Afghanistan inabilities!

This article touches on a couple things that I would like to address. Afghanistan has been a war zone for many years. This article talks about the three soldiers that died from a road side bomb. This wouldn't have happened if the enemy didn't have a strong hold on that city. The United States and others countries have sacrificed lives and spent large amounts of money fighting this war. I personally got to experience the transition of combat operations to train and assist operations. During this time there was a surge of troops deployed to Afghanistan and then a rapid decrease. When the we had a decrease in troops there became a increase in Taliban activity and the number of members. On my last tour to Afghanistan combat operations picked up. We basically went with the Afghan commandos on their missions in order to make sure everything goes smoothly. In my opinion there needs to be a larger number of troops in Afghanistan. Maybe not as many as in 2012, but more than the current number. Currently most combat operations are being performed by special operators and infantrymen attached to their units. There is a key element with higher number of troops in a country like that. The enemy would think twice about certain attacks. It won't eliminate them, but would decrease certain ones. The presence decreases the enemy from performing some attacks. I remember first hand how difficult my last deployment was due to the lack of troops to conduct missions. I believe its more of a political statement to have such a low number of troops in Afghanistan. At times many Americans were complaining and making a statement of "bring our troops home". Yea it seems like a plan that will make everyone happy, but what about the troops that are in Afghanistan and their well being. My point is that if we are going to be over their we should have many more troops for security reasons. Power by numbers is a key element to improve the security of the troops. The military trainers can't do what they are supposed to if they are more worried about security. The other thing discussed in this article is all the hype about the general carrying a weapon. Usually this doesn't happen and high profile military members have a security team. It's like the president not being allowed to drive in a way. In my previous post I discussed how this general was almost killed during a attack. Of course he is going to be more prepared when something like that happened. Ultimately I wish everyone could come home, but if not I would rather see a higher number of troops willing to work together and get whatever they need to done.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/world/asia/us-soldiers-killed-afghanistan.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FAfghanistan&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection