Obama Sending More Troops To Afghanistan... Official: 17,000 Is Likely Increase

WASHINGTON — Defense and congressional officials say President Barack Obama has approved an increase in U.S. forces for the flagging war in Afghanistan. The Obama administration is expected to announce on Tuesday or Wednesday that it will send one additional Army brigade and an unknown number of Marines to Afghanistan this spring. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the total is about 17,000 troops.

That would be the first installment on a larger influx of U.S. forces that have been widely expected this year. It would get a few thousand troops in place in time for the increase in fighting that usually comes with warmer weather and ahead of national elections this summer.

Comments

[AlwaysaLiberal]

03:45 PM on 02/22/2009

Take this article with a grain of salt people. This one explains the situation better: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/20/obama-nixed-full-surge-af_n_168674.html

[hildutus]

10:38 AM on 02/22/2009

When we lost Vietnam, I was a young officer in the Army and bought the military line that if Congress had not shackled us and had allowed us to pursue the war with the tactics the Soviets would have used, we would have won. Then the Soviets used their tactics in Afghanistan and lost. Now we are in Afghanistan pursuing the same old tactics. All a surge will do is reaffirm the fact that a superpower cannot defeat a determined insurgency in the field, because the insurgency is not in the field.
Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

[brenner21]

12:09 AM on 02/21/2009

the only thing flagging about the war is news coverage ... the proper adjective for the U.S. performance is "failing" ... but without an objective there's nothing newsworthy. And so it goes...

[NonLeftist]

01:02 PM on 02/20/2009

Where is Code Pink and all the other "Anti-War" Whiners that could not let a Bush press conference go without a protest? If they are protesting, why aren't we hearing about it?

[BandsofBlack]

03:15 PM on 02/24/2009

http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=4692

[Roguewolf]

06:37 PM on 02/18/2009

I thought Obama opposed a surge.

[oldfart1]

05:41 PM on 02/18/2009

Apart from all the moralizing about how wars are bad, and the realizing that this is an unwinnable war, there is the business involved of the projected $7.6 billion pipeline Turkistan oil fields - Southern Afghanistan - Pakistan- India. The Afghans agreed to TAPI on Feb. 9 and they will get $ 160 million/year rent. This is peanuts compared to how much it will cost us to secure it.

This already looks like a great, big Bush loser. What's more, there's no reason to expect that the pipeline would ever be used. Azerbaijan's oil now flows to Russia, because the pipeline through Georgia was closed recently. It would be easy for Russia to start a revolution in Turkestan that would bring them control of that country.

Bush's imperial schemes to control oil are simply unaffordable, and we are too remote from Turkestan to suppose that we can turn that country into a protectorate like Iraq.

[Roguewolf]

06:36 PM on 02/18/2009

Who is Bush?

[jannike]

11:07 AM on 02/18/2009

Please please please Mr. President, listen to Pierre Sprey, in an interview with Bill Moyers
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01302009/profile.html
he says about the killing of Talibans with bombs:

"And what happens on the ground is for every one of those impacts you get five or ten times as many recruits for the Taliban as you've eliminated. The people that we're trying to convince to become adherents to our cause have turned rigidly hostile to our cause in part because of bombing and in part because of, you know, other killing of civilians from ground forces. But we're dealing with a society here, that's based on honor, you know? The Pashtun are very ancient people.

BILL MOYERS: This is the tribe in the southern part of the country

PIERRE SPREY: Well, it's not a tribe. It's a nation. This is 40 million people spread across Afghanistan and Pakistan, you know, who don't even recognize that border. It's their land.

[GEOehms]

10:24 AM on 02/18/2009

Perhaps, a different perspective would help. From what I can tell, these troop deployments were already planned and in progress. I think the President is being judicious in neither cancelling the moves nor increasing the numbers beyond what was in the works. He needs time to confer with advisers and make both short-term and long-term decisions. To act precipitously so soon would be careless.

For various reasons, we may agree or disagree with involvement in Afghanistan. I am a patriot and a veteran, and I think we have used the military options too frequently over the past several decades, but when troops are deployed, I back them even while I might be critical of the decisions.

