Surge

  1. Afghanistan Weekly Reader: After the Surge, 68,000 U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

    Published: September 27th, 2012

    The last of the U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan almost three years ago as part of the “surge” strategy left Afghanistan this week. With the surge troops gone, 68,000 U.S. troops are still stationed in Afghanistan. Also this week, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force released its monthly report on the insurgency. The data shows that, while insurgent attacks decreased slightly compared to last year, “the overall level of violence in Afghanistan, as measured by ISAF, remains worse than prior to the 2010 surge of American forces.”

    From ASG
    9/25/12
    Congressman calls for accelerated drawdown
    Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
    “I think we should remove ourselves from Afghanistan as quickly as we can,” Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) Young said in an interview with The Tampa Bay Times.

    ARTICLES
    9/20/12
    Final ‘surge’ troops leave Afghanistan
    The Washington Post by Craig Whitlock
    The last of the 33,000 “surge” troops President Obama ordered to Afghanistan in December 2009 have left the country, the Pentagon announced Friday, just ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline.

    9/27/12
    Military’s Own Report Card Gives Afghan Surge an F
    Wired’s Danger Room by Spencer Ackerman
    The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.
    That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan.

    9/25/12
    ISAF data show insurgent attacks down, civilian casualties up
    The Long War Journal by Thomas Joscelyn
    ISAF’s data show that while the number of enemy-initiated attacks (EIAs) thus far this year has decreased slightly, as compared to the first eight months of 2011, the number of civilian casualties increased dramatically.

    OPINION
    9/25/12
    Get out of Afghanistan – today
    Slate by Fred Kaplan
    The latest news from Afghanistan only underscores what’s been clear for quite some time: that there is no light at the end of the tunnel in this war, no noble way out, not much point to staying in.

    9/20/12
    Payoff? Assessing the Afghan Surge
    CNN’s Security Clearance by Mike Mount
    The surge of U.S. forces into Afghanistan is all but over. Within days, the last several hundred troops will have left the country, according to U.S. military officials, ending an almost three-year operation to quash what was widely viewed as Taliban resurgence.


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  2. Still the Forgotten War

    Published: September 4th, 2012

    U.S. Marines and sailors disembark a C-17 cargo plane on Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2009, to support Operation Enduring Freedom. For many, this is their first deployment, and in many cases their first time outside of the United States.

    The forgotten war in Afghanistan was finally made an appearance in comments from policymakers on both sides of the aisle this the past week. However, the brief mentions fell short of the serious debate the $500-billion war deserves.

    Some 90,000 U.S. troops are still fighting in Afghanistan. President Obama, in Ohio for a campaign event this weekend, pledged to “have them all out of there by 2014.” This promise was a slip of the tongue, later clarified—the administration plans to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014, but thousands of trainers and special operations forces will remain after 2014.

    The lack of a strategy for 2015 and beyond hasn’t stopped the administration from trying to sell its Afghanistan plan to the American public. “Because of my plan, 33,000 of them [U.S. troops] will have come home by the end of this month,” Obama said at the campaign event.

    What the president didn’t mention is that those troops are in Afghanistan because of the his own policy. Almost three years ago the administration announced plans to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Even with extra manpower, the U.S.  didn’t make much headway in southern Afghanistan.

    By the end of the summer we’ll be back to where we were in November 2009—with 68,000 troops still in Afghanistan and little to show for it. Many experts, like ASG’s Steve Clemons, describe the surge as a “strategic mistake and only deepened the black hole of costs in blood and treasure that the U.S. had already invested.”

    If the current administration’s Afghanistan policy leaves a lot to be desired, the other side hasn’t offered a real alternative. At the Republican National Convention neither the the presidential nor the vice presidential candidate addressed the unpopular war.

    In fact, Afghanistan was mentioned only four times during the convention, which lasted three days. One mention was from Sen. John McCain, who argued that “by committing to withdraw from Afghanistan before peace can be achieved and sustained, the president has discouraged our friends and emboldened our enemies.” Another was from Clint Eastwood, who faulted the president first for thinking the invasion of Afghanistan “was something worth doing,” then for setting a target date for the drawdown.

    The way policymakers and opinion leaders on both sides of the aisle refer to Afghanistan shows that the war is still forgotten. Neither side has laid out a clear strategy. Neither side wants to have a serious debate.

    90,000 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan. The war costs U.S. taxpayers $2 billion each week. Policymakers’ silence on Afghanistan is inexcusable.


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