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How Many Troops in Afghanistan?

| Mon Oct. 12, 2009 9:02 PM PDT

I'm confused. This is from the LA Times last month:

U.S. officials are planning to add as many as 14,000 combat troops to the American force in Afghanistan by sending home support units and replacing them with "trigger-pullers," Defense officials say....Services performed by troops that are no longer considered crucial could be outsourced to contractors or eliminated, officials said.

And this is from the Washington Post today:

President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized — and the Pentagon is deploying — at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials. The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police...."Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000," said another defense official familiar with the troop-approval process.

So the Pentagon is pulling out 14,000 support troops and replacing them with combat troops, and then they're sending over 13,000 new support troops to help out all the combat troops.

That can't possibly be right, can it? Perhaps Julian Barnes and Ann Scott Tyson could get together and write a joint story clearing this up.

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Comments

Afghanistan and Iraq have

Submitted by Luther on Mon Oct. 12, 2009 9:32 PM PDT.

Afghanistan and Iraq have about the same population, so Shinseki's formulaic, experience-based calculations on the size of a good occupation force is probably still valid.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/27/wolfowitz-shinseki/

I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We’re talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.--Gen. Shinseki

McCrystal's estimates must of course take into consideration politics and budget realities--primarily the political blowback from the public at such a great commitment of blood and treasure for nebulous goals. How can generals be faulted for being realistic? At the time of the Iraq war, great thinkers like Bush and sundry chatterers were amazed that our economy was so resilient that we could fight two wars without any effect on the economy, but perceptions change. While it was reasonable for Shinseki to ask for several hundred thousand troops, it would not be politically feasible for McCrystal to ask for an ideal troop level.

I hope it gets safer fast in

Submitted by B on Mon Oct. 12, 2009 9:37 PM PDT.

I hope it gets safer fast in afghanistan.

troops

Submitted by rbe1 (not verified) on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 4:08 AM PDT.

I think you have to start out with the assumption that the administration does not want to tell the truth, and then all these numbers make sense. This is politics, not logic.

Two different things

Submitted by BruceR (not verified) on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 7:49 AM PDT.

Two different things. The 13K in support troops have gone overseas now. The LAT story, which says 6-14K in supporting forces could be saved through an optimization review process (kinda like when the government cites increased efficiency as a cost cutting measure) would take months to start to show any effect. The only example they give is privatizing gate guard duty, which doesn't really replace a "support troop" with a "trigger puller," it just gives the trigger-puller a new work assignment that doesn't involve guarding the gate.

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more troops for the primary mission

Submitted by tpx on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 8:03 AM PDT.

It takes a lot of troops to oppress millions of destitute, desperate people. Unfortunately, no one who is a part of America's ruling institutions is capable of explicitly stating that is what additional military forces will be doing in Afghanistan, so euphemisms like 'trigger pullers' are used to describe what the mission is. The language used to communicate the mission hints at the violence to be used on the people of Afghanistan, making it acceptable to those who advocate violence, a majority of Americans, while providing a bit of rhetorical cover against those who oppose violence, a small fringe political faction without any political representation.

TAP

Submitted by nepeta on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 2:02 PM PDT.

Yep, it takes a lot of soldiers to pacify a whole country, one way or another, so that construction can finally get started on the Trans-Afghan pipeline. Yes, the idea is still alive and well and being funded by the Asia Development Bank. I ran into an article last night which I haven't finished, or even barely begun, but I'm heading to it now. You might also be interested:

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2008/A_P...

A paragraph

Submitted by nepeta on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 2:46 PM PDT.

from the above link:

"The importance of oil and gas in the region was stressed
at a Council of Foreign Relations panel discussion in 2007
in New York.82 Steve LeVine, journalist and author, noted:
“US policy is pipeline-driven within a strategy… to make
this area a pro-western swath of territory between Russia
and Iran, driven by the establishment of an independent
economic channel. Everything else is really – I hate to call
it window-dressing – but it’s secondary to that.” Carter W.
Page, CEO for Energy and Power, Merrill Lynch, observed:
“From an economic perspective, oil and gas are far and
away the largest place for both investment and trade…
Energy and power are really the main game.”

I've thought this was the main purpose of US troops in Afghanistan for years now. Depending on whether one supports the US strategy of energy security in Central Asia, decisions about US troop strength in Afghanistan must always be considered in the light of this prime motivation.

Monty Python Redux

Submitted by Trashhauler (not verified) on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 9:32 AM PDT.

"It takes a lot of troops to oppress millions of destitute, desperate people." Blah de blah, blah.

Now for some other favorite Pythonisms:

"Who's that?" "Dunno, but 'E must be a king." "Why's that?" "'E ain't got shit on 'im."

and the ever popular,

"Oh! Oh! See this? Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Now we can see the violence inherent in the system!"

was Westmoreland a Python?

Submitted by tpx on Wed Oct. 14, 2009 7:45 AM PDT.

"We have to destroy the village to save it."

exactly what the situation calls for

Submitted by cld (not verified) on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 12:48 PM PDT.

Putting more of these fruitcake 'contractors' in positions where they can make a quick smuggling is exactly what the situation calls for.

More to the point, that

Submitted by cld (not verified) on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 12:52 PM PDT.

More to the point,

that would be a 'quick buck' these fruitcake 'contractors' can make smuggling.

My question is,

who is getting a kickback by constantly recommending that outfits that are obviously barely concealed, and hardly competent, organized crime should be getting these jobs?

If we just 'contracted' the Mafia for these jobs at least they'd be done well.

I think it mostly has to do

Submitted by Karaka on Tue Oct. 13, 2009 1:54 PM PDT.

I think it mostly has to do with timing, since the rotation out of support troops and their replacement of combat troops was put in place before this tactical review started; but it doesn't actually make it any less ridiculous. Well, I take that back; I bet the initial 13,000 troops who are being rotated out are pretty thrilled they get to leave, and some if not many of them may not have to return on redeployment. But it seems like an offensive gambit that will be followed by a stabilizing gambit, though the numbers of it still make it look foolish.