I've been fixated on this for a few days and taking a bit of heat at my other favorite place to talk politics that is a little more "fair and balanced" because my reaction is basically "we're up 12 to 1? Maybe we need LESS troops."
Lets talk about it over some coffee. And the fold
Now, I'm not the type of guy who is going to say "pull every troop out today" so I may even take a little heat here. But I am the type who want to see our troops HERE as quickly as possible. And I just don't see how escalating the conflict in Afghanistan is going to accomplish that.
I'm not a military genius, you got me! I'm actually hoping to get some response to this to see what you guys think we SHOULD do. But I know the answer isn't to pour more troops in and hope a "surge" will work. The people calling for that didn't understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite so we can't hope for them to understand the empire destroying nation that is Afghanistan.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the Taliban. I'm just smart enough to know that the vast majority of Afghans don't care one bit what I think of the Taliban. Or could really care who is in charge so long as things don't go boom and people stop getting killed. And I'm smart enough to know that it's downright hypocritical to be feeding the heroin trade when people here cannot even smoke a joint in their own home to ease their pain.
I've gotten a little bit of heat for this elsewhere, but I want to repeat it. 12 vs 1. In Basketball terms it's Kobe Bryant vs Shaq, Lebron, Dwayne, Howard, Paul, Billups, Pierce, Parker, Roy, Dirk, MJ, and Obama. Kobe is an incredible player, but surely that Dream Team can figure out a way to contain him.
I'm more of a Football guy than a Basketball guy though. So lets do that. Peyton Manning (without an offensive line) vs the AFC Pro Bowl starting defense. Peyton is the man...but good luck.
BUT, I'm MUCH more of a Baseball guy than anything else. You just can't come up with that analogy, only 9 guys play at a time. So, lets say, Chase Utley vs last nights starting Yankees lineup. But to try to get to 12:1, after him the rest of his teams lineup is just Aaron Miles and Mike Fontenot repeating (shout out to my fellow Cubbie fans). And instead of Cliff Lee, Kevin Gregg is on the mound. And the winds blowing out.
I hope you get my drift. If we're already at such a great advantage against our enemy, are we perhaps not winning because the Commander on the ground isn't getting the job done? Perhaps do we need someone else to take over, who has ideas beyond "GIMME MORE TROOPS!!!"
I'm not sure what we should do, but I have a feeling it doesn't involve a bunch of troops and another ten years.