FOLLOWING IN RUSSIA'S FOOTSTEPS

"The highly decorated general sat opposite his commander in chief and explained the problems his army faced fighting in the hills around Kabul: “There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize. Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills. Without... (extra equipment), without a lot more men, this war will continue for a very, very long time... About 99 percent of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side. The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were — or we thought they were — destroyed a day or so before.”
--Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the commander of the Soviet armed forces, to the Soviet Union’s Politburo on Nov. 13, 1986

"Soviet forces were then in the seventh year of their nine-year-long Afghan conflict, and Marshal Akhromeyev, a hero of the Leningrad siege in World War II, was trying to explain why a force of nearly 110,000 well-equipped soldiers from one of the world’s two superpowers was appearing to be humiliated by bands of “terrorists,” as the Soviets often called the mujahideen."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29sebestyen.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true

U.S. TO BE IN AFGHANISTAN FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS

"... The United States has spent more than $223 billion on the Afghan war since 2001, and it now costs roughly $65 billion annually... these figures omit the replacement cost of military equipment, veterans' benefits and other war-related expenses... And we are not close to winning... a recent pro-war report from the Center for American Progress said success will require "prolonged U.S. engagement using all elements of U.S. national power" for "as long as another ten years." Success also requires creating an army and police force larger than the Afghan government can afford, which means Kabul will need US assistance indefinitely..."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/walt

30,000 SINGLE MOTHERS DEPLOYED

"More than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army, the most heavily deployed branch of the military, gives women just four months to stay stateside with their newborns before deploying to the war zone, leaving them little time to bond with or nurse their infants. The divorce rate for female soldiers is nearly triple that of the men who wear the same uniform..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-glantz/report-30000-single-mothe_b_322185.html

DIFFICULTIES IN ADDING MORE TROOPS

"... General Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more soldiers... will take up to a year (to deploy)... (due to) the country's lack of sea ports (the nearest harbor is some 400 miles away) and a dearth of airports. Beyond geography, the flow of troops is limited by the U.S. military's requirements for training and dwell time - R&R at home, between deployments. And then, perhaps most critically, there is the enemy. The Taliban's lengthening shadow across Afghanistan is making it increasingly difficult to supply the 65,000 troops there now or to send in reinforcements...

"We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground," says a senior Army logistician, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to the roughly 180 U.S. outposts around the country. That's because the Taliban control much of the "ring road," a circular route that links Afghanistan's few major cities. "Trucking contractors trying to supply some of them aren't making it," he adds. "The Taliban are just wiping them out." Such constraints will limit the flow of troops to Afghanistan to about one brigade - some 4,000 troops - a month...

"Jittery over repeated attacks on its supply convoys traveling through Pakistan, the Pentagon wants to shift much of its resupply effort to its new Northern Distribution Network, which runs through several central Asian states, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan... such stepped-up U.S. shipping will lead to attacks on convoys by terrorist groups including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union. "The problem with the Northern Distribution Network is obvious; it turns Central Asia into a part of the theater of war."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091014/us_time/08599193009700

MORE TROOPS NOT A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY

"... it is time to a return to the successful strategy that we had used when we first invaded Afghanistan right after the 9/11 attack but that has been forgotten or ignored in the eight years since then. That strategy was to send in CIA operatives with bags of money to buy off the warlords rather than troops with weapons. John Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy, noted in an editorial in The Washington Post in 2006 that, "What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in the U.S. Military's history is that it was prosecuted by Special Operations forces from all the services, along with Navy and Air Force tactical power, operations by the Afghan Northern Alliance and the CIA were equally important and fully integrated. No large Army or Marine force was employed."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dagobert-l-brito/for-a-solution-in-afghani_b_319182.html

U.S. SERVING CHINESE INTERESTS IN AFGHANISTAN

"In Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars... China has its eyes on some of world’s last untapped deposits of copper, iron, gold, uranium and precious gems... China has a vision of Afghanistan as a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere... while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit... Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others... This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07kaplan.html?_r=1&hp