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| Afghanistan |
| US readying south Afghan surge against Taliban |
| 2009-01-02 |
| Afghanistan's southern rim, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and the country's most violent region, has for the last two years been the domain of British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers. That's about to change. In what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq, the US is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into the south, augmenting 12,500 NATO soldiers who have proved too few to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected. New construction at Kandahar Air Field foreshadows the upcoming infusion of American power. Runways and housing are being built, along with two new US outposts in Taliban-held regions of Kandahar province. And in the past month the south has been the focus of visiting US and other dignitaries - Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, US congressional delegations and leaders from NATO headquarters in Europe. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #9 ION TOPIX > CHOSUN ILBO - NORTH KOREA CALLS FOR UPRISING IN THE SOUTH; + CHINESE MIL FORUM [old] NEWSMAX - A-BOMBS OVER THE KOREAS. Is NOKOR dev DOngFeng21C/25's BMS wid 10-Warhead capacity??? * WAFF > RUSSIAN CARRIER KUNETZOV IN GREECE [Nav/MilEx]: RUSSIA DE FACTO RECOGNIZING GREEK DOMINATION OVER THE AEGEAN [versus Turks]??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-01-02 23:29 |
| #8 Roads. This hole in the ground needs roads. Then we start moving to cultivation of bio-mass. Until we get the roads, it has to be high value small volume crops. What could that be? Roads be hard. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-02 21:14 |
| #7 We appear to have only the military side of the surge ready. The COIN civil ops and the necessary support of the rural populace are lagging. Much has to do with the current government. It is seen, accurately, as corrupt and full of war lords, by much of the population. The ANP are seen as their tools. Senior ANP officers are picked in Kabul and their replacement for cause is a near impossibility. The Afgahn Army is a source of pride in the country. Its numbers are very small compared to what is needed but a combination of factors affect Army growth. The first is the corruption that requires fewer troops so that business can continue as usual. The second is the odd policy, possibly NATO, that units must be stood up together. They enter basic, and work their way up to fully trained before being deployed. That said, the ANA air corps is doing fantastic work in support of its forces. The ANA itself is overcoming 60% plus illiteracy in its recruits, a mish-mash of Afghani languages in the barracks and the very real inability of the NATO nations to agree upon what they will train and supply the ANA with. The Afghan is among the fiercest fighters in the world. When engaged, ANA troops demonstrate raw courage and a willingness to carry the fight to the enemy. Without the missing pieces of the COIN puzzle, though, they have to keep fighting over the same pieces of real estate. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2009-01-02 21:01 |
| #6 The farmer who's fields are hit by a poppy blight would probably end up with less income than the farmer who's field was verdant with a good bio-mass. Just saying.... |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-02 19:52 |
| #5 The answer is yes, hide the opium within the bio-mass (hemp of course, the all purpose, happy plant). Seriously tho, it could be done, but the cost would be incredible. Importing un-employed Afrikan famers might work, altho I'll bet the opium crop would then skyrocket. |
| Posted by: .5MT 2009-01-02 16:25 |
| #4 If you could make $100,000 per year selling Opium, and some do-gooder offered a chance to make $1,000 on biomass, How hard would you laugh? Question two, what chance has said do-gooder of getting away alive? |
| Posted by: Rednek Jim 2009-01-02 14:02 |
| #3 And why some idgit hasn't figured out of constructing bio-fuel plant(s) in the place, so that farmers on marginal land could produce a crop they could sale and a product other than drugs that someone would buy, all contributing to an alternative means of sustaining the movement of both commercial and military materials. If you don't have to haul the fuel you need, you save a lot of the lift for other things or reduce your imports of the stuff. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-02 09:16 |
| #2 Technically, Afghanistan could be agriculturally self-sufficient. I wonder if any logisticians have looked into developing it as a supply base? Maybe setting up munitions factories, that sort of thing? It's a fucking country, not besieged Stalingrad. Throw in aerial supply routes for the high-tech stuff and traditional LoC - evac, reinforcements, back-and-forth. It'd be expensive, but if you can cover the bulk munitions and foodstuffs supply out of Kabul, maybe the Kyber headache isn't prohibitive? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-01-02 06:48 |
| #1 Logistics are a nightmare there. How are they going to feed and supply these troops? |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-01-02 00:24 |