Getting Out of Afghanistan With Grace

[Are_grits_groceries]

There are two tried and disproved methods for dealing with insurrection in a non-Western country. The third and reliable method is not to go there in the first place. The fourth is get out with such grace as is possible, as rapidly as possible. President Barack Obama may be looking at the last option, hitherto not on the policy menu.

The first method is treat the insurrection as a conventional military challenge. Attack en masse to destroy the uprising and its infrastructure, employ shock-and-awe tactics, search for and destroy the rebels’ sources of supply, even when this means invading neighboring countries. Make the enemy stand up and fight the way Americans fight wars. Rely on mass, overwhelming logistical superiority, and the huge American technological advantage.
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In Iraq, in 2003, the United States again went in with fast, high-powered and overwhelming armed force, blasting to shreds whatever was in its way. It was a great success in getting to Baghdad. But the enemy had not been interested in fighting. Several of the most important Iraqi generals had secretly been bought off. The ordinary soldier had no enthusiasm in fighting for Saddam Hussein, nor had the midlevel officers.
<snip>
A second classic strategic theory for defeating insurrections is “clear and hold.” This is very much in fashion in Washington now thanks to its advocacy by Gen. David H. Petraeus at Central Command and Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan, and also in two recent books, one by Lewis Sorley, the other by David Kilcullen, both arguing that the Vietnam War was actually won by such a strategy—but too late for the fickle American press, public opinion and Congress to recognize the victory.
<snip>
In the Afghanistan case, Gen. McChrystal has suggested that his war, if fought on his terms (with troop reinforcements rising to a total of over 100,000 men at least), would take between 10 and 50 years to succeed.

Afghanistan consists of 652,230 square kilometers (251,827 square miles), many of them more or less vertically inclined, populated by an estimated 28.4 million people. Iraq has an estimated population of 28.9 million people and 438,317 square kilometers (169,235 square miles), many of them flat. The estimates of how many civilians died in Iraq range around the figure of 100,000, with some—such as the Johns Hopkins-Lancet study—much higher.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091112_getting_out_of_afghanistan_with_grace/

McChrystal is nuts. Get out now.

[elocs]

1. "Get out now" I read this all the time: "now". What does "now" mean? Define "now".

Does "now" mean a bug-out starting on 16 November where all the troops are loaded onto helicopters and planes? Do they just drop all the equipment and get out? If it were possible to magically push a button and transport all of our troops home would that be "now" enough?

Did Obama ever run on a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan? I am not sure why anyone would expect Obama to do anything but increase troop levels to some degree in Afghanistan at this time.

I agree that we need to get out of Afghanistan and that should include reducing our troop levels by degrees rather than adding to them. If the Afghanis really want their own country then they should be willing to fight for it while being armed and equipped by us. I don't see them facing an overwhelming opposition by the Taliban and al Qaeda or being outnumbered by them.

Afghanistan is a country that is twice the size of Vietnam and we could not prevail there with 500,000 troops. There is no reason to believe that we can succeed in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan with only 100,000 troops.

This is not a simple proposition of us either being totally in or totally out right "now". If we do a total bug-out withdrawal and Afghanistan is overrun by the Taliban then there will be wholesale retribution of them against anyone who helped us there. It would be a bloodbath. Afghani women would also pay a huge price. Both of these things would then bring lots of hand-wringing here at DU. But we should be moving toward reducing troop levels rather than adding to them because we would never be capable of having enough troops to succeed there.