Afghanistan Troop Decision Pits Clinton, Gates And Mullen Against Biden And Emanuel

New York Times:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, but President Obama remains unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan would help execute a new strategy, administration officials said Tuesday.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[krazyhorse]

In addition to—and simultaneous with—the deployment of 150,000 troops for the conduct of counter insurgency operations in Afghanistan, the current efforts to prop up Kharzai’s government (which the US itself has called fraudulent) should be abandoned and the US should foster the formation of a new tribal council to redraft the constitution, allowing for a decentralized structure of governance. This is Obama’s last chance to demonstrate wisdom amongst narrow-minded advisers who, if left unchecked, would lead America down the same path as the Vietnam conflict.

[SKonnery]

The only way to win is to leave. Something many nations failed to do at their own peril. It is nothing more than a large hostile terrain with a collection of tribes that don't believe in a central government. Other than the Unocal oil pipeline and the drug trade there is nothing there of any value. All the tribes have done just fine for hundreds of years without our George Washington type democracy.

[krazyhorse]

While the ‘talking heads’ in Washington agonize over the strategy and combat power necessary for operations in Afghanistan, the sands of time are running out. The Taliban in Afghanistan now operate in more than 220 of the 400 districts in Afghanistan, compared to fewer than 30 five years ago and its spread of terror reaches east of the Indus River threatening India. To make matters worse the U.S. strategy rests on an undemocratic, corrupt and weak central government (shades of Vietnam), a president who cheated his way into office in an election held under American supervision, an election that even the government of Afghanistan concedes was stolen. This is crunch time—big time! If Obama chooses to continue to prop up Kharzai, the Muslim world will rally in favor of the Taliban. The US must take matters into its own hands and deploy sufficient combat power to defeat the enemy: At least 150,000 troops and conduct search and destroy operations against el Qaeda over a period of 180 days after which all troops should be pulled out—in win and get out quick. With PSYOPS propaganda and construction engineers in the cleared villages following up the search and destroy missions, just watch the Taliban give up on el Qaeda. I touched on this in my book http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/AClaytonsDefense.html

[JerryAguy]

It would be nice to hear what the mission is sometime, has anyone heard in the last 3 months?

[H321]

This reminds me why I was glad Clinton lost the election.

[MrPragmatic]

Uh, Obama wanted a team of rivals, remember? He did not want to lead in a vacuum like W and wanted cabinet members to have honest debate even if it meant disagreeing. I am sure this is not a problem. And BTW, Obama is on the record during the primary as stating that resources must be deployed to Afghanistan.

[crzy]

As blogger Harry Shearer suggests, read this. President Obama has hopefully read it as well.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091019/polk

[crzy]

Sign the petition:

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/

[RTIII]

The President is no doubt going through perceptions something like this:

1) If we back out now, all the lives previously spent on this war will have "been lost for nothing."

On the other hand;

2) If we escalate, more lives will be lost yet there's no exit strategy.

THAT is why this is so hard for him.

In my view, this is really easy: There is no goal now worthy of American lives - or, at least, not such numbers of them. Take the bulk of the troops out now and leave some special forces to help ensure AQ doesn't come back. But I DO appreciate why this must be hard for BO.
.

[MIVOTE]

My hope is that Obama's plan will have a timeline to bring our troops home. It's time. Karzi is not for the right thing and O know's it. Whether he sends more with a timeline for withdrawl after indicated benchmarks or just starts the process...­it's time for our troops to come home and take all our energy to work on improving the quality of life for all Americans.

[jinxed]

I agree whole heartedly! It is time to end all of the Bush Follies that have done nothing except make America less safe, distrusted and in some cases hated. Bring ALL our troops home including Germany, Belgium, Japan etc. America IS NOT the world's police force. That is a duty of the United Nations!.

[Ifticar2]

Obama staff is divided. How soon will we see Obama ask his entire cabinet to resign like Carter did. Obama is emulating Carter in so many ways that this event must come.

[MIVOTE]

What are you babbling about? I see no such correlation. You want your staff to be thoughtful with opinions. Given two people in a room you'll get 2 - 3 different opinions. It's called thinking.

[macday]

he would like Obama to be like Bush destroy other countries for no reason only stupidity

[norkas]

Israels success has been the fact that the entire cabinet will speak their voice in agreement or opposition. By doing this you can get a excellent idea of what to do. The Republicans stamped anything Cheny wanted and look where that led us. I want Barak Obama to listen very carefully before deploying more troops the Republicans had a dictator called Dick Cheny who they got on there knees for as if he was a King

[macday]

If this war wasn't a serious thing I would have to laugh at your post you are clueless

[EWeiss]

So which one of them is Colin Powell in your analogy?

Wait...

[jeun28]

So Clinton would have just given the troops no questions asked. Wow when did she become a hawk and change so drastically.

[H321]

She voted for the wars

[SKonnery]

She must like those defense contractor donations.

[Patrician]

This was an intelligent article. I like the way the President, Emmanuel, and Biden plus Reid are really asking tough questions. It is such a rare thing for a President to really ask himself and others the tough questions. I love the answer of Jack Reid. I don't agree with Clinton and Gates, if their position is to keep dumping troops into Afghanistan, even if it is not clear that it will improve anything. (I don't think it will.)

[holeybuybull]

More theater for the masses. It must be difficult to come up with logical reasons to continue the colonization of sovereign nations.

[christopherflynn]

not really, we've been doing it for years and regretably, succeeding­...

[Wolf Larsen]

If war supporters were the first ones in the line of fire there would be an explosion of pacifism.

Cheney and Limbaugh would have probably had ponytails and peace signs as they marched through Berkeley..­....and W would have never put the straw down......­.

[MOCONSERVATIVE]

What has changed since Obama called this a war of necessity that must be won repeatedly during his campaign?

Bogus peace prize? Lefty Norwegians influencing our foreign policy now?

[KarateKid]

Bitter much? Here, have a cookie.

[Wolf Larsen]

Join any branch of the military or National Guard and step to the front of the line.

[klondiker]

Um, lots of new information has emerged? We know that there are maybe 100 Al-Qaida members left in Afghanistan. We know that the Karzai government is corrupt and completely unreliable. We know that a counter-terrorism strategy would yield better results than a counter-insurgency strategy. We know that there are some Taliban with whom we can work.

I know you are used to the Bush-ian "never change your mind about anything." But, I expect Obama to adapt and change his mind as new information emerges. He may have called it a war of necessity during the campaign. But, the campaign was a long time ago. We know more things now. In the light of that, I would expect him to adapt.

[EWeiss]

A stolen election and very little Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan to speak of.

To answer your question.