U.S. Considering "Surge" Of Over 20,000 Troops For Afghanistan

The Pentagon is considering a plan to send more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next 12 to 18 months to help safeguard elections and quell rising Taliban violence, officials said on Friday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he and top commanders had discussed sending five brigades to Afghanistan, including four brigades of combat ground forces as well as an aviation brigade, which a defense official said would consist mainly of support troops. An Army combat brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[rollingdivision]

Iraq it turns out is winnable, Afghanistan is not. Unfortunately, for all the reasons wrongly given for Iraq, the best to be hoped for in Afghanistan is a long term sustained effort.

[ExpatInEurope2008]

Better them there than jacking up the unemployment in the USA.

[planetjeffy]

I hope we can still save this mess that Bush did not finish.

[Stilts9]

Yaaay for the war-profiteers!

[Stilts9]

Bush had his Mission Accomplished.

Obama has his Mission Impossible.

[Topo]

Obama has been trapped by his own campaign promises to move the disastrous war from Iraq to Afghanistan. Unless he retracted his promise, he will be heading to the same stupid path of hell as his predecessor Bush had gone through. Are Vietnam and Iraq not bad enough for him to learn. Russia and Bin Laden will celebrate this kind of "patriotic" move.

[CologneCitizen]

Very well stated.

There is nothing to "win" in Afghanistan. He can send 100.000 troops and they will be destroyed like the Russians. War on terror, war on drugs, all empty suits and lost before even started. You fight these issues with police forces but NEVER with an army. Afghanistan nearly bankrupted Russia, the USA is already down, partly due to massive spending on the Iraq war, a bottomless pit. As much as I like Obama and hope he gets America out of the current hole, if he jumps in the same trap head first, the USA will go down even more.

[corrupt1]

nothing will change with obama things are going to get much worse

[ExpatInEurope2008]

With Clinton as SoS you can rest assured there will be more war for that little pissant state of I s r a e l.

[corrupt1]

obama is a fraud

[corrupt1]

i knew obama was no good i knew it..............

this is a nightmare

[javaz]

You do realize that Bush is president until January 20th, 2009, right?

[Pdubya]

change you can believe in........eh hem.

[khiva]

The word is "escalation." I am getting really tired of Newspeak. George Orwell was right; he was just off by 24 years.

[bujeeboo]

I believe I can hear the Russians laughing at this one. They threw their entire military might at the Taliban, and got their arses handed to them.

[mabinog]

effin surge is just an increase in troop strength or perhaps committing your reserves. Military strategists have been doing that how long? The surge is effin newspeak.

[Americano]

I hope this Afghan war does not become Obama's albatras! The Russian lost the war there and so will we. We have too many problems at home to be stuck in Afghanistan. Let's find away to get out. The US will be free of imported oil from that region within 10 years. We are going green! Let them settle their own problems. Let them fight their own poppy farming. And we will fight drugs right here at home!

[max]

we need a surge of young republicans taking these guys place on the front lines

[Ramirez]

Who do you think is there now? Democrats?