According to National Security Adviser James Jones, there is no threat of the Taliban taking over the Afghan gov't right now. Jones doesn't believe that the Taliban will come to power any time soon, as he stated on CNN's State of the Union. I don't fully agree with him. I think there is a very good chance of the Taliban coming into power if we don't do something.Currently, Obama is looking over his plan for the military in Afghanistan. Some military leaders and Republicans want him to increase the troop count by around 40,000. I don't think we should do that unless we absolutely have to.General Stanley McChrystal, who is the top US commander in Afghanistan as of four months ago, believes that we need a lot more troops over there to make the counterinsurgency strategy work. (That would be the mission where US troops defeat Afghanistan-based terrorists while gaining local support and helping with development.) McChrystal thinks that if we don't put more troops in Afghanistan, we'll fail and the Taliban will take over the gov't.Eight US troops and two Afghan security force members were killed by hostiles on Saturday. Republicans say that Obama needs to hurry up and agree to McChrystal's request before things go too far south. I'm kind of split on the matter. I want a stable gov't over in Afghanistan so we don't have to worry too much about terrorism and the Taliban, but I don't want to just throw troops over there and hope that we'll win because of our numbers.
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