Fresh off a President Trump’s announced escalation of the Afghan War, Defense Secretary James Mattis has revealed that he has yet to decide on the number of additional US troops to ask for. The expectation is that the size of this deployment won’t be made public.
With Trump’s decision to keep war plans and troop figures secret, the commitment to escalation in the speech appears to have set the stage for a substantial buildup. It’s not clear, however, that the deployment will all come at once.
Before Trump’s speech, reports from White House sources were that 4,000 additional troops would be committed. Senior officials are also saying today that a deployment of around 3,900 is imminent, suggesting Mattis’ decision is on troops to be sent above and beyond that initial figure
Mattis also said that the war itself would be fought with a “broader approach” than under past administrations. As with other comments on the escalation, this didn’t come with a lot of explanation about what that actually means, and in all likelihood, the American public will be kept in the dark about much of it.
I guess he’s last guy who can reign in this insanity to some extent. And it’s easy, claim that conditions on the ground require…400 troops or so.
Mattis is hailed as having a monumental intellect. There are web pages devoted to his “prolific reading list”. One author notable for his absence is Rudyard Kipling…just sayin’…
According to a story on daily caller Mattis is using ‘maskirovka’ to confuse and demoralize the Taliban by not telling them the number.
His theory is that if the Taliban doesn’t know the actual troop level that they will worry themselves sick over it and have a nervous breakdown. As if the Taliban cares if it is 4,000 or 8,000. We have been oversold on our Generals if this is what they are telling us.
Track278s
Agent287s
Considering we couldn’t “win” the war when we had 100,000 troops there, how much good is a mere 8500 plus whatever they send?
And what exactly does “win” mean when applied to Afghanistan?
Time to come home.
Let me run an idea by Y’All on one way i think the GWOT could be won [whatever that means]:
…..The last time some politician had a “Secret Plan” to end a War was candidate-Nixon in 1968. Those old enough to remember [and care] may remember how that turned out: the Secret Plan to end America’s War in Viet Nam amounted to starting a new War in Cambodia.
And now we have Mr Trump and “his Generals” with a Secret Plan all of their own to ~ once and for all, actually, no kidding, really go out there and WIN a War… this particular War in Afghanistan, in particular. At least for starters; the whole dang Global War on Terrorism [or GWOT] comes next.
It should be remembered that none of these Generals who came up with this Plan has ever won a war. Or even come close. Or, on the other hand, saw a war ~ or a chance for a war ~ that they didn’t like, as long as they could fight it their way: in secret, unhampered by international laws of war and peace, Congressional oversight, and/or whether or not the American people wanted it or not.
Tasking a bunch of Generals with figuring out how to win a War [the GWOT] that they have had almost 16 years and close to $5 trillion and counting to win ~ and who are no closer to “winning” today than they were back on Day 0, September 12, 2001~ is a waste of taxpayer money and Presidential time.
Rather, Trump should detail his Treasury Department and ~ if he can get permission from Wall Street ~ the United States Federal Reserve Board, with the simple task of “following the money.” Give them 30 days to identify exactly who is footing Radical, Fundamentalist, Islamo-Fascism’s’s bills, and providing for all its material and financial support. Give them 30 days to positively identify which individuals and families (Royal or otherwise), along with which transnational petro/financial corporations in which Arab nations. While they’re at it, they could probably pretty easily determine which non-Arab transnational corporations and nations ~ in or out of the region ~ are also involved.
Then ~ once that information is secured and confirmed ~ confront The Money Folks Behind ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, etc, and give them a choice: either terminate immediately ALL financial, logistical, administrative, and operational support to radical, fundamentalist, Islamist jihadists and their organizations; or confront the full force, fire, and fury of American financial [and as necessary, cyber] warfare, giving that new Command a chance to prove its mettle.
And, if the threat of cyber/financial warfare doesn’t work, Mr Trump can always gather some of Obama’s drones and a few of our Special Ops guys from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, the Sudan, and the like, and park them in the airspace outside of Riyadh and a few other regional capitols and cities, until those folks get the message.
Such a plan would go a long, long way toward bringing this whole so-called “war” against so-called “global” so-called “terrorism” to a complete, total, and screeching halt. The mission, intent, and objective? In a word: To find, follow, locate, target, and then cut off ~ even at the testicular level, as necessary ~ the money.
Such a project is naturally fraught with peril; for, one must be careful about where that money trail actually leads. THAT could get really embarrassing for some folks who would naturally prefer ~ and ultimately demand, and no doubt get, given some of Mr Trump’s Cabinet appointments ~ anonymity. Or, if, failing that, at least a preemptive Presidential pardon [or at least acquiescence], when that trail leads to outside the Gulf region. What with “too big to fail,” and all that.
In any event, militarily “exterminating ISIS” [as President Trump promised in his Inaugural Address] and “killing terrorists” [as he explained it in his national address clarifying his apparently evolving position on Afghanistan] will accomplish just about as much as overthrowing the Taliban back in 2001 and Saddam in 2003, and “killing” bin-Laden in 2011 did: absolutely nothing. Global Islamo-Fascist Jihadist Terrorism will just keep popping back up again and again, all over the place, until a newer, bigger, badder, and thus better “Threat” shows up to consume our leaders’ and their centurions’ attention [and the taxpayers’ money and the citizens’ futures]. Russia and China coming immediately to mind.
But at least the proposed financial/cyber warfare approach may cut down on the number of new Americans to be remembered on future Memorial Days. It would certainly reduce the number of new non-Americans ~ who have also died in all those Wars ~ to be forgotten.
For, as Wikipedia put it:
“The Afghanistan area has been invaded many times in recorded history, but no invader has been able to control all of its regions at the same time, and at some point faced rebellion. Some of the invaders in the history of Afghanistan include the Maurya Empire of ancient India, Alexander the Great of Macedon, Umar, an Arab Caliphate, Genghis Khan of Mongolia, Timur of Persia and Central Asia, the Mughal Empire of India, various Persian Empires, the British Empire, the Sikh Empire, the Soviet Union, and most recently a coalition force of NATO troops, the majority from the United States….” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan]