The title of a recently released Yahoo! article is "AP IMPACT: Troops already outnumber Taliban 12-1". OK, this is a HUGE margin, but so what? This is a battle that we're clearly LOSING.

The first 3 sentences set the tone: "There are already more than 100000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200000 Afghan (security) forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 advantage over Taliban rebels, BUT IT HASN'T LED TO ANYTHING CLOSE TO VICTORY" and we've only been in Afghanistan for the last 8+ years. "Now the top US and NATO commanders are asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the ESCALATING insurgency, RASING THE QUESTION OF HOW MANY MORE TROOPS IT WOULD TAKE TO SUCCCEED". This is a serious concern indeed. How many "surges" will it take to win this war?

What are the experts saying? According to Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston and a former platoon leader in Vietnam, "The US and its allies already have ample numbers to ANNIHILATE the Taliban, IF ONLY THE TALIBAN WOULD COOPERATE AND STAND STILL AND ALLOW US TO BOMB THEM TO SMITHEREENS".   The Taliban are clearly not idiotic enough to do that. Of course, they will fight tooth and nail to keep their terrorist regime alive. "But the insurgents are conducting the war in ways THAT DO NOT PLAY TO (allied) STRENGTHS". Again, terrorists are not stupid. 

According to Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a Serbian guerrilla warfare expert, "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to regain the initiative by introducing more foreign forces, WHICH WILL ONLY BREED MORE RESENTMENT AND MORE RECRUITS FOR THE ENEMY" and we've already seen this phenomenon at work in Iraq. "The Soviets tried the exact same thing in Afghanistan in the 1980s WITH DISASTROUS RESULTS". OK, so this is what we shouldn't do. What SHOULD we do then?

According to NATO spokesman James Appathurai, "In the end, this (conflict) CANNOT BE SOLVED BY MILITARY MEANS ALONE and in that sense, a precise figure of Taliban fighters is not the point". This is true, because A GOOD NUMBER OF AFGHAN CIVILIANS may be joining the Taliban.

According to a senior officer based at NATO headquarters who was not identified because of NATO regulations, "The internal figure used for planning purposes is 20000 fighters, with several thousand more auxiliaries - mainly members of tribal militias, clans and semi-criminal gangs". There isn't much difference between "semi-criminal" and CRIMINAL.   Both types of criminals loot and kill.

According to another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because this issue is so sensitive and critical to security in the region, "When the poppy is good, they stay home"   because they can do their damage from home (e.g. by selling drugs at farmers' markets, etc.) WHEN THE POPPY IS BAD, THEY TAKE UP GUNS"   in order to do damage in another way/manner.

Finally, according to retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who oversaw the surge of US troops into Iraq in late 2007 into early 2008, "The ratio of friendly to enemy forces would be a crucial aspect ONLY IF YOU COULD GET AT THE ENEMY", but in this case, we can't. "But WITH AN ENEMY THAT DOESN'T WEAR UNIFORMS AND HIDES AMONG THE POPULATION,   this is VERY hard to do. The crucial aspect in this case is the ratio of SECURITY FORCE TO POPULATION - this is much more relevant. This would require 1 security person to every 50 people. In a nation of about 32 million, this means about 600000 security personnel would be needed to CLAMP IT DOWN", something that Afghanistan certainly does not have right now.