Gen. McKiernan, aka Gen. Westmoreland:

However, as time went on, the strengthening of North Vietnamese combat forces in the South led to regular requests for increases in US troop strength, from 16,000 when he arrived [1964] to its peak of 535,000 in 1968

Under Westmoreland’s leadership, the United States “won every battle until it lost the war.”

MAN! I was JUST listening to that song!

As for this other song. . . while there might be something resembling a strategy on the non-military side, it seems what passes for strategy on the mil side is basically, “OK, let’s try this. . . no? then this, maybe. . . .”

It’s another quagmire.

There is no limit to the amout of blood & treasure the Generals are willing to expend to enhance their careers.

Pull out the military, and send in the businessmen.

Saying that the administration wanted to be guided by “fact-based considerations,” they “can’t be certain the number is right. It might be too many, it might be not enough.” But Obama “feels very confident that he has the right strategy, and we want to measure resources against that.”

So your saying that despite fighting in Afghanistan for how many years we still do not have an idea of what it would take to get the job done?
Lies! Lies all of it Lies! What would it take to get the job done to get Ossama? What ever the cost is Obama does not want to pay it.
A draft perhaps? a 100,000 more troops? taking out Pakistan’s Nuclear reactors and bombs Pakistan’s Intelligence people did create help create, fund, arm, the Taliban, God knows what the will do next.
This Plan seems at best a stop gap measure it won’t get Ossama unless we get lucky. It won’t stabilise Afghanistan they know we are leaving Iraq the figure Afghanistan is next.
Their troops are enthusiastic, ours want to go home.
Get out know before we are forced to get out. All these prowar generals had better reconsider what stay the course and loose the war could have for their careers.

Yes I see a race the Generals will keep asking for more and more troops saying we can win if only Obama gave us more troops, weapons, let us torture openly, etc.
Obama will look back and say I gave and I gave the army, troops weapons and money and it was never enough.
Victory was always just around the corner.

A real plan has goals get Ossama for example and time tables like when do we get Ossama they have an action plan on how we are going to do it and an estimated budget.
If we can’t get Ossama then lets go home. Surround Ossama and then close in not letting him escape this time like he did at Tora Bora seems a good plan.
If we can’t do that because Pakistan won’t let us, we don’t have the troops etc then we should leave doing a half ass job is often worse than doing nothing.
KBR shower electricians have shown us the danger of that.

And I repeat for those who missed it, some words of wisdom to President Obama and his administration as they face the challenges of Afghanistan. and even Iraq. Words written about 40 years ago by David Halberstam in his book “The Best and The Brightest”.

Circa early 1963 or thereabouts.

From pages 178-179:

…Thus one of the lessons civilians who thought they could run small wars with great control was that to harness the military, you had to harness them completely; that once in, even partially, everything began to work in their favor. Once activated, even in a small way at first, they would soon dominate the play. Their particular power on the Hill and with hawkish journalists, their stronger hold on patriotic-machismo arguments (in decision making they proposed the manhood positions, their opponents the softer, or sissy, positions), their particular certitude, made them far more powerful players than the men raising doubts. The illusion would always be of civilian control; the reality would be of a relentlessly growing military domination of policy, intelligence, aims, objectives and means, with the civilians, the very ones who thought they could control the military (and who were often in private quite contemptuous of the military mind), conceding step by step, without even knowing they were losing…

From page 209:

…What the President was learning, and learning to his displeasure (once again, the Bay of Pigs had been lesson one), was something that his successor Lyndon Johnson would also find out the hard way: that the capacity to control policy involving the military is greatest before the policy is initiated, but once started, no matter how small the initial step, a policy has a life and a thrust of its own, it is an organic thing. More, its thrust and its drive may not be in any way akin to the desires of the President who initiated it. There is always the drive for more, more force, more tactics, wider latitudes of force…

From page 212:

…In government it is always easier to go forward with a program that does not work than to stop it altogether and admit failure…

We’re staring down the barrel of Obama’s Vietnam. It will likely destroy his presidency…what’s left of it after the half-cocked bank bailout hits the wall. And here we are stuck right in the middle. Nice, huh?

These people are nuts. And speaking of nuts…

http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/index.html

Pull out the military, and send in the businessmen.

What’s the diff? Aren’t the generals just looking after their post-military careers with hardware producers?

We have a winnah!

Yep, just like Israel’s plan to kill all the Palestinian leaders. /s

So what kills the non working government program? Are we going to have to wait for defeat?
Cause half ass measures won’t get the job done and Equilibrium between our troops and the Taliban is not a easy state to achieve so if we won’t act to win.
We risk loosing. Play Chess, Go, anything try and win by thinking first about all the things you can’t do and build your plans around that.
We need to either get Ossama or leave a war of attrition we lose we don’t have the troops or as Cheney put it the will.
The Will to send the Sons and Daughters of the rich and powerful to the front, (the Bush twins).
Which ever side is willing to sacrifice more increases their odds of winning.
If the Bush twins were in Iraq I bet KBR would not have electrocuted one solder in the shower, I bet bullet proof vests and armored humvees would have been delivered on time.
Substandard helmets, bad food, late or lousy equipment, years of Bush ignoring that things were not getting better would not have happened if the Bush twins were there.

