24 September 2008
The overall war strategy of our mission in Afghanistan is being reviewed by both civilian and military aides in the Bush administration and they are not all on the same page. They are debating troop levels, the billions of war dollars needed and the escalating problems in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any decisions made before Bush leaves office will surely affect the next administration.
The top American commander in Afghanistan would like at least 15,000 combat and support troops in addition to the 8,000 that Bush approved for deployment early next year. He would also like to plan for a military campaign for the next 5 to 10 years, creating long-term requirements for troop levels in the southern and eastern parts of the country. European allies may not like these long-term force commitments which would leave the U.S. to supply a larger share of the troops. The latest plans from the White House are for changes that would restructure the military command there and to put more intelligence analysts on the ground to help hunt down militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In my opinion the real anti-terrorist war is in Afghanistan not Iraq. Here we are mired in the mess that we created in Iraq when out attention needs to be in Afghanistan.
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