Mullen Says Close to 30,000 New Soldiers Likely for Afghanistan

[Psephos]

Source: Bloomberg News

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Admiral Michael Mullen, the most senior American military officer, said the U.S. will probably deploy close to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to shore up deteriorating security there.

In an interview, Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also said he is hopeful that other NATO nations will contribute additional military and civilian resources this year to the fight against a resurgent Taliban. The Islamist militia, which once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al-Qaeda, is threatening large areas of the country with mounting attacks. Mullen said the new resources are needed to buy time for a broad, long-term buildup of Afghan security forces that will allow the U.S. to “put an Afghan face” on the effort and dispel perceptions of a foreign occupation.

“It’s fine for me to say this isn’t an occupation,” Mullen told Bloomberg editors and reporters yesterday. “But it’s important that the people of Afghanistan don’t think it’s an occupation.”

Mullen, 62, has said in recent weeks that the U.S. will probably send between 20,000 and 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in response to a request from Army General David McKiernan, the American commander there. Yesterday, he said he anticipates the final level will “tend toward the higher number of those two” figures.

“I believe it’s not going well,” Mullen said of the Afghan conflict, “which is one of the reasons it’s important that we get these forces moving.”

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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afll.9YZiyUY&refer=worldwide

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. -1

[CountAllVotes]

9. -50

IMO

:grr:

:dem: :kick:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. Yep.

[bemildred]

2. Twice as many troops is not a good way to convice anyone that it's not an occupation. nt

[Mari333]

3. great, more suicides.

bring them home. this is a mistake. thumbs down.

[eleny]

4. We marched against Johnson's policies

I'm ready to march again.

[Mari333]

5. so am I. the peace group in my little town

is still standing on the corner every friday at noon.
until all the wars stop, we cannot stop standing up and marching against them.

[totodeinhere]

15. If you stand up until all wars stop you will be standing up forever. n/t

[Mari333]

6. march 21, 2009, DC anti war march

http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANSWERLA

its run by ANSWER, which I dont care for, but I will try to make it anyway.

[Left Coast2020]

7. I thought we were in a depression? where did we get the

money to pay for more war? Am I missing something here? Did I not hear from our president he wanted to bring them home? I thought it was posted here on DU. Someone should tell him the war on "terr-uhh" is over. The moron is back in Texas. :grr:

[Mari333]

8. if they got out of both wars

the money would flow back here.

[IndianaGreen]

11. George Santayana: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

As Rachel Maddow reminded us last night, Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Obama should free himself from campaign rhetoric and recognize that Afghanistan is already lost, a narco state (as Hillary described it) not worth one drop of American blood.

[Psephos]

12. "graveyard of empires" - well put n/t

[PurityOfEssence]

13. Okay, it's not an occupation, and it's not a crusade, it's probably not even a WAR, but what IS it?

If someone would stand up and describe what victory even looks like there and by what conditions it can be met, I might be merely against it. Instead, they're just shadow-boxing trying to disprove the slur that Democrats aren't tough guys, and that's the shittiest reason for any conflict.

[PfcHammer]

14. Prolly Circuit City employees

[Prometheus Bound]

16. That's what's nice about being a rich country.

You can shuttle tens of thousands of soldiers, along with planes, bombs, missiles and other killing machines from one foreign land to another at a cost of tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars and most everyone who has a say can sit back and say, well, yeah, sounds like a good idea, people need killin' over there too.