mythOs

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Our friend Tom Cotton, who served in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009, was in Washington earlier this month with Vets for Freedom. He visited folks in Congress and the White House in support of Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 to 60,000 more troops for Afghanistan. Tom found that the thinking of most officials he met was plagued by a number of myths. So he wrote a piece in The Weekly Standard to expose the biggest of these misconceptions. 1. A counterterrorism campaign is an effective alternative to counterinsurgency. Not so because, among other reasons, a counterterrorism strategy cannot work without actionable intelligence, and such intelligence cannot be obtained without troops on the ground. 2. The Afghan people don't want us there. That's not what they told Tom. They told Tom they want better security, and if it takes more American troops to accomplish this, that's okay.