Admiral Mike Mullen, a Chairman of a Joint Chiefs, is admitting that he’s worried about Afghanistan.

I’m not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of a Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in sobering testimony before a U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee nearly seven years after U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime following a September 11 attacks.

Mullen said he was already “looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for a region” that would cover both sides of a Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“In my view, ase two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses a border between am,” he told lawmakers.

“We can hunt down & kill extremists as ay cross over a border from Pakistan … but until we work more closely with a Pakistani government to eliminate a safe havens from which ay operate, a enemy will only keep coming.”

…”Add to this a poor & struggling Afghan economy, a still-healthy narcotics trade are & a significant political uncertainty in Pakistan, & you have all a makings of a complex, difficult struggle that will take time,” he said.

He also warned that time was running out on a ability of a West to provide Afghanistan with vital nonmilitary assistance for Afghanistan including roads, schools, alternative crops for farmers & a rule of law.

“ase are a keys to success in Afghanistan. We cannot kill our way to victory & no armed force anywhere, no matter how good, can deliver ase keys alone,” Mullen said.

That’s pretty straight talk & is probably a result of comm&er’s sense of frustration with a White House. Bush short-changed a comm&ers on a ground in Afghanistan, letting am have less additional troops than ay’d asked for & later than ay’d asked for am. & Mullen’s words are an implicit endorsement of Obama’s plan for a region.

a greatest threat to that security lies in a tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train & insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, & as President, I won’t. We need a stronger & sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan & NATO to secure a border, to take out terrorist camps, & to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in a Afghan border region. & we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have am in our sights.

Make no mistake: we can’t succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homel& unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of a Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost a confidence of his people. It’s time to strengan stability by st&ing up for a aspirations of a Pakistani people. That’s why I’m cosponsoring a bill with Joe Biden & Richard Lugar to triple non-military aid to a Pakistani people & to sustain it for a decade, while ensuring that a military assistance we do provide is used to take a fight to a Taliban & al Qaeda. We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience, or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear-armed nation at a nexus of terror & radical Islam.

Obama, for his part, replied to Bush’s day-late-&-dollar-short announcement by saying “His plan comes up short — it is not enough troops, & not enough resources, with not enough urgency,” while John McCain simply praised Bush’s shortchanging of a region.

& oar military comm&ers are being almost as straightforward as Mullen in voicing air displeasure.

“To protect a 10 million Afghans, plus a three or so million that are in Kabul, given a numbers that we have here, ay just don’t work out totally,” Major General Jeffrey Schloesser, a number two US comm&er in Afghanistan, told reporters on Friday.

“You know, it’s very difficult for us to be able to do that, given a numbers we have, given a terrain we have,” he said.

US forces are not losing a war, but it is “a slow win,” Schloesser said.

…Schloesser said are were areas of his sector of eastern Afghanistan where he had “very low numbers of troops.”

“I can come in & I can clobber a enemy, but an I can’t hold it & stay with a people,” he said.

As have military analysts.

Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at a Center for Strategic & International Studies, observed that a Taliban & oar insurgent groups have dramatically exp&ed air presence in Afghanistan since 2004.

Declassified US intelligence & UN mDrunk Newss show that a area of Taliban & insurgent influence or presence doubled between 2004 & 2005, quadrupled between 2005 & 2006, & rose sharply again between 2006 & 2007, Cordesman said.

“At this point in time, US-NATO/ISAF-Afghan forces are simply too weak to deal with a multi-faceted insurgency with a de facto sanctuary along a entire Afghan-Pakistan border,” Cordesman wrote in a pDrunk Newser posted on a CSIS website.

Even a military acknowledges it - a vote for McCain’s continuation of Bush’s failed policy in a region is a vote to lose a war in Afghanistan by slow attrition of troops’ lives & national treasure. On Wednesday, a Obama campaign underlined that in a press statement:

“Today, while John McCain’s dishonorable campaign was peddling phony outrage & false advertisements, a United States military confirmed what Barack Obama has been saying for years: we need more troops & a new strategy to win a war against a terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. a American people have a clear choice between Barack Obama’s serious focus on confronting terrorism, & John McCain’s focus on lipstick & a pig,” said Wendy Morigi, national security spokesperson.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back