WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan over six months, an accelerated timetable — with an endgame built in — that would have the first Marines there as early as Christmas, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.
With the full complement of new troops expected to be in Afghanistan by next summer, the heightened pace of Obama’s military deployment in the 8-year-old war appears to mimic the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, a 20,000-strong force addition under former President George W. Bush. Similar in strategy to that mission, Obama’s Afghan surge aims to reverse gains by Taliban insurgents and to secure population centers in the volatile south and east parts of the country.
In a prime-time speech to the nation Tuesday night from West Point that ends a 92-day review, Obama will seek to help sell his much bigger, costlier war plan by tying the escalation to an exit strategy, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. With U.S. casualties in Afghanistan sharply increasing and little sign of progress, the war Obama once liked to call one “of necessity,” not choice, has grown less popular with the public and within his own Democratic party. In recent days, leading Democrats have talked of setting tough conditions on deeper U.S. involvement, or even staging outright opposition. The 30,000 new U.S. troops will bring the total in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 U.S. forces by next summer. New infusions of U.S. Marines will begin moving into Afghanistan almost as soon as Obama announces a redrawn battle strategy.
Good Morning, Vietnam !!!!
Here is the conservative perspective about Obama’s speech tonight:
a) If Obama pulls out any troops he is abandoning America to the terrorist threat.
b) If Obama adds any troops he is escalating an unpopular war and breaking his promises.
c) If Obama leaves the troop numbers as-is he is dithering.
So Obama can not direct adding, removing or keeping the same number of troops in Afghanistan without getting it wrong.
You watch it… no matter what Obama directs the military to do,it will be criticized and undermined by the leaders of the right wing (Limbaugh and Beck). The same people that have been asking for a troop increase will turn around and say that the troop increase is wrong.
BTW… how many of you conservatives support a “War Tax” to pay for this situation? I am a liberal and I support a war tax.
I’ve been taking these antibiotics. I know the Dr said to take the whole bottle, but I’m feeling a bit better, and taking these big horsepills is annoying.
In a few days I’ll be sick again. And the bugs will be resistant to the drugs. It will be like I was never medicated at all. Just money and effort and resources wasted.
27 Chris
A strike capability didn’t much help NY.
Afghanistan, Wikipedia: According to the World Bank, “economic growth has been strong and has generated better livelihoods” since 2001.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey and the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry, Afghanistan may be possessing up to 36 trillion cubic feet (1,000 km3) of natural gas, 3.6 billion barrels (570,000,000 m3) of petroleum and up to 1,325 million barrels (2.107E+8 m3) of natural gas liquids. This could mark the turning point in Afghanistan’s reconstruction efforts.
Other reports show that the country has huge amounts of gold, copper, coal, iron ore and other minerals. The government of Afghanistan is in the process of extracting and exporting its copper reserves, which will be earning $1.2 billion US dollars in royalties and taxes every year for the next 30 years.
#32 Good points. I would add Obama is pursuing the best decision of all the bad options on the table.
The Republican will comprise a response after the decision based on the most damaging political fallout.
There you have it. The Republican strategy in a sentence.
#2 – North America – the trick is to murder the indigenous population. Or overwhelm their population by sheer numbers. Then let them run casinos.
China is doing something similar in Tibet. There are nearly more Chinese living in Tibet than Tibetans. But they’re not bothering with the casinos.
Here is the liberal perspective about Obama’s speech tonight:
a) If Obama pulls out any troops he is abandoning Americas folly of an unjust war.
b) If Obama adds any troops he is escalating an necessary war and keeping his promises.
c) If Obama leaves the troop numbers as-is he is exercising careful deliberation.
So Obama can direct adding, removing or keeping the same number of troops in Afghanistan and still get it right.
You watch it… no matter what Obama directs the military to do, it will be right and praised by the leaders of the left wing. The same ignorant uneducated people that would follow him off a cliff.
BTW… how many of you conservatives support a “War Tax” to pay for this situation? I am a liberal and I support ANY tax.
