The Pentagon is backpedaling on leaked reports of pending troop increase requests from Gen. McChrystal. WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – An assessment of the war in Afghanistan by the top U.S. and NATO commander there is no longer expected by mid-August and will not include a request for extra troops, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘escalation’
On Afghanistan, Five-Sided Backpedaling
Posted: August 6, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Congressional Research Service, escalation, Levin, Lieberman, McChrystal, Obama, Rory Stewart
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Frogs and Hot Water and All That
Posted: July 12, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Center for Strategic and International Studies, escalation, Every War Must End, Fred Charles Iklé, nonviolence, Normon Solomon, Obama, pacifism, Petraeus, Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal
Someone holding the purse strings (that’s you, Congress) better decide right now how much taxpayer money and how many dead U.S. soldiers are a fair price for “victory” in Afghanistan, because any minute now you’re going to receive a request for more blood and treasure. Specifically, the Pentagon wants more money to grow the Afghan [...]
Administration Gets Afghanistan Wrong
Posted: March 27, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Afghanistan escalation, escalation, Obama
We needed a game-changer in Afghanistan. The plan delivered by the new administration is not it. The most important and destructive deficiency of the new plan is its willful ignorance of the bad effects of flooding Afghanistan with more foreign troops. For months, experts ranging from Richard Barrett (the UN’s al-Qaida/Taliban expert) to Gilles Dorronsoro [...]
Another Poll Shows More People Want Less or the Same Number of Troops in Afghanistan vs. More
Posted: March 11, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Christ, Christian, Christianity, escalation, Jesus, John McKenzie, nonviolence
CBS News/The New York Times sponsored a poll on the question of troop levels in Afghanistan that shows the number of people who want less or the same number of troops in Afghanistan outnumber those who want escalation. These numbers are more consistent with the Harris/BBC America poll I blogged about a few weeks ago [...]
Troop Deployment Scheme Negates “More Troops = Less Airstrikes” Argument for Escalation in Afghanistan
Posted: March 4, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Christianity, escalation, Jesus, McKiernan, nonviolence, Obama
Officials who support escalating our troop presence in Afghanistan love to talk about counterinsurgency. One of the most persistent arguments in favor of escalating our troop presence is that doing so will allow us to field enough troops to fight a true counterinsurgency campaign and thereby reduce reliance on airstrikes, a form of attack that [...]
A Response to Brandon Friedman’s “Five Myths About the Afghanistan Escalation”
Posted: February 2, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Afghanistan escalation, escalation, VoteVets
Brandon Friedman wrote a piece for VoteVets.org to about his support for the Afghanistan escalation. I commend him for engaging in this discussion. Our responsibility as citizens demands we have this discussion before sending more men and women into danger, and that’s why a broad coalition of writers, bloggers, and other activists have come together [...]
Think Again on Afghanistan
Posted: January 3, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, COIN, counterinsurgency, escalation, nonviolence, surge, Taliban
A quick question for the proponents of an escalation in Afghanistan: What are we protecting from a revolution? The “surge” in Iraq was an exercise in counterinsurgency (COIN). Counterinsurgency is by definition the attempt to protect against a revolution. But in Afghanistan, the authority and structures of the corrupt Kabul regime do not and have [...]
