Top U.S. officer (Mullen) warns Afghan war will get worse

[unhappycamper]

Top U.S. officer warns Afghan war will get worse
By Jonathon Burch and Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL | Sun Jul 25, 2010 5:51pm EDT

(Reuters) - More NATO troops will die in Afghanistan as violence mounts over the summer, but Washington's goal of turning the tide against the insurgency by year's end is within reach, the top U.S. military officer said on Sunday.

The remarks by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, on a visit to the country, came as the Taliban said they were holding captive one of two U.S. servicemen who strayed into insurgent territory, and that the other had been killed.

It also comes less than a week since a major international conference in Kabul agreed that the Afghan government should aim to take responsibility for security in all parts of the country by 2014.

Mullen, who called the troops' disappearance an "unusual circumstance," said there would be more violent incidents to come, but the U.S. military was doing everything possible to find the missing men, who were both from the Navy.

A spokesman for the NATO-led force declined to comment on the Taliban's announcement it was holding one of the men.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. then declare victory and LEAVE.

save our troops. save our military industrial investment. save our money.

Let afghanistan be afghanistan.

[KharmaTrain]

2. The Downside Of Gunboat Diplomacy

That's what our occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq are boiling down to. The problem with being an imperialistic force is your invading territories that you can never truly control...only contain. The Taliban aren't going away...they are the Afghan people...or more specific, the Pashtuns...who have lived in that region for centuries and they're not going away. Meanwhile our military has put us in the middle of an endless civil war where we alienate more and more of the locals the longer we remain thus feeding the recruitment for the Taliban and other groups. They're not going anywhere and have no qualms of taking our money when its offered and then shooting us in the back. Unfortunately our politicians are stuck in trying to find a way to "win" in places where no such definition exists. We'll have to learn the hard and expensive way.

[saigon68]

3. More Frothing at the Mouth

By a clueless War criminal