Fun fact

As you hear wonderful new news about the Afghan/Pakistan region, like that interesting little tidbit about how Hamid Karzai's opium dealing brother is on the CIA payroll, or how a bomb ripped through Pakistan and killed 90 people...while Secretary Clinton is visiting there, or the Taliban storming a "protected" house in Kabul and killing 6 UN workers, or the bit about how the Obama Administration has decided that in regards to the Afghan War "the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed", remember this: Troops already outnumber Taliban 12-1.

There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory.

Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed.
...
The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000. Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a military analyst and guerrilla warfare expert from Serbia, said that although McChrystal's reinforcements would lift the ratio to 20-1 or more, they would prove counterproductive.

Well I can certainly see why we're so eager to put more troops in. 12-1 is hardly and overwhelming advantage. Better bump it up to 20-1. Fuck it, 40-1. Let's have more soldiers than Afghans, then I'm sure we'll be able to outwit and kill the 25,000 Taliban fighters. One thing I'm sure of is that occupation armies never piss off citizens and inflame insurgencies, especially not after 8 years of futility, and especially not in Afghanistan, with its long traditions of welcoming foreign forces with open arms. What do they call Afghanistan, the Welcoming Center of Empires? I'm sure this will go as well as every armed conflict has ever gone in Afghanistan. Good luck, get to work.