Al-Anbar turned over to Iraqi's!!!

[pocketfullofshells]

Actually in Afghanistan we already "surged" and sent an additional 5,000 marines in. Add to that NATO deployments make up a large part of the force as well, and our control area is much smaller.

The problem in Afghanistan is fundamentally different than Iraq. Afghanistan has no real export to rely on. (Outside of drugs) Their economy is garbage. The conflict there is not really religious based, the mountains in Pakistan provide a lot of problems. Even if we put 100,000 more soldiers in, we still get the Cambodia problem that we had in Vietnam. Unless we want to spread the war, that will continue to be a major problem.

Further, the government in Kabul has no control outside of the actual city, there is no real national unity to build a decent security force that will enforce the rules of the government. Iraq and Afghanistan are two different scenarios, and simply adding soldiers will not solve the problem.

Clearly just adding troops is not the only issue, but its also clear we need more on the border of pakistan...and I am in favor of more raids into pakistan if needed.