24, Tbarrey, Fusion once claimed to have been a military officer but other comments he’s said in the past have led me to believe that that this was only while playing Call of Duty. 🙂
29, Dallas, the only problem I have with left-wing nut jobs is they make partisan attacks and double-standards if the commander-in-chief is not part of their political affiliation. Like it or not, the Iraq and Afghan wars could have both been ended when the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. That’s assuming the Democrats who won office actually kept their promises. Instead, partisan hacks want to blame Bush for continuing a war that Congress has the power to kill funding on.
Regardless, the Left is so partisan it seems that they’re willing to do things that are not in the best interests of the U.S.
26, Dr. Dodd, Too funny. 🙂
29, Dallas, how is that any different than you making personal attacks to those you politically disagree with?
30, McCullough, you hit the nail on the head. The partisan hacks are only worried about making their political party win. What’s good for the country takes a back seat.
32, Awake, the Conservative perspective will be that if Obama pulls out it will be another broken campaign promise in that Obama clearly said Afghan was the right war.
Speaking of a “War Tax”, it’s called the DOD budget. But this tax will be a way for Obama to waffle on his promises and sort of spin it to his favor. Ultimately, the guy is raising taxes in a recession which is STUPID. The stimulus package hasn’t created any meaningful number of jobs. Not to mention, under the Obama administration he is raising taxes on the poor and middle class via excise taxes and Cap & Trade.
I forget who originally said this, but there’s a lot of truth to this: “Poor people have been voting Democrat for 50+ years and they’re still poor.”. So what gives? 🙂
It could be worse. Obama could hire someone who cost Harvard University over $1 billion in losses to be the directory of our country’s National Economic Council. Oooops. I guess he already did that. Real hope and change coming. LOL.
Change you can believe in? Bullshit, it’s the same old lies we’ve been hearing for decades while guys like the president empty the treasury into the pockets of war profiteers and crooked bankers. I voted for this guy because he said he would end the wars. I want my vote back and the double crossing SOB won’t ever get my vote again.
Hey Mr President! How about some Change that Does Some Good!!??
What fucking choice did he have? You have a dangerous enemy you can’t let up on. If he pulled out and another attack was carried out on US soil, what then? These people have avowed to destroy us. You think you can reason with them? This is very different situation than Vietnam. That was more about China and the USSR. We’re playing for keeps here.
That war will be won on the ground.
#30 – Well said!
Barry, you got sum ‘splainen to do.
I kind of liked the idea of green glass back when it all started….
Its the first time I’ve ever seen a war plan with an exit strategy and an exit date stamped on it from the start.
It gets us out if we win, and if we lose, we still win because we are still getting out by the stated date.
We will not be staying longer than Obama’s elected term in office.
I don’t think you realize how big this is.
He has chosen an option where he is winning, regardless of the mess he leaves, because we’re not staying a day longer than the cutoff.
If its a mess, its their mess. If its a paradise, then we’ll come back and visit.
We have just cut the air out of everybody’s sails and left them luffing, becalmed in the wind.
#45
Then why in the hell go there in the first place?
A war used to be, and IHMO should be, fought with victory in mind. If you are not willing to devote your all STAY OUT!
War is a nasty business and we fight them in the court of public opinion now.
We should never commit those young people unless we have the resolve to finish it by any means possible.
Well, we wanted FDR, and we got LBJ. Disappointing.
#34 RBG
I do appreciate your response to my challenge of how Afghanistan could conceivably move up the development ladder. I’ve been hitting this in every DU thread about Afghanistan and nobody has ever responded, ever.
Afghanistan as a provider of desirable materials has some merit. The transport costs involved in getting equipment into and out of the country mean that only low bulk/high value cargoes are possible. Right now this means opium.
Gold or oil are high value and low bulk(gold is better on both accounts), but they do require significant infrastructure to produce. Big machinery and the specialized manpower to run it must be provided. Doing so in a violent locale means big expense. It isn’t impossible, but it might well be uneconomical.
