Enough is enough

"If the president should listen to McChrystal and adopt a troop "surge," the question remains: How many is enough?"

Currently the United States has around 48,000 troops in Afghanistan not including Iraq. General Stanley McChrystal plans to put 40000 more troops into the area to help keep things "under control."

But is there a point to all the troops going into Afghanistan? Will the 40,000 US troops make a difference in subduing the insurgencies going on?

The current state in Afghanistan has gotten to point where it is nearly a civil war. Although Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War claims that the extra 40,000 troops may reduce the amount of violence in the country, I feel that adding the 40,000 may not help the overall of the war. Sooner or later, the US will have to pull out because our economy won't be able to support our troops there and the insurgents aren't just going to fall back and retreat just because we added in a more troops.

Just last week, eight more US soldiers were killed fighting hundreds of insurgents in the lower areas of the Nuristan province. If we add 40,000 more troops, what's stopping the insurgents from rallying up even more people to help "fight the US" off?

As Rep. Jim McGovern says, " We need to come up with a strategy that includes an exit strategy, because it'll also put pressure on the government of Afghanistan to step up to the plate, which it has not done so far."