80,000 is the High Number of Troops Options in McChrystal’s Request

How many troops are there at this time?

40,000 or 80,000 whatever General McChrystal requests he should get. McChrystal was hand picked by Obama to lead Obama’s war in Afghanistan. Obama is allegedly the Commander in Chief and his top commander in the battlefield, McChrystal is the man that is actually leading the troops into battle and he is asking for more troops in order to fight Obama’s war. Now, I understand that many left wingers and liberals believe we should get out of Afghanistan, Iraq etc. My question to them is what happens after we do. Do we just bring them home and let Obama present his Nobel Peace Prize to AlQaeda and the Taliban so that we can live happy and in peace from here on. Where do you liberals have your heads stuck into?

NEWSFLASH There are more troops in Afghanistan that were in the “surge” in Iraq… And the press says… Nothing! Thanks “Fawning Corporate Media”, Hey ABC, how many bombs did GE sell today! How much Afghan and Pakistan blood is on YOUR hands, let alone O’bomba’s. NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, SHAMELESS War profiteers!!! If the lies never stop, then the profits will never end, no matter how many are maimed or killed. Life must be good for those who have the ability to profit off of wars they proclaim to protest. (At least depending on the party affiliation of the one who is ordering the atrocites to continue unabated!) FOR SHAME!!!

I agree with crusher, I’m seeing similarities with Bush Irak’s campaign. They’re arguing how many troops, where to bomb, etc, but no one is saying why the heck are the troops there.

For the general to seek as many as 80,000 extra troops, it means the situation is bad. Either send the extra troops or get out of there. Stop playing games.

We have on the ground a Counter-terrorist expert and that is General McChrystal. The Counter-Insurgency expert is General Petraeus who proved his skill in Iraq. Our fight is in Pakistan where the most dangerous terrorist live and are given a safe haven. We give BILLIONS in money and aid to Pakistan. There is something unprincipled with Pakistan. We need to secure Pakistans nukes and finish Al Qaeda and the Taliban with Special Forces and surgical precision. General McChrystal is the man for the job.

Louie-Try some decaf in the morning!!! Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not opposing groups, you don’t hear about them fighting one another. They do support each others efforts and the drug trade is currently funding the Talbin where Al Qaeda has been put in pinch due to our efforts. Supporting our General in his stratgy or our troops in the field isn’t prowar and certainly not after 9-11. However I am sure you have some ideas about how that came about, don’t you?

Didn’t we vote for CHANGE? We just got another 4 years of W. Bush. For the most part same policies, same ridiculous spending, same cowboy “my way or the highway” attitude.
Again, where’s the change? How’s everyone’s (exluding the Wall Street elite) paycheck looking these days? Working harder and seeing less? Hang on, it’s gonna get worse…..

This week’s “Frontline”, on PBS, follows a Marine platoon through Helmond province. At one point, a frustrated Marine asks villagers, “Why won’t you help us.” They look on in silence – or disbelief.
An away-from-troops interview with an English-speaking Afghan results in: “If we tell the Marines anything, the next day the Taliban know what we said.”
Additionally, the U.S. was there before and promised the village leaders of Helmond medical aid, generators, etc. if they would support us. Many did -then we pulled out and left them twisting in the wind when the Taliban came back – unopposed. And now we expect them to trust us?
Frontline also showed Karzai and his running mates – one a torturer and on an opium manufacturer. The low-paid government bureaucrats are charging people bribes or kickbacks just to do what they should do for free. Much U.S. aid money is lining the pockets of Karzai’s cronies.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has a shadow government in place all across Afghanistan. And the top people send investigators to villages asking if the Taliban governor in their area is treating them correctly – and removing those bureaucrats who aren’t. They have a 30 page book describing how they’re supposed to interact with people. Karzai doesn’t bother with anything like that.
Unless some serious changes are made in the Afghan government, there’s no reason to spend our time and money there.

It is very easy to say just get out but have any of you suggesting we get out thought of the consequences? If we quit now we what do we do when the terrorists overrun Afghanistan then go on to invade Pakistan and take over the nukes? The General requests 80,000 troops, the General who is the guy Obama picked to fight the war gets the troops so he can fight the war, anything less will be a disgrace and a catastrophe.

one would have to have studied Islam to know that Muslims can never be friends with infedels. they will use our men and women along with our money for thier own ends. yes we are being usefull dhimmis, to bad our government leaders do not know the true nature of Islam.