Copper, Iron, and Nat. Gas are likely impossible ventures in Afghanistan. The place is just too inaccessible. Copper and Iron are available at much lower cost elsewhere. Maybe we could get China to take these products(they do need materials and they have expendable cheap labor). I just don’t think this is going to happen, though.
Consider that the best routes of materials transport is over Iran or Pakistan. I wouldn’t invest in either route if I had the cash to do so. Would you?
Many parts of Africa are instructive to Afghanistan. They have labor available at pennies/day and relatively peaceful conditions. The cost to transport goods out just makes it untenable. Unless you have a proper container port located next to cheap labor big foreign investment tends to be non-existent.
As to Afghanistan and 9/11. I think an unbiased reading of good sources indicates that Bush II was completely uninterested in terrorism until 9/11. It wasn’t on the radar.
With some special forces on the ground, Bagram and air support we can take out established scumbag infrastructure. We may not capture desirable individuals, but how good a job are we doing with a much bigger presence?
I had my suspicions when Obama kept most of Bush’s war cabinate. Not a clean house kind of president. More like a “pretend to be in charge, but really just following Pentagon orders” president. Sort of an Auto-Pilot war president. Not prepared to rock the boat one way or the other. Just slightly reducing the recommended troop deployments, some general(s) come up with. But mostly deferring to their strategies and goals. And of course, all the while Dick Cheney continues to be heard from, as if he were still the real President. Oops. I mean Vice President (who acts like he’s the President).
49,
Sadly, Obama has decided to dance with the military as he cannot have rabid attack dogs on every front. The President already has the redneck racist idiots accusing him of being an unamerican muslim plant from Kenya (nee Tanzania), he doesn’t need to be called a pussy by the rest of the right wing on top of it.
Watching the speech now. Taking bets on how quickly he plays the 9/11 card…..OK, and there it is. 30 seconds into the speech. Just like Bush.
Same shit different moron.
This decision will cost him the 2012 election…
The average Republican disapprove on this, but would gladly have approved invading yet another unrelated Muslim country.
32:
“I am a liberal and I support a war tax.”
Are we supposed to be surprised?
48 Chris
All reasons why not to wait on the outside but actually make some needed changes economic & otherwise from within like those now happening in Iraq.
Proposed Trans-Afghanistan oil pipeline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
“The government of Afghanistan is in the process of extracting and exporting its copper reserves, which will be earning $1.2 billion US dollars in royalties and taxes every year for the next 30 years.”
Terrorism was on no one’s radar. Imagine Bush attempting to impliment – or even suggest – today’s security measures before 9-11.
How has taking out Somalia’s scumbag pirate infrastructure worked so far?
RBG
47 Rabble Rouser
Well, we wanted FDR, and we got LBJ.
News Flash: FDR was the war President.
RBG
#32, BTW… how many of you conservatives support a “War Tax” to pay for this situation? I am a liberal and I support a war tax.
Conservatives or Republicans?
I’m a Conservative. And I don’t want to pay it. I don’t want to be over there. And I’m a veteran.
#57 – LibertyLover – And I’m a veteran.
Sorry, but Call of Duty doesn’t count.
RBG- “Terrorism was on no one’s radar. Imagine Bush attempting to impliment – or even suggest – today’s security measures before 9-11.”
The first sentence is total BULLSHIT. And the rest is very revealing now isnt it.
Read it again.
50 smartalix
“Sadly, Obama has decided to dance with the military as he cannot have rabid attack dogs on every front. … he doesn’t need to be called a pussy by the rest of the right wing on top of it.”
And heaven knows sending a nation to war because you don’t want to be called a pussy would never make you a pussy.
Likewise I’m sure Bush II too would have also handled things like a saint, and won the Nobel Peace Prize, if only it wasn’t for all those same unnamed pushy guys out there.
‘Course, there is always the remote possibility that monkey Bush was right with Obama – and any president – seeing likewise from atop such a vantage point.
RBG