1. David Kilcullen is an author and former Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser on the staff of US Army General David Patraeus. He planned and executed a campaign which drove the troop Iraq surge of 2007.
Trudy Rubin is a journalist who works for the Philadelphia Enquirer. He has written middle articles about middle-eastern countries and the issues there.
2. Kilcullen believes that the more troops must be sent Afghanistan because the Taliban/Al Qaeda are too big a threat and can't be allowed to gain control of Afghanistan.
Main Points:
-He believes the standards of living of the people must be improved and local security forces must be strengthened. Also, the people need to be able to resist intimidation from the Taliban.
-He believes the US must remain until a stable government/security force can be established.
-He also believes that the issue of the Pakistan tribal areas needs to be addressed diplomatically.
Michael A. Cohen and Parag Khanna:
1. Michael A Cohen is Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. He frequently comments on political and international affairs and his work has been published in many publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington post.
Parag Khanna is the Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. He wrote a book called The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order which has become an international best-seller. He was a foreign policy advisor on President Obama's campaign.
2. They believe the Taliban can't really gain and maintain power in Afghanistan and that both Al Queda and the Taliban are now focused on Pakistan so the focus should be shifted to Pakistan.
Main Points:
-They argue that the Pakistani government/military need to be strengthened so that they can combat the Taliban in the tribal region.
-They believe that drone strikes are the most effective way of eliminating Al-Qaeda leaders.
-They say that the Taliban can't gain control of Afghanistan because the massive lack of popular support would force them from power.
Tariq Ali:
1.Tariq Ali is a novelist, filmmaker, historian, and political campaigner born in British Pakistan, but later became a citizen of independent Pakistan. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University. He is regular broadcaster on BBC radio and has had many articles published in publications such as The Guardian. He is a vocal critic of American foreign policy, particularly their relations Pakistan which tend to support military dictatorships over democracies.
2. He says that we should focus on diplomacy and peace initiatives in the reason instead of a military approach because many factors in the region makes it difficult for this approach to succeed.
Main Points:
-He says that examples in history (Russia, Britain) have shown that occupying Afghanistan has never succeeded and that it is no more likely that the US will succeed.
-He believes the people of Afghanistan only support the Taliban because it is a solution to throwing out another invader and that they would be open to other solutions to solve this problem.
-He believes that military efforts are not the solution and instead the US should focus on forming pacts of support with regional powers to support an Afghan government.
George Will:
1. George Will is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist working for the Washington Post. He is one of the most widely recognized, and read, writers in the world. He has won over ten awards for his journalism and has over fifteen honorary degrees.
2. He believes the war in Afghanistan is not winnable and that the nature of the Taliban makes it difficult to fight. He believes the US and NATO should withdraw.
-He states that the plan we are currently undertaking would take hundreds of thousands of troops and decade or longer and that this is not an acceptable solution.
-He argues that Afghanistan's current government is littered with corruption and that setting up a stable government in Afghanistan is currently impossible.
-He argues we should focus our operations offshore with tactical military operations.
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