Afghan Surge 2: Electric Boogaloo

[TheCount]

President Trump’s most senior military and foreign policy advisers have proposed a major shift in strategy in Afghanistan that would effectively put the United States back on a war footing with the Taliban.The new plan, which still needs the approval of the president, calls for expanding the U.S. military role as part of a broader effort to push an increasingly confident and resurgent Taliban back to the negotiating table, U.S. officials said.

The plan comes at the end of a sweeping policy review built around the president’s desire to reverse worsening security in Afghanistan and “start winning” again, said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The new strategy, which has the backing of top Cabinet officials, would authorize the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use airstrikes to target Taliban militants. It would also lift Obama-era restrictions that limited the mobility of U.S. military advisers on the battlefield.

The net result of the changes would be to reverse moves by President Barack Obama to steadily limit the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, along with the risk to American troops and the cost of the war effort, more than 15 years after U.S. forces first arrived there.

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Even as it moves to the president’s desk, the proposal faces resistance from some senior administration officials who fear a repeat of earlier decisions to intensify military efforts that produced only temporary improvements.

Inside the White House, those opposed to the plan have begun to refer derisively to the strategy as “McMaster’s War,” a reference to H.R. McMaster, the president’s national security adviser. The general, who once led anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan and was one of the architects of President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, is the driving force behind the new strategy at the White House.

The White House declined to comment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.b2149f77303b

[enhanced_deficit]

It would also lift Obama-era restrictions that limited the mobility of U.S. military advisers on the battlefield.

The net result of the changes would be to reverse moves by President Barack Obama to steadily limit the U.S. military role in Afghanistan, along with the risk to American troops and the cost of the war effort, more than 15 years after U.S. forces first arrived there.

While DGP's spectacular failures including those relating to war surge disasters from Afghanistan to Syria to Libya may make him the worst POTUS in history, President Trump should not automatically reverse every single policy of last regime without thorough review. There was high frequency of inside attacks by real/fake Afghan soldiers before this segregation.

This was latest news out last month:

Attack on Afghan Army Base Reportedly Killed Over 250 Soldiers

April 25, 2017

Afghanistan’s largest television station has reported last Friday’s deadliest-ever assault by the Taliban on a major military base in northern Balkh province left more than 250 soldiers dead and accused authorities of “hiding the truth.”

The government has been under fire for refusing to reveal the number of casualties several days after the attack targeting the Afghan National Army’s 209th Shaheen Corps in the provincial capital of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Afghan soldiers stand guard at the gate of a military base in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, April 21, 2017, after an attack by Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen who entered the compound wearing Afghan army uniforms.

Witnesses and security sources said that Taliban assailants drove up to the base in two army vehicles mounted with machine guns, waving fake identification cards and claiming they were bringing back a seriously injured soldier from the frontline. Some of the attackers detonated explosives strapped to their bodies while others were gunned down by Afghan commandos before the hours-long siege ended.



The Afghan Taliban released to the media this photo which it said shows the suicide bombers and gunmen who attacked the army base in Mazar-i-Sharif, April 21, 2017.

At least four Afghan soldiers are suspected of having helped the attackers but they remain at large, according to officials.
American military advisors and trainers were also present at a different location inside the regional military headquarters.
The Taliban, while claiming responsibility for Friday’s attack, said more than 500 soldiers were killed or wounded. It went on to say the assault on the army base was a prelude to its coming “spring offensive” in Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, during his day-long visit to Kabul on Monday, also warned “2017's going to be another tough year for the valiant Afghan security forces and the international troops.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanista...l/3825261.html

[CPUd]

so much winning