Bush Administration Takes Another Step

To drive Blackwater's chief public-sector competitor out of business.

From the Baltimore Sun:

2,000 Marines face longer Afghan tour

By David Wood | Sun reporter
July 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - In a decision reflecting the shortage of available combat troops, more than 2,000 Marines fighting the Taliban will be kept in Afghanistan 30 days beyond their original seven-month tour, the Marine Corps said yesterday.

The decision by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to extend the Marines' tour was confirmed a day after Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more troops are needed in Afghanistan but that he didn't have more troops to send.

Gates had said several times in recent months that he had "no plans" to extend the Marines' tour. But U.S. officials, including Mullen, have said recently that the situation in Afghanistan is worsening and that the Taliban-led insurgency is gaining ground and influence.

At present there are 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, of which 14,000 are assigned to work under the International Security Assistance Force, the 40-nation coalition led by U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan.
...

And why?

(From the same article):

The Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, which has grown in strength since the Taliban were ousted by U.S. forces in late 2001, is likely to continue to spread its influence and violence this year, according to a Pentagon report issued last week.

Sixty-six U.S. troops and 57 allied troops have been killed this year in Afghanistan, according to the independent nonprofit Web site icasualties.com.

The Pentagon report said bombings and suicide attacks had increased about 35 percent between 2006 and 2007. It said efforts to train and equip Afghan army and police units had been slow and uneven.

The report also said that the cultivation of poppies and opium trafficking continue to foster violence and corruption, and that counter-narcotics operations "have not been successful."

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Mullen acknowledged that he is "deeply troubled" by the increasing violence in Afghanistan.

"There's no easy solution, and there will be no quick fix," Mullen said.

"More troops are necessary," he said, adding, "I don't have the troops I can reach for.
...

As a follower of current events, I am still confused as to how the Taliban can be so powerfully resurgent in Afghanistan when just six short years ago, we had won a decisive victory in Afghanistan and the Taliban were defeated and on the run.

At least, so saideth the Commander Guy:

...
Our progress is a tribute to the spirit of the Afghan people, to the resolve of our coalition, and to the might of the United States military. When I called our troops into action, I did so with complete confidence in their courage and skill. And tonight, thanks to them, we are winning the war on terror. The man and women of our Armed Forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves -- you will not escape the justice of this nation.

…

And how vividly I remember...

"...around a year later -- right around the time that Afghanistan was showing clear and dangerous signs of neglect and Taliban resurgence -- getting into it in a bar “conversation” with a Conservative colleague who waved off any suggestion that Afghanistan was now anything other than a fully pacified, bucolic Montana-with-turbans as Liberal America-hating waving-the-white-flag-of-surrender-talk.

We had already won in Afghanistan! It was done! Over! Another glorious Conservative Victory that was in absolutely no way threatened by any drain on money or manpower from that other unqualified Conservative Success Story; Iraq.

And BTW, all of this talk about there being an “insurgency” in Iraq that would suck us into a bloody stalemate year after year was also clearly just more moonbat traitor-speak.

Period. End of discussion."

So as a current events follower, I am perplexed: perhaps some of our nation's Young Republican Heroes (captured here by Max Blumenthal a year ago in the full fucktard flower of their wastrel youth)

can explain it all to me -- slowly and in little words so I can understand.

However, now that the Bush Program for the Complete Exhaustion of the United State Armed Forced is in its seventh year, as a citizen I worry that to make their quotas, the military will have to turn to even more unconventional sources for new recruits than they have in the past.

(Not, Not, Not [I tell you three times] Safe for Work)