While Nancy Pelosi is busy attacking the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Secretary Gates has made it pretty clear that he supports McChrystal’s request for more troops. Gates said last night, “Because of our inability, and the inability, frankly, of our allies, (for putting) enough troops into Afghanistan, the Taliban do have the momentum right now, it seems.” Apparently Gates didn’t get the NSC memo saying everything’s going swimmingly in the war against the Taliban. In any case, we now have a pretty good sense of where the main players in the administration fall on the issue of more troops. On one side are McChrystal, Mullen, Petraeus, and Gates. On the other side — Joe Biden. The Washington Post lays out the stakes in an editorial today:
