Afghan strategy is failing, says general

Afghan strategy is failing, says general

Monday 31 August 2009
by Tom Mellen

The chief of occupation forces in Afghanistan conceded yesterday that the West's military strategy is failing.

In a "strategic review" of the eight-year-old conflict, US General Stanley McChrystal likened the deployment of an array of high-tech materiel against Afghan guerillas to a "bull charging at a matador."

Tacitly acknowledging that brute force has served to enflame Afghan resistance rather than undermine it, he said that the matador is only "slightly weakened with each 'cut' it receives."

Gen McChrystal observed that the situation in the impoverished country is "serious" - and he said that a new strategy is needed to achieve Washington's aims in the country.

But in a sign that new thinking on the conflict is unlikely to emerge from the Pentagon, he repeated past statements about the need to "clear and hold" villages and strengthen the capacity of the Afghan state to fight the counterinsurgency itself.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/world/Afghan-strategy-is-failing-says-general

It's all tactics and "sending messages", that's all there ever was, and that is still all there is.