The Pentagon today sought to downplay the rising NATO death toll in Afghanistan, saying that it was simply a function of the December escalation.
“We have more forces in Afghanistan, ISAF and US forces, than at any other time. The level of activity is high, so as we conduct our operations and engage with the enemy, the opportunities for hostile contact are going to go up,” insisted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Four US troops were slain today when Taliban forces fired a pair of rockets at the helicopter they were in, knocking it out of the sky. So far at least 28 NATO troops, mostly Americans, have been slain in the month of June.
Yet as the Pentagon gets more and more desperate to show some sort of “progress” in the nearly nine year long war, the simple explanation that more troops means more violence is not a particularly good excuse. After all, this latest escalation, which brings the number of US troops in the nation near 100,000, was supposed to stabilize Afghanistan, not simply add to the spiraling violence.
Now that is good old Pentagon ironclad logic–give us more troops in Afghanistan so that more troops may be killed.
Hey, it worked in Vietnam, didn't it?
How many times does a General or a politician need to get slapped upside the head before it dawns on him that the war is unwinnable? The enemy will never surrender and we are occupying his territory. If we have the best-trained Army and the best weapons, then it must be lousy leadership ( Republican and Democrat) that got us into this mess and refuses to get us out.
They don't care about winning. They care about their pensions. They aren't fighting. Blank check for the military since 911. They don't even care about protecting America, they just want their $$.
Actually this is obviously what Kabulov predicted–more foreign troops generates more insurgents, who are now fighting a war of national liberation.
Why not send another 100,000 US troops so that the US and NATO can surrender quickly?
"The more troops you bring the more trouble you will have here," Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov said recently. "If this trend is the rule, if you bring here 200,000 soldiers, all of Afghanistan will be under the Taliban."
Independent 15 November 2009