if the commander on the ground wants more troops ,give them to him,or get out. we will have another Somolia, where they wanted tanks, and clinton wouldn't give them. if it's worth fighting, then win it, asap.

Remember VN? Same strategy, same situation. God help our men/women on the ground. The enemy is smelling our cowardness. I hope everyone knows they read/understand more about our country than most of leaders do whenit comes to how we fight....they have been studying it for years and why not, they don't have Nintendo.....

Either give the commander what it takes to make a difference, or pull out. Our government needs the guts to be decisive, one way or the other. We owe it to the troops who have volunteered to serve their country.

If Bush would have address Afghanistan as the priority it is, we wouldn't be in this situation. He did the right thing initially going after bin laden and the Taliban, but counted his win too quickly and set course for his big legacy event in Iraq too soon.

I'm all for adding troops into A'stan if the Gens on the ground are asking for it.
However A'stan is a different battle than Iraq. The terrain which AQ knows well will get us killed. Sending in SOF and SF would be better. Not 30000 troops that will be targets for AQ and the TB.

Goals need to be SMART -- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. If the military's top brass can't define those terms relative to Afghanistan, more troops won't help. Strategy comes before tactics. Taking enough time to evaluate the report is the correct decision now.

Greg: "Remember VN? Same strategy, same situation."

Really? I didn't realize the Taliban were being supported by a neighboring superpower like China.

The delay is because Obama's team wants to take a week or two to actually HAVE a strategy before throwing our boys into a meat grinder.

Wait on sending more troops to understand the strategy.... why is he not doing that with this god forsaken "stimulus" package????

This sounds familiar!!!

Freein NH: "Wait on sending more troops to understand the strategy.... why is he not doing that with this god forsaken "stimulus" package???? "

Economic strategy does not depend on a full analysis of classified information and reports from military subordinates. He had quite an in-depth head start on the economic strategy, but not on the military strategy. It's apples to oranges.

I smell a resignation coming. The headlines in a few days will most likely read "Secretary of Defense Gates resigns to return to Academia" or "Secretary of State Gates resigns to spend more time with his family"

We've had seven years to assess strategy and tactics. In the meanwhile, our soldiers, marines, and corpsmen are holdling the fort while we wait on top brass to change hands, again. Congress needs to stop micromanaging, and let the battlefield commanders do their jobs.

I think going into Afghanistan is a decision worse than going into Iraq.
We must not forget, pakhtoons lost millions of lives, but brought down the soviet empire in the end.
They may lose million more lives, but will not yield and, in the end Americans will not be able to continue the war,exactly like Soviet Union was not able to afford it and, pulled away.
I think, Obama should open up communication channels with Pakhtoon leaders in Afghanistan & north west frontier province of Pakistan including FATA, to keep temperatures down and, reach some middle ground agreement of peace.
We cannot afford wars.
America is already broke and borrows heavily from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea.

oops... Any CHANCE the Russians would take the place back.... PLEASE!!????

Joy: "Congress needs to stop micromanaging, and let the battlefield commanders do their jobs. "

? How on earth has Congress been micromanaging? Bush got everything he wanted without debate, from alliances with the local warlords to military operations in Pakistan to payoffs of local strongmen. Give one real example of Congress micromanaging this.

perflead:"I think going into Afghanistan is a decision worse than going into Iraq."

Afghanistan was openly harboring an enemy force that was responsible for the death of thousands of Americans on American soil. There is no debate - and was no debate, domestic or international - that the US had the need and right to go into Afghanistan.

Look at the facts on the ground people. Kyrgyzstan is closing their airfields to us (Putin 1 - Obama 0) and the Pakistani Army cannot keep the Khyber Pass open. That Mumbai attack worked like a charm. Now that the Pakistanis are glaring over the border at the Indians the Taliban are free to blow up bridges and ambush convoys. How are we going to sustain 3 additional BCT’s plus NATO if we cannot guarantee our lines of communication? CENTCOM can’t be too happy. Gates and the Joint Staff must be having fits right now.

DEMOCRATS are selling out the security of the United States. It is bad enough that they are pushing hard for us to become a communist state but they are putting us at great risk-ask any border town sheriff where the gangs of Mexico are regularly coming into America to peddle their drugs and kill Americans who get in their way. Obama is a person hell bent on destroying any security we had. I did not think it was possible for anyone to be worse on the border than Bush, but Obama is with Solis who is a traitor to America and an illegal Mexican welcome wagon woman. Americans will someday soon wake up to the terrible harm that has been perpetrated on us by these insane New England and Calif liberal policies!!!!

If you keep screwing around in Afghanistan like Bush did, we are in for a world of harm as the Taliban regroups and our dopey intelligence does not get it right!!!!

And "King Richard" Holbrooke emerges to louse things up the way he did in the Balkans under the Clinton administration. Let's hope most of his "advice" is ignored and it saves the lives and skin of our servicemen and women.