Al Qaeda Down to Less than 100 in Afghanistn. We Need 40k more Working Class Troops

He is an old man. And he would still kick your ass six ways to Sunday.

 

Yea...and I would still say it to his face given the opportunity. I want to know how he can make such claims.

 

not if you kicked him in the balls first.

 

The number of foriegn fighters with the Taliban might not be as low as the original article suggest.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33256784/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia

4,000 foreigners join Taliban, minister says
'The enemy has changed,' he says in plea for more international troops

KABUL - Thousands of foreign fighters have poured into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban insurgency, the country's defense minister said Saturday as he called for more international troops.

The remarks come as the U.S. debates whether to substantially increase its forces in Afghanistan or to conduct a more limited campaign focused on targeting al-Qaida figures — most of whom are believed to be in neighboring Pakistan.

The minister's comments hit on a key worry of the United States — that not sending enough troops to Afghanistan will open the door back up to al-Qaida. They also suggest that the Afghan government is nervous about the U.S. commitment amid talk of changing the strategy and a surge in violence in recent months.

An American and two Polish troops were killed by bombs in the latest violence reported by NATO forces.

"The enemy has changed. Their number has increased," Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told lawmakers in a speech. He said about 4,000 fighters, mostly from Chechnya, North Africa and Pakistan "have joined with them and they are involved in the fighting in Afghanistan."

He gave no timeframe for the supposed increase in foreign fighters.

Wardak said Afghan intelligence services had asked for more international forces to cope with the foreign threat, and the minister's spokesman said Wardak backed the call.

U.S. military officials said they could not immediately comment on the claim of a recent influx of foreign fighters.

Afghanistan's interior minister, who also spoke to parliament, endorsed a strategy promoted by the top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal to focus on protecting civilians rather than simply killing insurgents.

"If the target of this fight is only killing the Taliban, we will not win this war. If it is saving the Afghan people, then we have a possibility," Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said.

Election complicates matters
The strategy debate in the U.S. has been complicated by the still-undecided Afghan presidential election, which has raised doubts about whether there will be reliable, credible Afghan leadership to cement any military gains by the U.S. and its allies. Results from the disputed August vote have been delayed because of widespread allegations of fraud.

A U.N.-backed fraud investigation panel was analyzing data Saturday from an audit and recount of polling stations with suspect results. Results from about 13 percent of the country's polling stations hang in the balance — enough to swing the result from an outright win by President Hamid Karzai to a forced runoff between the top two finishers.

Election officials have said they expect to announce final results by the end of next week.

The weeks of waiting have been dogged by accusations of wrongdoing between candidates and even within the U.N., which has advised on the vote and whose appointees dominate the fraud investigation panel.

The second-in-command at the U.N. in Afghanistan was fired this month after a dispute with his boss about how to investigate alleged fraud. The official, American Peter Galbraith, has since accused the U.N. of trying to cover up fraud to avoid a runoff vote. Kai Eide, the top U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, has denied the charges.


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Obama 'weeks away' from Afghan decision

An Afghan election official said Saturday that the U.N. dispute is further damaging the credibility of an election already seen as marred by fraud.

"This kind of controversy will of course have an impact on the wider perception of the election inside and outside Afghanistan," said Zekria Barakzai, a deputy chief electoral officer with the government-appointed Independent Election Commission. "It is a negative impact."

New soldier deaths
In developments on the battlefield, U.S. officials said that the U.S. service member who died Saturday was a bombing victim in southern Afghanistan.

The Polish soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in eastern Wardak province on Friday, Poland's Defense Ministry said. Four others were wounded.

Also Saturday, Afghan officials said nine Taliban were killed the day before in a gunfight in Wardak.

Two Afghan policemen and a district official were killed Friday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan.

 

Read this in the London Telegraph -

United States to send 'up to 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan'

The US is expected to announce a significant surge of up to 45,000 extra troops for Afghanistan after Gordon Brown said that 500 more British troops would be sent to the country.

President Barack Obama's administration is understood to have told the British government that it could announce, as early as next week, the substantial increase to its 65,000 troops already serving there.

The decision from Mr Obama comes after he considered a request from General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, to send tens of thousands of extra American troops to the country.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said: "I don't want to put words in the mouths of the Americans but I am fairly confident of the way it is going to come out."

An announcement next week could coincide with a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Bratislava, Slovakia, due next Thursday and Friday.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the claims, after President Obama met with his war council for the fifth time to map out a new strategy in Afghanistan.

"I would not put any weight behind the fact that a decision has been made, when the President has yet to make a decision," he told reporters in Washington.

"I've seen the report. It's not true, either generally or specifically. The president has not made a decision."

But Ministry of Defence sources indicated that the British Government had been told to expect a substantial increase in the number of of American troops.

Earlier Gordon Brown announced the British force in Afghanistan would increase to 9,500 but was told by former defence secretary John Hutton that he should have sent more troops to Afghanistan six months ago.

Mr Hutton said it would have been “much more helpful” to the British mission if the Prime Minister had listened to military calls for a larger force earlier this year.

Mr Brown previously blocked a military request for almost 2,000 extra troops for Afghanistan.

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the former Army chief who is now advising the Conservatives, said that decision left the force fighting with “part of one arm tied behind its back”.

Mr Hutton was defence secretary at the time of the earlier troop request. He resigned from the Cabinet in June.

He made it clear that he wanted the earlier deployment plan to go ahead and suggested that blocking it had undermined the British mission. The Prime Minister “should follow the military advice”, Mr Hutton said. “I think it would have been much more helpful had we had the additional troops there six months ago.”

Defence sources disputed this view, insisting that there were not enough trained troops to deploy at the time.

