(Army Times) Backtalk: Learning to let go

[unhappycamper]

Learning to let go
By George C. Wilson

Formerly secret intelligence reports give a valuable insight into why Defense Secretary Robert Gates has so vehemently warned Congress not to try to Americanize the war against terrorists in Afghanistan.

Recall that Gates, whom former President George W. Bush named to succeed the polarizing Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary in December 2006, was a fully certified intelligence professional for almost 27 years — and thus read, if not wrote, top-secret reports detailing the Soviet Union’s disastrous occupation of Afghanistan.

He took to heart the mistakes the Soviets made and considers it one of his missions as President Barack Obama’s carryover defense secretary to keep Congress, the White House and the Pentagon from repeating them.

“The Soviets couldn’t win that war with 120,000 troops and a completely ruthless approach to killing innocent civilians,” Gates said in January in his first appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee as Obama’s man at the Pentagon. “They had the wrong strategy. They were regarded properly as an invader.”

While he supports Obama’s plan to almost double the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan from roughly 34,000 today to about 60,000 as soon as practical, this defense secretary — who is now freer than ever to speak his mind because he is probably in his last government post, and glad of it — is making it clear to Congress and presumably the commander in chief that he believes going much beyond the 30,000 U.S. troop surge would be a bad idea.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_backtalk_afghan_030209/%2e