Richard WarnickAfghanistan: A High Stakes Game of Whack-A-Mole
On VetVoice, RockRichard compares the current situation in Afghanistan to Whack-a-Mole. And you thought the US military only played that game in Iraq.
Coalition forces are in engaged in a high-stakes game of Whack-a-Mole. Do some poking around on Wikipedia and you will see what is going on in Helmand province. American, British and Dutch forces will engage in a glorious campaign to liberate a town from Taliban control. We fight long, hard and well and accomplish the mission. But what happens then? The Taliban pop up again a few miles down the Helmand River. I’m no expert on tactics, but my personal opinion is there should be a strong enough troop presence in the area to hold the towns and run the Taliban out for good. Right now, there isn’t.
Where can we get more forces? NATO won’t help.
The Dutch, Canadians and Brits are dedicated, but we need more than these nations with armies much smaller than ours can provide. Also, we have fostered so much ill will with the international community that that no one wants to help us. We know that the fight here is important, but citizens of other countries don’t see it that way. They see just another war the Americans started that is sliding down hill. I’m sure their heads of state know better, but ultimately they must answer to a citizenry that would be hostile to any additional troop commitments to an “American war”.
Recent One Utah posts:
What About Afghanistan? (January 31, 2008)
Afghanistan Situation Report (January 1, 2008)
‘We will not lay down our weapons. We will fight to the death.’ (December 17, 2007)
February 7th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Gates is in the process of arm twisting the Germans. Joschka Fischer, former foreign minister and failed leader of the greens of Germany, is the primary advocate of increased German combat involvement. That’s right, the green party supports war, so pervasive is the military industrial complex that it can compromise anyone.
Germany has 3200 troops in Afghanistan…in contravention of their Constitution I might add…and so it goes. Germany is restricted in having troops anywhere but on their own soil. In theory. So much for that.
I don’t think I would count on them though. At least 2/3 of the German public vehemently oppose the Afghan involvement.
Perhaps the new democrat president can escalate the war, if elected. It will be their job to continue the money train without interruption to the benefit of the defense establishment.
Given the bi-partisan nature of American war-making in this century, we can expect nothing less. There is no great new beginning, this has been evident from the inability of anyone to interfere with the wars in the Middle East, from the point that the democrat party assumed control of congress.