Thanks to Peter, a thoughtful reader, a true newhound who sent me a story about a very important development over the weekend on the other side of the pond. The British Army confirmed that its top Afghanistan commander for its 8,000 troops serving there, Maj. Gen. Andrew Mackay, resigned for “personal” reasons. But according to some reports, he resigned because he felt his troops were not getting the kind of support, both in terms of equipment and strategy, that they need and deserve.
The Independent reported that he was disturbed by a “lack of clear policy.” And the Times piece says that he felt his repeated warnings of the state of the war went unanswered.
(As an aside, Britain’s Sun newspaper reports that Mackay was Prince Harry’s commander during his brief stint of service in Helmand province.)
Mackay presided over the deadliest year for British troops since the war began more than eight years ago, including the death of seven British troops in one week. That deadly July week sparked a nationwide protest over the British involvement in the Afghanistan war.
Mackay is the fifth British commander in Afghanistan in two years.
What does this portend for the rest of the coalition? Many countries – including Germany, Canada and Italy – are facing growing opposition within their populace about the war in Afghanistan. I fear that as the United States contemplates the way ahead in Afghanistan, it may also increasingly have to consider going at it largely on its own.
In an unannounced move authorized by the White House, the Pentagon is deploying at least 13,000 support troops to Afghanistan. The deployments are in addition to the 21,000 combat troops announced in March.
Mission creep? Or parsing 40,000 into 13,000 + 27,000?
Posted by: Chip | October 13, 2009 at 01:26 AM
Definitely going to be an interesting meeting this afternoon...
Posted by: Strangely Enough | October 13, 2009 at 11:51 AM
Hi Chip: I see you read the Washington Post story. I don't think it's mission creep. I think more than anything, the story shows why the Pentagon should release more detailed figures about troop deployments. Who is combat? Who is support? The way it is done now just creates confusion.
But the final number at the end of the day is 68,000.
Posted by: Nancy Youssef | October 13, 2009 at 11:51 AM
"I fear that as the United States contemplates the way ahead in Afghanistan, it may also increasingly have to consider going at it largely on its own." You must referring to the gvt, certainly not the pop.
Posted by: Hans Suter | October 14, 2009 at 04:10 PM
As you may recall, we blogged with LTG Caldwell re: precedents and practice of the Army's Stability Operations Manual 3-07. He has recently spoke (Oct 7) at the US Institute of Peace re: a new document i.e. Guiding Principles of Stabilization and Reconstruction.
The gist of these documents is, as I interpret it, the combination of military ops and civilian peacebuilding efforts. Do you think some commanders are at odds with this strategy re: Afghanistan and is it possible that we may see some confusion in terms of stated policies?
Posted by: Philip Henika | October 15, 2009 at 07:58 AM
I have to say, I find this war to be a very odd duck. Why do countries go to war? Historically to acquire real estate or wealth. Why did we invade Afghanistan? To track down and kill the people who planned 9/11. Doesn't that sound a lot like a criminal investigation rather than a war? Maybe we should send in several thousand investigators who speak the local language as opposed to dropping bombs and flying drones, both of which seem to kill a great number of innocent people. In fact, we have killed more innocent people in Afghanistan than Osama killed on 9/11, so who are the terrorists here?
Posted by: Will Shirley | October 23, 2009 at 08:48 AM