As Crusher said, “No one seems able to define who the enemy is, what the strategy is, or what goals are to be achieved in Afghanistan. What are we doing there?”. These are my biggest concerns too.
If we’re trying to “win” the war in Afghanistan, why stop at 40k or 80k troops? Why not go in with way more than what they “think” is required to win this stupid war, like 150k troops, and just get it over with as quickly as possible so we can get busy rebuilding our own country? And why, in Iraq or Afghanistan, have we not seen the massive air strikes with pin-point accuracy such as what we saw in Desert Storm in `90-`91??? Those air strikes made all the difference to the ground troops then as I’m sure they would for our troops now. It’s been 15 years since Operation Desert Storm and our current technology should be even more accurate and devastating by now. If we’re going to continue with this at all, we should be bombing the heck out of them with massive air strikes to level their mountain hideouts and then send the troops in, with minimal casualties, to clean up the left overs. Bring on the shock and awe!
This administration seems to have learned nothing from the last and has the same misconceptions about troop levels in Afghanistan as the Bush administration thought would be necessary to “win” in Iraq. We haven’t won there yet either…. It’s just not in the news anymore because of all of the hype and focus on what Obama will do with Afghanistan….as it is now his war.
Does anyone else feel like this is all being dragged out for as long as it possibly can? The longer it goes on, the more middle eastern people seem to despise the United States and want to join the battle against us on the Afghanistan front. Our “enemy” grows in numbers by the day while our economy continues to tank. We’ve always got all the money in the world to fight war after war but never enough to fix our own country….ever.

CarpeDiem – You are 100% CORRECT ON ONE THING …This administration is a TALK, TALK, TALK …. DO NOTHING administration everyone has figured it out! EVEN THE TERRORISTS KNOW, WHY OBAMA WAS AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR DOING NOTHING!!!!!

I wonder if all the family members of those serving and the brave soldiers over there are as pleased as some that Obama is taking his sweet time and thinking it over. He has met with all the top military officials, his advisors and historians. Everything has been laid out for him. All the facts presented. There is nothing new to add to the conversation. What is he waiting for? An epiphany? A sign from God? A full moon? He can’t make a decision so he is voting PRESENT and doing nothing. Anyone surprised?

The primary purpose of war is the consumption of men and materials in the pursuit of natural resources. Every other claim is propaganda. As decorated WWII hero Major General Smedley Butler said, “War is a racket.” I realize US schools no longer teach much world history, so a refresher is needed– the Russians threw 500,000 troops into Afghanistan in the 1980′s and were handed their hat after 10 years of losses. Their country literally went broke fighting there. Charlie Wilson, US Senator and champion of the Mujahadeen against the Soviets, called them “the best fighters in the world”. They should be– they’ve been fighting for decades, expelling every single nation which has occupied their lands. We cannot afford the arrogant assumption that “some number” of additional US troops will hand us a different fate.

WAKE UP, folks! We sent 500,000 troops to Vietnam, a country 1/3rd the size of Afghanistan, and still couldn’t control the countryside. We’ve spent 300 BILLION there in 8 years, enough to send 5,000,000 young Americans to State college on full scholarships. In 8 years you could graduate TWO consecutive MEDICAL SCHOOL CLASSES, yet we can’t train an adequate sized Afghan army in that time??? If the Afghans won’t band together and defeat their own internal foes, then why should we pay for their failure to defend themselves???

lfrichar,the truth hurts, right? Get used to it!

If the EU NATO troops aren’t up to being the front-line offensive force then they should be the ones training Afghan forces, securing towns and cities. The effective fighting forces need to be going after the enemy and not be distracted by sitting in defensive postures.

TX_MBell — Good post. They have proven over the past 6 years they are worthless when it comes to warfighting. Their peacekeeping skills are also in question.

When is the media going to start using the term troop correctly? A troop is not one or two soldiers. You should be using the term soldiers instead of troops if you don’t know how many soldiers are in a troop.