Why does McChrystal need 40,000 more troops?

General McChrystal:

The US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has asked for 40,000 more troops, according to reports in Washington.

Assuming this number includes everything from engineering to support infrastructure, why does the top general require so many additional people?  Assume the general knows and understands the situation much better than us lowly peons, are we not missing the entire point of Afghanistan?  Isn't America over extending it's reach and adding a severe burden upon our country both morally and financially?  Let us be honest, the war in Afghanistan has outlived it's purpose and what we are doing there now is incomprehensible.

We first invaded Afghanistan for one simple reason and with one simple goal.  To destabilize the Taliban/Al-Qaeda and hopefully capture Osama.  We never ever intended to occupy the land, because everyone with the capacity to think understood it was impossible to do.  Not only because every nation has tried and failed, but because Afghanistan's makeup prevented a centralized democracy from working.  This is why the war began with a handful of special operations in conjunction with air force and local tribal leaders.  These tribal leaders had no vested interest in fighting the Taliban, but were paid quite handsomely by CIA operatives and lent their support.  They never cared about some Utopian vision of a unified Afghanistan, their loyalty was controlled by the dollar.  One underlying difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that cities play no significant importance.  This is precisely why we were so successful in capturing major points like Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad. Taliban never really put up a fight, cities were meaningless in that country as the power lies within the countryside.  Once again, this is why the original intent was not to control and occupy, but to destabilize.  When it came to capturing Osama, the war at Tora Boar was a losing proposition; a handful of special operation troops and weaponry incapable of penetrating a mountain fortress could not emerge victorious.  Further complications arose when individual warlords refused to suicide themselves and fell back allowing Osama and almost one thousand of his followers to cross over into Pakistan. 

In that sense the war was complete.  Taliban was on the run and AQ's leadership abandoned ship.  Remainder of the time was spent mopping up Taliban that fell back from the cities and setup shop in the countryside, something they have been doing for decades.  However, there is no end in sight unless we plan to occupy every square inch, a task so foolish it's not even worth discussing.  Important to remember, we were unable to deploy into Afghanistan with anything other than a handful of specialty soldiers because lacked bases to support a launching pad.  This is where Iraq comes in and why the war was launched in the first place.   Iraq gives us a presence in the Middle East and a base from which we can eradicate Al Qaeda, just like they attempted to use Afghanistan as their base.  By all accounts this appears to be working.  We did not go there for oil, we went there to put other nations in check and this was accomplished.  While the politics of Sunni/Shia Islam play out in Iraq and nations attempt to jockey for power we need to be busy doing what we set out to do.  Defending ourselves.  We are not defending ourselves in Afghanistan, we are attempting a task that we once agreed was foolish.  

As soon as we determine that the fight against AQ has stalled and our presence in Iraq no longer benefits us in the war against the jihadists we need to bring every single soldier home.  This may result in a power vacuum or a bloody civil war, but this cannot be our concern.  Our long term strategy needs to be focused on withdrawal and removal of troops.  Just like conservatives resent paying higher taxes for government services most people do not see or feel, liberals resent paying higher taxes for wars they do not agree with.  It has become virtually impossibly to understand what our foreign policy strategy should be because of the complicated mess we are in, just like it is virtually impossible to understand how to undo the woes of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.   Wars and government social programs may be different in their desires, but they share one major thing in common; Federal government did both, screwed up both and now the citizens have to pay the consequence.  Enough is enough.