But Mr Hutton’s words overshadowed Mr Brown’s announcement in the Commons that he would increase the force in Afghanistan, taking British numbers there to 9,500.

As The Daily Telegraph reported last week, a total of 1,000 more British soldiers will go to Helmand province. Five hundred will be new troops from Britain. The remainder is a British battle group currently deployed in Kandahar province under international command.

The Prime Minister said the Kandahar battle group was being redeployed “to meet the changing demands of the campaign, which require greater concentration of our forces in central Helmand”.

He said he supported the new deployments “in principle”, saying that before the troops could be sent, certain conditions must be met. Those terms were that soldiers were properly equipped, that the Afghan government promised more forces to Helmand and that Nato allies bore more of the burden in Afghanistan.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, mocked Mr Brown’s “condition”.

He said: “Won’t many people think: isn’t it the Government’s responsibility to make sure they have that necessary equipment? And might they also ask: why is it that after eight years we are still playing catch-up on equipment?”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...d-up-to-45000-more-troops-to-Afghanistan.html


Guess we'll find out if it's true.

 

One could argue that it is because Rumsfeld had no military acumen whatsoever. Gates, on the other hand, has been very successful in running a covert ops organization and is well regarded as a smart guy that understands the geopolitical landscape.

Nah...Bush chose him. He couldn't be good. If Obama had chosen him, he'd be a genius though. Geez.

 

The Taliban is America's and one of the world's greatest enemies. They are a threat far more grave than Iran even.

Don't underestimate these guys and the importance in defeating them. They are bent on acquiring weapons to kill all over the world. They are destabalizing Afganistan, and more scarily, Pakistan.

Pakistan has nukes folks.

If we fail here, we truly risk bringing the "war on terror" back to our shores.

 

Usually you can take stuff like this and put it in the bank. I'm surprised. Remember, it came out the British government was tipped off that the U.S. was definitely going to invade Iraq while Bush was still saying that a decision hadn't been made yet.

Tell you what: Now I can't wait for the announcement and it's going to be constantly on my mind until it happens. I want to hear Obama make the case to the American people and lay out what his goals are for Afghanistan. In particular, I want to hear how realistic they are and what the so-called "end game" is. And when I say end game, I don't mean a timetable for pulling out all troops.

 

The Taliban will never be "defeated" in Afghanistan. That is an unachievable goal.

 

Are people still using that line?

 

Except that, with Afghanistan, it is not just a line. This really is pretty simple. The things that go on in Afghanistan destabilizes Pakistan. People with bad intentions slip into Pakistan. Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal. An unstable Pakistan with groups of people that would do harm in Europe and North America is a bad thing.

We must find a way to secure the area.

Or we could send everybody home and just hope against hope that nothing bad will happen.

 

Err... what? The Taliban and Al Qaeda are two very different things. AQ wants to acquire weapons to kill all over the world - the Taliban could care less about that. The Taliban essentially wants to rule their feifdom and likes to cause regional trouble with neighbors, but otherwise has nothing to do with the rest of the world. They are enemies of both Pakistan and Iran, for example, and Iran and the Taliban nearly went to war at one point (which would have been fairly convenient for us).

The goals and motivations of AQ and Taliban have random overlap, but they aren't really similar at all. AQ helped the Taliban control Afghanistan, which was the basic reason for that alliance. AQ's worldwide dealings actually annoyed the Taliban to a large extent.

 

It was the Russians, now it is the taliban, maybe the Chinese will be next. We will always have to be scared of someone.

 

This is a very dangerous an naive view. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are very tight and work together. If you forgot that 9/11 was launched from Afganistan by Bin Laden who was getting support from the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban initially claimed responsibility so heavy was their involvement.

These radical groups are not working in isolation. The Taliban will destabilize Pakistan, allowing groups like Al Qaeda to take advantage.

This is a real threat. And I find it alarming you dismiss it and think if we just leave nothing bad will happen.

Didn't we learn that leaving a country to the Taliban is a recipe for disaster? Have you forgotten 9/11?

 

Don't have to fear the Taliban, we just have to respect them as an enemy.

I strongly advise you to read up on what is happening in Pakistan, and if you don't think what happens there can have worldwide consequences, you haven't learned anything from 9/11.

 

I agree with this. Even though I support the continued action in Afghanistan Obama needs to restate why we need to be there.

 

Again, learn about the actual relationship between these groups and why the Taliban supported AQ and vice-versa. It wasn't some type of ideological alliance - it was one strictly of convenience.

Certainly - as I said, Pakistan and Iran see the Taliban as enemies. But they weren't destabilizing Pakistan when they controlled Afghanistan. They are destabilizing it because they all moved over there.

 

Are you saying that if the US wanted to be friends with the Taliban all of this could be avoided?

 

That's under discussion right now with the whole "should we send 40,000 more troops" thing, and if there are other alternatives. There's a lot of talk about scaling back the military presence to focus entirely on AQ, and create a power-sharing agreement between the current government and Taliban, where the main gov't would control Kabul and the surrounding areas and the Taliban would have more regional power, or alternatively just bringing them into the political process.

The idea is to get the Taliban in the governing mix - which is what they really want - while not giving them free reign around the country, allowing the US to focus on AQ. Ultimately, if the Taliban has some power without needing AQ's help, they could be happy. And it solves the US' problem of having to fight the Taliban just because. That's the theory, anyway - there are always so many complicating factors with Afghanistan, so it's hard to say if it could work or not, and it's hard to say just how much power the Taliban would need to accept the idea.

Whether that ultimately is the route they take is still up in the air. There was an article about it in the last few weeks as the Afghan policy discussions have been ramping up, but I can't find it. Here's an article from the Spring that's a little more vague on the specifics, but talks about the general ideas:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/22/us-policy-afghanistan-taliban-dialogue