Maybe we should use some of those 34,000 troops to safeguard the border? Dealing with the insurgency is hard enough—but letting fighters escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan, or Pakistan to Afghanistan, and then back again, is an insanely stupid thing.
You would think this would be the number one reason to put in more troops. Militants have safe havens on either side of the border because we let them! But nobody says a word about fixing that equation. Puzzling.