Several Afghan Strategies, None a Clear Choice

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01policy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=possible%20strategies%20for%20afghanistan&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Subject: re: Several Afghan Strategies, None a Clear Choice
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   What the U.S. learned in Vietnam is still lost on (British) major general Peter Gilchrist. "Insurgents continue to maneuver around us and set I.E.D.'s which kill our people" not because we have too few troops, but because the populace tolerates them. It is easy and predictable for a military leader to argue that he would have succeeded if only he had been given more troops. Until we convince the Afghan people that the NATO forces are going to make their lives better, and then leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, the insurgency cannot be defeated by any number of troops.

Barry Levine