Buy up all the poppy crop; alleviate pain worldwide.

And:
Troops
Home
Now

Big pharma won’t let the poppy crop be bought for pain killers.

CocaCola, KFC, Pepsi, Dell, Sun, IBM, etc.

Businessman who don’t make military hardware.

Next Time we declare war the Children, Grandkids, Cousins etc of the rich and powerful go first to the front.
If all the kids of the richest 2%ers who own the country and the kids of our political class were drafted for at least 6 months the first thing every time we declare a war nomatter how big or long the war.
I’m guessing the troops would be better, funded, taken care of, etc and that there would be a lot less wars.

All the companies you list are in industries that have a cartel-like structure. Do you think that business execs running companies where there is no real competition know what they are doing?

I really don’t know what to say about Afghanistan.

In cases like these, I am thrown back on the basic questions that any policy should address:

1) What do we want?

2) What can we do?

3) And what can we live with?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t see real answers to them either in the new Obama policy or in the Bush policies that preceded it. My impression is that this it at best temporizing. Given the continuing deterioration in Pakistan, I am not sure that this is an option.

Congress hasn’t declared war since 1941

Fuck big Pharma they have screwed us for decades! It is Time things changed for the good of ALL the people not just the Rich assholes who add nothing to the GDP. They only leach off of our sweat and tears!

They could surround them and kill them all at once at any time. The current approach kills a few promotes the underlings and never accomplishes anything.
I think Israel wants a Forever War to keep government/military power/fear levels up forever.
To bad Israel can only afford to do this with our aid money and given the economy is very likely to get worse I would not count on those checks to keep coming in.

My answer I want the troops home I want nothing from Afghanistan. Ossama I will look to cut off the nations that fund him. They are much easier targets.

Fine any time our troops attack or are attacked by someone else:)

The people I listen to on Afghanistan describe it as your garden variety insurgency of Pashtuns against both foreign occupation and underrespresentation in the Afghan govt. No place for U.S. in that.

For the sorry remnants of AQ in Pakistan, it’s taylor made for intelligence ops, not that the U.S. has one that’s worth a shit hill of beans.

They could surround them and kill them all at once at any time.

You’re kidding, right?

Yeah Meth only 6? or so companies make the key ingredient its a very complex process to make I think we should ban that process Fuck Big Pharma’s profits!

No they could it very possible, they have the guns troops bombs etc so whats stopping them UN sanctions? They laugh at those, Arab armies?
They got Nukes, the fear of losing the political control that the constant fear of war gives them over their society?
They need an enemy who can hurt them who never goes away.

For a more informed view, try reading
David Kilcullan “The Accidental Guerilla”
The “sorry remnants” of Al Qaida are neither sorry nor remnants.

The name sounded familiar so I looked up his book. Yep. He’s a very pompous self-promoting individual that I had the misfortune of sitting through some extended presentation of his, probably on Book-TV. Anyone who advised Petreaus must be taken with a grain of salt.

I agree with the sprinkle treatment for every one.
But he’s got information about the insurgency that’s more up-to-date and detailed than you’re going to get from anyone else.
I’m also pretty sure that he is in Afghanistan currently, and still advising Petraeus.

I know they don’t bomb their customers.
Or go to work expecting to kill people.
They go to work to make a profit.
Unlike the military.

And he was where and doing what in Ireland, Mozambizue, Angola, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Darfur, Phillipines?

No they could it very possible, they have the guns troops bombs etc so whats stopping them UN sanctions? They laugh at those, Arab armies?
They got Nukes, the fear of losing the political control that the constant fear of war gives them over their society?
They need an enemy who can hurt them who never goes away.

Uh huh. Constant fear —> constant low-level warfare —> profits for somebody.

I think a lot of the Israelis let this go on the way many Americans let Reagan and others ‘play’ with the military in small ‘wars’ like Grenada. They don’t think it’s terribly important or dangerous to the nation and not worth arguing about. So, it goes on and on until you get somebody like Dubya and then there’s a real problem. That person will have all the rationale and precedent to back him and off they go.

If you want to have a Democracy you’ve gotta want it bad. You’ve gotta fight for it and sometimes that means fighting the war mongers next door. It’s tough, but somebody has to think beyond their wallet, yard and stock portfolio to whether the country is doing the right thing. I think the American electorate has done that sometimes well, but not always. The Israeli electorate seem to be living in denial or real fear and the crazies run the place. Then, in the rare cases when they get someone who seeks peace there is violence. Absolutely nuts.

NOW is the time to find a new way.

Australia, Bouganville. Cypress, and Indonesia.