Friday, October 16, 2009

Going 'deep', not 'big', in Afghanistan

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"An analysis making waves in Washington by a veteran United States officer calls for the withdrawal of the bulk of United States combat forces from Afghanistan over 18 months, warning against General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L Davis says that it is already too late for US forces to defeat the insurgency......

Davis challenges two arguments now being made in support of the counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan based on the Iraq experience: that a troop surge would help establish security and that the US military can reduce insurgency by replicating the "Sons of Iraq" program of bringing insurgents into militias that oppose their former allies.

The "surge" in Iraq was successful for a variety of reasons peculiar to Iraq and not duplicated in Afghanistan, Davis argues......"

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