Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase

What Did We Get for 381 U.S. Dead Since the Death of bin Laden?

Robert Naiman | Posted 05.02.2012

Read More: icasualties.org, Afghanistan Withdrawal Timetable, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Al Qaeda, Afghanistan War, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, World News
Robert Naiman

Shouldn't the government have to do a cost-benefit analysis of keeping tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for another two years, given the huge sacrifice involved? Shouldn't that be a public document that outside experts can examine?

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Amanda Terkel

John Kerry Breaks With Obama On Afghanistan

HuffingtonPost.com | Amanda Terkel | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Senator John Kerry, Obama Afghanistan, John Kerry, John Kerry Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, John Kerry Obama, World News

UPDATE: The Boston Globe has issued a "clarification" to its original story, indicating that Kerry's disagreement with the current Afghanistan war str...

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Amanda Terkel

Obama's Af-Pak Review Touts Progress, Lays Framework For Sustained Commitment

HuffingtonPost.com | Amanda Terkel | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, AfPak News, Afghanistan Withdrawal Timetable, Al Qaeda, AfPak War, Afghanistan, Pakistan Taliban, Pakistan, Af-Pak, Jason Chaffetz, Afpak, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan Withdrawal, Afghanistan Taliban, Center for American Progress, Afghanistan Strategy, Afghanistan Strategy Review, Video, World News

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's much-anticipated annual review of the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan is upbeat on progress and reaffirm...

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The Long War: Year Ten Lost in the Desert with the GPS on the Fritz

Andrew Bacevich | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Endless War, Afghanistan-War-Anniversary, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, World News
Andrew Bacevich

To measure progress during wartime, Americans once employed pins and maps. Plotting the conflict triggered by 9/11 will no doubt improve your knowledge of world geography, but it won't tell you anything about where this war is headed.

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Enough Is Enough: War Chatter From the Oval Office

Jake Diliberto | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: George Bush, Obama Afghanistan, Iraq Surge, Obama-Speech-August-31, Veterans PTSD, Afghanistan Surge, Kabul, Wartime Sacrifice, Iran, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Yale, Deficit, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Jeff Taylor, McDonald's, Stanford University, Operation Enduring Freedom, Ptsd, President Bush, Vets for Freedom, Obama Iraq Speech, Coin, Iraqi Refugees, Hamid Karzai, War in Iraq, Barack Obama, Presidents, Afghanistan War, Harvard University, Counter-Insurgency, Troops Coffins, Rethink Afghanistan, Iraq, Counterinsurgency, Obama Iraq, Politics News
Jake Diliberto

2010 is the deadliest year thus far in Afghanistan. How much war chatter do Americans have to endure? When does the President call it "game over"?

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'THE WEARINESS FACTOR': Nation Losing Patience With Afghanistan A Year Earlier Than Obama Expected

New York Times | DAVID E. SANGER | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Drawdown, Obama Afghanistan Doubts, Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Barack Obama Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, Politics News

WASHINGTON -- When President Obama announced a new strategy for Afghanistan in December, he argued that by setting a deadline of next summer to begin ...

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The Afghanistan Parenthesis [UPDATED]

David Bromwich | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama West Point, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama West Point Speech, Afghanistan War, World News
David Bromwich

Recent restatements of policy from high-ranking administration officials flatly contradicts what Americans heard the president declare last Tuesday at West Point.

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Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator

Drew Westen | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama Financial Reform, Obama Health Care, Obama Immigration Reform, Barack Obama, Politics News
Drew Westen

Obama doesn't need a chief of staff. He needs someone to shake him until he feels something strongly enough to not just to talk about it but to act. He's increasingly appearing to the public like Dukakis without the administrative skill.

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The Best and Brightest of the Obama Administration

Clarence B. Jones | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, US Troops Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, Obama Afghanistan War, Politics News
Clarence B. Jones

In a few days Obama will travel to Oslo, Norway to accept the Nobel Prize. One cannot help but feel, on the heels of this new Afghanistan stance, that he'll be coming into town for his peace prize with guns blazing.

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Doing More... to Do Less

Richard N. Haass | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan Troop Surge, Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, World News
Richard N. Haass

Obama is working to persuade the American people that our interests in Afghanistan are worth sacrificing for, while he places a ceiling on what the United States is prepared to do. Therein lies the dilemma.

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Afghanistan -- the Sisyphus War

Jayne Lyn Stahl | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: u.s. Troops Afghanistan, Afghanistan Troops, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Bil Clinton, Sisyphus, Afghanistan War, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Politics News
Jayne Lyn Stahl

As Albert Camus once said, "The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back o...

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Garry Wills: Obama Buying Second Term With Lives of Young Americans

New York Review Of Books | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Troops, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Troops Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama Troops to Afghanistan, Obama Troop Increase, Politics News

I am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming a one-term president. I think that may b...

