Troop Levels in Afghanistan and Iraq

[Swede]

The White House Blog

Infographic: Troop Levels in Afghanistan and Iraq


http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/06/23/infographic-troop-levels-afghanistan-and-iraq

[mkultra]

1. Doubters owned

marinate in your own cognitive dissonance. Say what you want, we know your bitching is bullshit.

[tekisui]

2. Clever to conflate the two.

I hope the projected levels (which most of the graph is) come to fruition. Still, it should be done faster and should be done already.

[tekisui]

3. I would be interested in seeing the same timeline for contractors.

[Hawkowl]

4. Butchering Mercenaries

Excellent point about the contractors! I prefer the term mercenaries. We all should NEVER use the term contractor.

[Igel]

5. Virtue of necessity.

The Iraq drawdown is just implementing the Nov. '08 SOFA. The "promise" kept was signed by his predecessor--his promise consisted in doing what he'd have to do anyway, and not trying to renegotiate it or simply ignore the SOFA.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. Hmm

It's actually a more honest way to look at it IMO. We knew that Obama would escalate Afghanistan, he ran on this and it was needed badly since Bush and Company never were committed to finishing the job there. Obama tripled the troops there which wouldn't have been necessary had Bush gone in stronger in the 1st place.

What is hilarious now is to hear Repups screaming about how reducing the troops in Afghanistan now endangers every soldier! Huh? You mean reducing them to a mere double of what Bush had committed makes them less safe? Well how safe were they for 7 years under Bush then with half of that even?

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Not only is conflating the two misleading....

.....but are you including military contractors and mercenaries?

[rug]

8. Here's an honest chart.