Mullen to Senate: Send More Soldiers to Afghanistan
Posted on September 16, 2009
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By Kenneth J. Theisen
Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, September 15th that the Pentagon will likely support a request that will come “very soon” for additional troops for the Afghan war. As I have written here before the recent Afghan operations review and report by General Stanley McChrystal prepared the political groundwork for a request by McChrystal to President Obama to expand the war there. This latest development just confirms the theory.
Earlier this year, McChrystal was picked as the new U.S. and NATO commander for the Afghan war. He was expected to intensify the counter-insurgency (COIN) war there. COIN war is troop intensive and requires the U.S. to increase the number of not only U.S. troops, but those of its allies as well.
Mullen told the Senate Committee that he has concluded that “a properly resourced counter-insurgency probably means more troops.” He went on to state that the lesson learned in Iraq is that COIN war needs to be “properly resourced.” He said the war in Afghanistan has been shortchanged for the last eight years. He then said that the Joint Chiefs, McChrystal and General David Petraeus, (head of Central Command) all support waging a classic “properly resourced” counterinsurgency. Mullin declared, “You can’t do that from offshore, and you can’t do that by just killing the bad guys. You have to be there. This is General McCrystal’s view and my view and that of General Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs.”
Senator John McCain, who sits on the committee as its ranking member, supported these hawkish remarks when he said, “We will need more combat troops in Afghanistan – not less.”
Mullen also called for the increase of the Afghan puppet troops as well as U.S. forces when he said, “How best to provide for Afghan security and governance? Ultimately, it should be provided by the Afghans themselves. The path to achieving the president’s goal is through our training efforts. We must rapidly build the Afghan army and police.”
Mullen told the committee, “But we cannot achieve these goals without recognizing that they are both manpower and time intensive.” He advocated sending more trainers to Afghanistan quickly.
“I do not know what ratio-to-training combat units he needs. But I do believe that having heard his [McChrystal’s] views, and having great confidence in his leadership, a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance.”
McChrystal has not yet formally made his troop request to Obama. Civilian officials within the administration have stated that Obama will await any request and carefully consider it. But don’t be fooled. The war will once again be escalated by Obama as he did shortly after taking office. This is Obama’s war and he will do the bidding of the U.S. ruling class. He did not take the job of Commander-in-Chief with the intention of “losing” the imperialist wars he inherited from the Bush regime. He has taken ownership of the wars and he intends to achieve the imperialist goals. But what may be in the interest of the imperialists is not in the interest of the people in Afghanistan or here. We must demand that the U.S. withdraw from that war-torn nation, not expand its forces.
