Carl Levin and Jack Reed: Doubling down on Afghanistan

[ProSense]

Doubling down on Afghanistan

By Carl Levin and Jack Reed

A now-discredited report in Rolling Stone alleged that U.S. military officials in Afghanistan used inappropriate information operations techniques to try to persuade us, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others, to support additional resources to train more Afghan troops.

The truth is we have long argued that the best way to bring our troops home sooner while succeeding in Afghanistan is to build a stronger Afghan military and government. We've been making that case because the facts support it - which is why the president and the majority of the American people do, too.

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The Obama administration is considering a proposal to increase Afghan security forces by about 30,000 soldiers, and a similar number of police, which would bring total Afghan security force levels to about 378,000 by the end of 2012.

Expanding the Afghan army and police force will make the country more secure in the short term and will put it in better condition when the vast majority of our troops come home. A comparison to Iraq is valuable here. Iraq has security forces of about 665,000 protecting a population of 27 million people spread out over 168,000 square miles. A force of 378,000 Afghan security personnel would be needed to provide roughly equivalent protection to 30 million Afghans spread over 250,000 square miles of much more difficult, undeveloped terrain.

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[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[amandabeech]

2. Okay, I'll bite.

I'm from Michigan originally, and I love Carl Levin. And his brother Sandy. Unfortunately, none of my relatives and friends back there is in Sandy's district. Most of them are stuck with son of Hoekstra (or Grandson of VanderJagct if any of you ProSense people remember that--and it is not a pleasant memory for me.)

I've seen some of Reed's work and I've seen him speak on TV. He seems like a good guy and he is a veteran.

However, I'm with Biden. We went in to get Bin Laden and Al Quaeda. Bin Laden appears not to be there, and the Pentagon admitted this winter that there are fewer than 100 Al Quaeda fighters left in Afghanistan now.

Our terrific Vice President, Joe Biden, who was high on my list during the primaries, tried to convince Obama to return to our original primary mission in Afghanistan--going after AQ--concerning which we have largely conceded. Joe, whose lawyer son served in Afghanistan advocated pulling everyone out except a sufficient number of special forces to keep AQ at bay. The Taliban are indigenous, and they are never going to go away, so why waste precious lives and cash that we need right here right now to chase them around their homeland.

What Sens. Levin and Reed are advocating is far too similar to Vietnamization, which our Vice President, undoubtedly remembers. In my view there are too many similarities between Vietnam then and Afghanitsan now. Completely corrupt politicians. Difficult terrain. Lack of support from the locals. We walked into another nation's civil war in Vietnam, and the Afghans had been at each other's throats since the Soviets pulled out. I won't go into who we supported during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover, the French had managed to colonize Vietnam. No one, from various ancient armies, through the British Empire at its height to Soviet Union has ever subdued Afghanistan. What makes us think, in the middle of a terrible economic situation and with so little interest in fighting at home, that we can do what so many other powers could not? I do not think that American Exceptionalism, what remains of it, can realistically be thought strong enough to overcome so much.

As to Sen. Reed, he may be one of many who served our country well (and maybe he was in Vietnam) who have always believed that we could have won in Vietnam, whatever that would have meant, if we had only put more men, more machines, more bullets and more time into it. Those folks are decent, smart people, but I think that their position is emotional, not rational. It is hard to accept limits when you have been taught all your life that your country has none. For my beloved Sen. Levin--well, everyone's wrong sometimes.

I hope that Obama does not decide to take the Senators' advice. If he does, the only things left for the rest of us to do is pay the money, pray for the dead, and wait for the chopper to lift off from the embassy. We're done in Afghanistan. Let's acknowledge that fact.

[ProSense]

3. Afghanistan is not Vietnam.

"What Sens. Levin and Reed are advocating is far too similar to Vietnamization, which our Vice President, undoubtedly remembers."

Don't think that's what they're advocating. They're talking about building up the Aghan Security forces and getting out.

From the OP article:

"The decision to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in July means that Afghans, the United States and our NATO partners must urgently prepare for a transition to Afghan control."

[amandabeech]

4. "They're talking about building up the Aghan [sic] Security forces and getting out."

That's what Vietnamization was all about.

You're very, very young, and and either 1) you didn't take any modern American history in college; or 2) you did take the class and had a lousy, lousy instructor; or 3) you slept through the class and squeaked by with a D.

Don't insult my age or my intelligence.

End of conversation.