McChrystal Faces a Tough Road Ahead in Afghanistan

[thestoic]

Source: US News and World Report

On Capitol Hill last week, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the special operations veteran confirmed Wednesday to take over command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, predicted tough months ahead there, bluntly warning Congress to expect more casualties and more mistakes as new U.S. troops arrive this summer. "There is no simple answer," he said at his confirmation hearings. "It's the environment we have today and the place from which we must navigate a way forward."


Just what that way forward will be was the topic of the day. McChrystal boarded a plane on the heels of his confirmation to join Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Brussels. There, he met with NATO partners before traveling on to Afghanistan, where he will begin a 60-day review of the military's way forward for the region. The results of that review will offer a window into the dilemmas that will face the Obama administration as it crafts its new strategy for the increasingly violent country, where attacks and roadside bombings reached record levels last week . McChrystal will be tasked with implementing that strategy at a time when violence throughout the country continues to rise considerably and stands 25 percent over June of last year.

These figures are up in part as a result of a surge of U.S. troops. There are now more U.S. soldiers available to "take the fight to the enemy," as Pentagon officials like to say. But it's also clear that insurgent attacks on U.S. troops and Afghan government security forces are also on the rise. Senior U.S. military officials say that these attacks tend to succeed at times when Afghan civilians, angry at the Afghan government or U.S. forces, look the other way. McChrystal said that civilian sentiment is one of his chief concerns. "How you operate, the impact of civilian casualties, collateral damage, cultural insensitivity," he noted, "often determine success or failure."

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2009/06/12/mcchrystal-faces-a-tough-road-ahead-in-afghanistan.html

[ShortnFiery]

1. RESIGN! I don't trust any General Officer who LIED about Pat Tillman's Death. eom