afghanistan. After nearly a trillion dollars spent in Iraq our economy and financial circumstances can not maintain the enormous drain on our treasure. America’s infra-structure has been neglected, especially during the last 8 years. We are repeating a failed strategy. One of Bin Laden’s stated objective is to lure America into never ending conflicts and wars. There is an attempt to wound America’s economy and finances. It looks like Bush accommodated Bin Laden and Obama if he is not careful, will continue this failed strategy.

Maybe the suicide rate is so high they cannot find enough healthy troops to send. How many more tours of duty for lost causes? The Pentagon strategy of “KIll all the bad guys” is a miserable failure. Bring all the troops home to protect them from our incompetent generals. 8 years of killing the poorest people on nearth is quite enough. Troops need a rest and generals need arrest.

Gates is one of those remaining from the Bush criminal enterprize who is totally committed to sabotaging the Obama Administration.
Gates and the Generals in charge of the war theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq who willfully go against or become intentional obstructions to the expressed objectives and directives of the President or Commander in Cheif have according to the law committed the crime of treason.
If our new Attorney General would arrest just one of these scumbags the rest will resign and run for countries without extridition treaties so fast our collective heads will spin.

Capture Bin Laden and the taliban will fall apart a man using dialysis can’t be hard to find he will need medical attention sometime. Find him!!!!!

obama is a gift to russia, china and various nefarious tin horns around the world it is not a coincidence russia set sail to our back yard as soon as the push over was elected

The parallels to Vietnam aren’t such a stretch : it’s half a world away, the hidey-hole-rich terrain is a logistical nightmare, the enemy has no fear of dying – welcomes it, even – and they have a billion potential recruits to draw on virtually indefinitely. In short, this war is no more ‘winnable’ than Vietnam was, so better that we acknowledge that now, as LBJ should have done in ’68, and pull our precious men and women outta there while they’re still alive and in one piece. If the military want to go after Al Qaeda training camps from the air using ever more sophisticated targeting systems, that would make sense, but not this open-ended cannon fodder delivery system.

As Clausewitz said above, building a relationship with the tribal leaders and persuading them that it’s not in their best interest to have Al Qaeda and the Taliban like a cancer in their midst, as happened in Iraq when the locals helped shut down the bad guys, is definitely the way to go. That, in tandem with Special Forces on the ground (who, btw, had Bin Laden cornered 7 years ago but weren’t given the nod to pull the plug on him), making pin-point raids on the enemy, in coordination with airpower. But trying to go mano a mano with these guys on their own turf is a losing proposition, as several other ‘Great Powers’ have discovered over the centuries.

I have become so cynical, that sometimes, that little ray of hope comes through. Mr. Gates, if you too, feel this little ray of doubt about this war, I beg you for all of humanity to reconsider.
Ask yourself, what can be accomplished or gained by more deaths and destruction? Is this mans destiny?

WOW..so predictable…..after years of castigating Bush about the war in Iraq….and sounding the “battle cry” that more troops are needed in Afghanistan……where the “real war on terror” was……………….the war in Iraq was a “distraction” …………now we see the real motive of the left………….I wonder if they are ready to launch ground attacks into Pakistan where the taliban and al queda are???? What HYPOCRISY.

It takes money yes! Is it not a shame having all our troops pluss 26 countries all trying to show peace while our own country is broke as othersits also them little wars thats sucking us dry,since the war began it sucseeded the enemy to hit Wall Street “the results we all hear everey da’”!

so short!!!!!

I’m not sure most people have a real “holistic” view of what’s going on over there… the truth is so incredibly complicated. For an insight into the mentoring of the ANA, and the ridiculousness that is a modern military apparatus, read “Don’t Clean the Table with a Floor Mop,” by a Naval officer who spent a year mentoring the Afghan National Army.

Afghanistan is not a good idea. Put our troops in an isolated land locked dead end, with our only means of supply or escape being through Pakistan, Iran or Russia. Going in we had support of two out of three, now we have none. Napoleon, Eisenhower or Rommel would not put themselves in a situation like that. Genl. Custer might.