U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is talking big about needing higher troop levels in Afghanistan to get the job done. And talking even bigger about how our failure to put enough troops there in the past is the reasons why we haven’t accomplished what we set out to accomplish:

"Because of our inability, and the inability, frankly, of our allies, (for putting) enough troops into Afghanistan, the Taliban do have the momentum right now, it seems," said Gates.

Them’s- truly- fightin’ words. Gates is profiled on Reuters today as blaming the Taliban’s revival on failures of the past- fair enough, that may be true, maybe not. What is most alarming about Gates’ position is that he is saying that the U.S. forces will not withdraw, regardless of what President Obama’s strategy review creates as far as recommendations.

"We are not leaving Afghanistan. This discussion is about next steps forward and the president has some momentous decisions to make," said Gates.

The latest review of the war by U.S. and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal was described as “grim.” Last week the U.S. lost 8 soldiers to a militia storm of two of our outposts in eastern Afghanistan, which is the most soldiers we have lost in a single engagement in over a year.
I, for one, fail to see how sending even more troops is going to dissuade anybody from anything. If we send more troops and it works, we’ll just have to leave the troops there for it to continue to work. There is no reason for us to set up a massive long-term military presence in Afghanistan- it’s just not going to work that way.

I have to say I am with VP Biden on this one- he backs a plan to reduce troop numbers and focus on attacking specific al Qaeda cells. That’s what we are there to do, and it fits with what Obama was talking about this week when he said that the U.S. was going to continue with an unmistakable and relentless presence.

The other option for the U.S. is to send up to 40,000 more troops- which would be ridiculous and start to ramp up comparisons of the conflict to Vietnam- a theoretically basic mission that ends up being unwinnable, ongoing, and domestically unpopular.

Gates, however, is firmly on the other side, citing the failure of Bush to put more troops in Afghanistan years ago as the reason why the Taliban has the upper hand now.

There is a major dispute going on around the recent election, with President Karzai accused of rigging the vote- many ballots are under review, though there is additional controversy as to whether the review of the contested ballots can be trusted. So basically there is little faith in the present leadership there, accusations of corruption, and our general and Defense Secretary are both calling for increased troop levels- great. Sounds like a real winner of a situation, guys.

We invaded Afghanistan to strike back after the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks. So let’s do that. Let a radically led Afghanistan isolate itself from the international community like North Korea and Iran are doing.