In this case, I think the decision was the best one available for President Obama. His future decisions will be more his own direction. I admire his ability to stand tall AND ask incisive questions AND his apparent willingness to listen attentively. Those are great qualities for a president.

[preemptivelove]

09:30 AM on 02/18/2009

thinking that there is a military solution to the problems in afghanistan is wrong, in my view. just ask the russians how it went for them, fighting there for years. read "the grand chessboard" if you want to understand the strategic goals of the united states in that region. we armed the afghanis to fight against the russians so that the russians would go broke trying to "win" that war. the fighters in afghanistan won't give up or quit, ever. we have no business, in reality, being there. and we are only there to serve our own geopolitical aims. this isn't about saving women and children or promoting democracy. it's about control of the region for the transportation of oil. if we wanted to promote democracy, we'd be building schools and creating opportunity. what a farce.

i had hoped obama was smarter than this. he's allowing the WRONG people to give him advice on this. let's hope he corrects this soon.

[slowhand0728]

10:26 AM on 02/18/2009

I hate to think he may be doing this only to be viewed as a tough war-time president. If this is going to be the NEW war, we will be surely judged by the world on the outcome. The sad thing is I think most people around the world were accepting of O pulling out and justifiably so. So this will be a huge disappointment to many.

[ONESTATESOLUTION]

07:00 AM on 02/18/2009

What's with all the lame posts on this thread?

[kotexbarbie]

08:46 AM on 02/18/2009

All of the good posts are being censored.

[nodonjuan]

06:55 AM on 02/18/2009

Why is this a surprise? He said he was going to support the Afghanistan war. I feel better about saving a country who's people, especially women and girls are being terrorized and having acid thrown in their face. The Taliban must be stopped and there is no comparison to Iraq except it's a quagmire, Afghanistan needed our help, Iraq wasn't nearly as broken and brutalized.

[kotexbarbie]

08:41 AM on 02/18/2009

You are completely brainwashed by the MSM. One man on a bicycle with an eyedropper of alleged acid is not legitimate cause to invade or occupy a country. The Taliban, whether we like them or not, were not involved in 9 / 1 1, nor are they a ter_rorist organization. The ter_rorists are in Pakistan. We are fighting the individual warlords that we empowered by invading in the first place. Afghanistan is an inhospitable fighting environment that no major power has ever been able to master. Obama is either supporting the Afghanistan War because he is naive or he needs to make a show of being tough. Either way, it will soon be exposed as a mistake.

[Right-turn]

06:10 AM on 02/18/2009

Is this 17,000 part of his job creation plan?

[Akenanubis]

08:34 AM on 02/18/2009

Yes.

[DEStern]

12:37 AM on 02/18/2009

“A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, 'This way of settling differences is not just.'” – Dr. Martin Luther King

American has overused force to the point where its government has become accustomed to living by the sword; it would be wise to drop the assumption that we can strategically unleash force across any border and retain our virtue and well-being. Other nations have had terrorist attacks on their soil in recent years without instigating permanent wars. We could choose to only go after those who actually committed crimes.

U.S. Presidents tend get attracted to quagmire wars which drag on without any visible end in sight, regardless of the terrible human and financial cost and the lack of popular support. Obama is in many ways admirable, but he is not immune to this. I believe that with Obama’s talent, were he to follow his better angels to use his great leadership abilities and brilliant eloquence to champion the replacing of war with non-violence (following Dr. King and Gandhi), he could go from his historic stature to a transcendent one.

Dr. King said:

""Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation." (MLK)

[federalist papers fan]

01:56 AM on 02/18/2009

Non-violent movements (and by extension peaceful negotiation) are only successful when both parties respect and abide by the rule of law. Ghandi's and MLK's movements were successful because the US and Great Britain were both respectful of the rule of law and therefore could not resist their movements without abandoning everything they had come to be over the previous centuries. If Ghandhi or MLK had tried their movement in Nazi Germany, for example, H itler would have done what he told the Viceroy of India to do in 1934: "Just shoot Ghandhi".

[sharil]

12:09 AM on 02/18/2009

BARACK OBAMA do CHANGE!!!!!
http://sharilblog.blog.fonwar.com/

[streak of rin tin tin]

12:05 AM on 02/18/2009

Never ask a tr0ll to BACK something up....

If you know what I mean.

~wink~