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We Owe It to Our Troops to Bring Hardnosed Realism to Whatever We Ask Them to Do

Rep. David R. Obey | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Troops, David Obey, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Rep. David R. Obey

I believe we need to more narrowly focus our efforts in Afghanistan and have a much more achievable and targeted policy, or we risk repeating the mistakes of Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan.

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Obama's Surge

Eric Margolis | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama Surge, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Eric Margolis

What Obama should really have been concerned with was Osama bin Laden's vow to first bleed the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, then break America's domination of the Muslim world by luring it into a final battle in Pakistan.

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Obama's Dilemma in Afghanistan

Jerome Slater | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan Surge, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Obama Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, World News
Jerome Slater

If the military gets what it wants and the tide turns in Afghanistan, Obama will get the credit; if it doesn't, at least the Democrats can say they gave the armed forces what they said they needed.

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President Obama's Afghanistan Speech a True Capitulation

Charles Butler | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Stanley McChrystal, Troops, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan Surge, David Axelrod, Taliban, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, West Point, Politics News
Charles Butler

The Obama administration has to stop campaigning to get down to governing. All of the campaign-like speeches are becoming quite transparent to the American people and foreigners alike.

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The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won't)

Tom Engelhardt | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama-Afghanistan-Speech, Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Tom Engelhardt

While we don't know what exactly is going through Obama's mind, or just when or in what form he will address us on his plan for the war in Afghanistan, we do know something about what his conclusions are likely to be.

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Call a Jirga Not a Runoff in Afghanistan

Patricia DeGennaro | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Abdullah Abdullah, Loya Jirga, Afghan President Karzai, Afghanistan, Afghan Election 2009, US Foreign Policy, Barack Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan War, Afghan Election, Afghan Election Fraud, World News
Patricia DeGennaro

If the U.S. and international community are serious about this intervention and having any kind of political success (and less war) in Afghanistan, it should call a Loya Jirga, or a "grand assembly".

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The Nine Surges of Obama's War: How to Escalate in Afghanistan

Tom Engelhardt | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Speech, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Cost of Afghanistan War, Afghanistan Surge, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Tom Engelhardt

What is being portrayed in the media as the surge is but a modest part of an ongoing expansion of the war effort. The media's focus on the president's speech as the crucial moment of decision has distorted what's actually underway.

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Is Obama Bullshi*tting About 18 Month Afghan Withdrawal to Appease War Critics?

Miles Mogulescu | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Anti-War Movement, Hillary Clinton Afghanistan, Afghanistan Surge, Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Speech, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama Afghanistan Strategy, Afghanistan Withdrawal Timetable, Robert Gates Afghanistan, US Troops Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Miles Mogulescu

Those of us who worked to elect Obama owe those young cadets something better than the continuation of the George Bush long-war strategy that Obama is offering them.

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What Does 30,000 Troops Really Buy Us?

Megan Carpentier | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Troops, Obama West Point Speech, Afghanistan, US Troops Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, John McCain, Saddam Hussein, Bush Administration, Pakistan, Iraq War, Taliban, Obama Administration, Politics News
Megan Carpentier

Is a graceful withdrawal and a less unstable puppet government worth more American lives? Are those lives really worth that "success"?

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Troop Increases and the Irony of Afghanistan

Kit Gallant | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Gen. Stanley McCrystal, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Taliban, Reinhold Niebuhr, Afganistan Troop Increase, Afghanistan, Afghan Taliban, Afghanistan War, World News
Kit Gallant

Is it not ludicrous to imagine that adding soldiers is the appropriate method for achieving our (vague) goals, given that our problems clearly don't stem from a military inferiority?

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9/11 in the Shadow of Pearl Harbor

Caroline Myss | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Pearl Harbor, World War II, December 7 1941, Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, World News
Caroline Myss

If ever there was a war where the lines between good and evil and right and wrong were clearly defined, it was World War II. Is Afghanistan the new face of American war?

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Victory at Last! Monty Python in Afghanistan

Tom Engelhardt | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Obama Afghanistan Speech, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, US Military, Afghanistan War, Politics News
Tom Engelhardt

Finally, American war commanders have effectively marshaled their forces, outmaneuvering and outflanking the enemy. I'm not talking about Afghanistan. I'm talking about what's happening in Washington.

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9/11? Yes, 9/11.

Oliver Willis | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Military, Iraq, Afghanistan, Terrorism, Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Afghanistan Troop Increase, Obama West Point Speech, December 7 1941, Politics News
Oliver Willis

If you don't support increasing the amount of troops, that is a fine and patriotic position to have, but folks on the Left have got to quit rewriting history by pretending Obama is somehow suddenly a hawk on Afghanistan.

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