Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is frustrated and determined at the same time. He made clear in a speech given at the Brookings Institution this year is critical in the fight to destroy the Taliban, and each example of mistakes made in bombing enemy sites only results in the enemy gaining a victory, not American forces. “I believe each time we do that(bomb and kill civilians) we put our strategy in jeopardy. We cannot succeed… in Afghanistan by killing Afghan civilians.” The episode at the beginning of the month which resulted in the deaths of over a hundred Afghans including women and children is frustrating Mullen because such mistakes increase the difficulty in defeating the Taliban.
Admiral Mullen is correct– this and next year are critical in defeating the Taliban. If in 2011 the situation is like 2009 the Taliban will have won a major victory. The problem that Mullen refuses to acknowledge is lack of sufficient men on the ground due to the limited number of those serving in the American military. The reality is America needs a modified form of the draft to provide sufficient forces to do the job in Afghanistan.