General announces Afghanistan war is unnecessary

Troops in Kandahar City, Afghanistan, Photo by Pierre Gazzola (CC)

KABUL -- The full complement of American forces deploying to Afghanistan under President Obama’s new strategy will not arrive until November, a top commander here said.

The new, more gradual timeline means it will take longer for Mr. Obama’s surge of forces to arrive, thus potentially blunting their impact in the surge’s initial phases and leading to a slower drawdown of forces after July 2011. It comes as the military confronts the realities of deploying such a large force into a landlocked country with little in the way of infrastructure.

Originally, the Obama administration had hoped to accelerate the deployment of the 30,000 additional forces in its get-in-and-get-out approach. The idea was to deploy new forces quickly and then begin a gradual withdrawal in July 2011. Senior administration officials said Dec. 1, the day Obama announced his new strategy, that it would take six months for all 30,000 troops to arrive.

Christian Science Monitor,
December 14,2009

Plueezze -- don't ask me to believe that this little imperial adventure is vital to national security but you can't move 30,000 guys there in a year! I mean if that place is so threatening to our national survival, can't you do a little better than that?

U.S. airlines move 2.3 MILLION people over the Thanksgiving weekend. Now flying people to Afghanistan to kill people is a little further and a little more complicated, but we pay for the largest and most expensive military in the world. It spends $1 million a year for each soldier it puts in Afghanistan. For that kind of money you could rent a fleet of corporate jets and get 30,000 troops over there in a couple of months.

Obviously, Afghanistan is a war of choice, a full employment project for the military officer corps and their corporate cronies getting fat on the contracting dole. Heaven help the grunts who have to get killed to keep it going. And obviously military brass intend to delay any withdrawal date as long as possible to keep their gravy train going.