Seems We're a Bit Shorthanded in Afghanistan

[Tuckerfan]

Surge of troops needed in Afghanistan.

Gates said that he wants to ensure that gains made against extremism in Afghanistan since the US invaded to topple the Taliban regime in October 2001 are not lost as the Taliban re-emerges.

“I think it is important that we not let this success here in Afghanistan slip away from us and that we keep the initiative,” he told reporters at Bagram Air Base, the main US military air hub in Afghanistan. “There’s no reason to sit back and let the Taliban regroup.”

Given we’re straining to figure out how to send more forces to Iraq, I don’t see how we’re going to manage to get any into Afghanistan if we do the surge. Maybe we can Pakistan to help!

PAKISTAN rejected as absurd today a claim from a Taliban spokesman arrested in Afghanistan that the Taliban’s fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was living in Pakistan under the protection of its main spy agency.

Afghan officials have often said they believe Omar and other Taliban leaders are living in Pakistan.

Many say privately they believe elements of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, are helping the insurgents.

But the claim from captured Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, who was also an aide to Omar, appeared to be the first time a Taliban member had said Omar was in Pakistan, and not leading the insurgency in Afghanistan.

The Afghan government said on Wednesday authorities had arrested Hanif along with two other men the previous day after they crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

In a video recording of part of his interrogation released by Afghan authorities, Hanif said Omar was living in the Pakistani city of Quetta under ISI protection.

On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea.

[Loach]

Straining to figure out where to get troops is a stretch. There are over 400,000 active duty troops that are not in the warzone. Thats not counting guard and reserves. It is a logistical problem to try and spread out the deployments equitably but its not like the troops are not there in the military right now. Its just a matter of taking them from Fort Hood, Ft Lewis or Ft Livingroom and sending them where they are needed. It’s not that we don’t have the troops, it’s that we have changed how we use them. We used to keep soldiers in the fight for years at a time with short R&R in between. Now we try to keep deployments down to a fixed time. It doesn’t mean that the troops aren’t available. Of course it sucks for those who didn’t think they were going back. During this weekends drill I’ll see if there is any change to our status. I don’t think there will be but you never know.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Hey, look on the bright side – maybe now we at least won’t draw troops out of there to feed into Iraq.