Posted on 10/01/2009 9:11:56 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Coalition forces in Afghanistan are going to have to adopt a "dramatically different" strategy to ensure success, the top US general there says.
In his first speech since submitting a report calling for more troops, Gen Stanley McChrystal also said the operation had been "under-resourced".
The success of the military operation could not be taken for granted in the face of a growing insurgency, he said.
Meanwhile, a Nato strike in Helmand has killed at least six civilians.
Women and children are believed to be among the dead. Nato has said it will investigate the incident.
It said it had dropped a bomb on a compound in the southern province of Helmand from where insurgents were exchanging fire with security forces.
The protection of civilians is one of the cornerstones of Gen McChrystal's Afghan strategy.
But the White House has said that a review of its Afghan plans may take many weeks.
"We have under-resourced our operations, in some areas we have under-performed, in some areas we have under-co-ordinated and in some ways we have not overcome very intrinsic disadvantages," Gen McChrystal told the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Pakistan = Cambodia/Laos
How North Vietnam Won The War
Bui Tin Interviewed by Stephen Young
The Wall Street Journal, 3 August 1995
http://www.viet-myths.net/buitin.htm
Bui Tin served on the general staff of North Vietnam’s army and personally received the surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975 in Saigon. He became editor of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam.
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s
victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy... Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.
Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.
Q: What else?
A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.
Has anyone, any place, ever seen a war where civilians haven’t been killed? If we are serious about this war, civilians will be involved. Unless we have become totally stupid about war.
Link to audio of speech and Q&A session after the General’s speech is available at the IISS web site.
http://www.iiss.org/recent-key-addresses/general-stanley-mcchrystal-address/
We simply beat ourselves by respecting the non existing sanctity of the Durand Line and the “sovereignity” of the Pakistani BadLands.
” We must protect the Afghan people from all threats - from the enemy,
from our own actions,” he said.
Gen McChrystal stressed the importance of the Afghan population’s support when tackling the insurgency.
“We don’t win by destroying the Taliban,
by body count,
by the number of successful of military raids.
We win when the people decide we win,” he said.”
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