As you might imagine, it really has nothing to do with the troops per se. They can be loaded up quite quickly and flown into Afghanistan. But, as the old saying goes, “amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics”. And the amateurs in the White House apparently don’t understand the impact the addition of 30,000 more troops in theater have on an already strained logistics system:
Ah, yes, logistics; the problem of getting not only troops, but food and ammo and spares and medical stuff and vehicles and fuel and so on where it all will be needed, which in this case is the back end of Wherethehellarewe Province of Afghanistan. I'll let the pro say it:
So why wasn’t the logistics system already prepared to take the surge? Well, until the decision was made, no one in the logistics channel knew there was actually going to be a surge, or how large it would be if there was one. Unlike the claim made by the president, every day he delayed that decision was another day the logistics piece remained unplanned and unresourced. And that’s on top of the problems that LTG Rodriguez has pointed out.
And every day he dithered and pretended to 'study' was another day they had to put off shipping stuff because they couldn't finalize what to send until they knew who/where/when; you don't send winter stuff for a unit that's getting there in late spring, or summer stuff for someone arriving in friggin' December(that stuff comes later, first you send what they'll need NOW and for the near future).
"This decision has delayed nothing" my cold-chapped ass.
1 comment:
I dispute whether or not they can even be flown in quickly. How many transport planes do we have that aren't already tied up? How many are tasked to other defense purposes? How many are tied up hailing fat assed worthless congresscriminals around?
How do they get there? You can't fly commercial to Afghanistan. The best we could do is the Saudi peninsula, but Germany would be better. They would have to take military transport the rest of the way. A C130 handles 92 passengers. That means at least 327 sorties to deliver 30K troops. If they can fill every single flight to capacity, which you can't always do.
How do you get the fuel delivered for the planes? Are they mid-air refueled? Is there an airfield in Afghanistan that can take that sort of tempo on the surface from fully loaded transports? How many tons of fuel is that? How would it effect the world oil market? Would we have to dip into the strategic reserves?
This doesn't even get into the logistics of the operation, like you were talking. Just the logistics of getting the 30K men on the ground is daunting.
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