Why is Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan?

[yurbud]

Poll question: Why is Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan?

[vaberella]

1. I chose other...although the first choice was close.

He did think the surge worked after the fact, he just never felt we should have went into Iraq in the first place since they had nothing to do with us to begin with. Hence then the surge would NEVER have been necessary if we never went to Iraq.

Now he chose to send more troops into Afghanistan and has said over and over and over again that's what we have to do because the Taliban is the real and "known" threat. So it has always been a thing for him to go there and finish what was started. So he probably doesn't see it as a surge in Afghanistan, just a refocusing on what he considered to be the real problem that we've faced all along.

Added to that there is a drug and humanitarian problem that needs urgent rehabilitation.

[snowbear]

2. Other:

.
.

Segments of the surge in Iraq may have worked, but the choices in the poll make those choices sound as it worked both military and politically.

President Obama is listening to commanders on the ground, he's actually reading the Intellegence he receives, he's considering the safety of our troops and our nation, and unlike Mr. Bush, he dealing in REALITY.




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[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Because nobody is perfect.

[iamthebandfanman]

4. its not because he thinks the surge worked.

its because he believes in the 'war on terror' , but realizes and understands iraq had nothing to do with it.

he has always said he believed in fighting the war on 'terror' , luckily i think his view of those who create terror is A LOT more narrow than Shrubby...

id imagine he takes the view that we created the problem in afghanistan so we should fix... could be wrong tho.

[CLANG]

5. Other

My sense that he's trying to stick a finger in the dike at this point. The commanders on the ground are begging for these troops. He needs to get things safe and stabilized for the troops on the ground and then develop a plan to get us the hell out of there. I can't condemn him without walking in his shoes in this case.

[yurbud]

29. that is not a strategic reason to be there.

[CLANG]

40. No, it's a tactical reason

[jenmito]

6. Other-He RAN on increasing troops in Afghanistan-to go after the people who attacked us

on 9/11. He did NOT think the surge in Iraq worked POLITICALLY, and as he said, that's what the surge was FOR.

[yurbud]

14. worked politically here in the US. Afghans didn't attack us, even offered to turn over bin Laden

to a Muslim country.

If you are smart enough to get online and type without wetting yourself, you should know that Obama is too smart to believe the War on Terror is actually meant to reduce terrorism. It is not and it will not in any case.

[jenmito]

17. Bin Laden and his buddies were in Afghanistan with the help of the Afghan people...

Obama campaigned on adding troops into Afghanistan and around Pakistan.

If YOU are smart enough to get online and type without wetting yourself, you should know that Obama doesn't like calling our war against those who attacked us the "War on Terror." And as he's been saying for over two years, he believes that Afghanistan is the "right" war. I assume you didn't support him in the primaries. Maybe you weren't paying attention. That's YOUR problem.

[Runcible Spoon]

37. and who put the Taliban in power starting in 1979?

Boy you really need a fucking history lesson.

[jenmito]

39. Excuse me????

You ASSume I don't know my history because of my FACTUAL comment? It's not OBAMA'S fault that we helped put the Taliban in power! HE is dealing with the mess he found. We were attacked from people who were based in Afghanistan and Obama said we should've stayed after them instead of invading Iraq which had nothing to do with it. Get some manners. :eyes:

[xchrom]

7. he ran on a kind of militarism --

he switched it from iraq to afghanistan.

[jody]

8. Presidents need to prove themselves as Commander in Chief. Obama is no different. n/t

[Samantha]

9. He knows the people who attacked us on 9/11 are nested there

and we need to eradicate their base of operations to lessen our chances of being attacked again. This deployment is seven years overdue.

Sam

[jenmito]

18. Exactly. I guess some people didn't get the memo...

he's been saying this for years.

[yurbud]

20. the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 found that Saudi Arabia backed the hijackers

and after we chased al Qaeda to Tora Bora, Pakistan extracted the al Qaeda & Taliban leadership since they had supported both for their own reasons. When Daniel Pearl made arrangements to meet the nuts that beheaded him, he made the call from the office of the Pakistani ISI officer who was their handler.

Saudis
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/02/probe-this-sen-bob-graham-said-two-911.html
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2008/03/foia-doc-shows-911commission-lied-about.html

Pakistan
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/01/28/020128fa_FACT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/apr/05/pressandpublishing.pakistan


Instead of attacking those two countries that were responsible for 9/11, we bombed the shit out of Afghans who were only peripherally involved, and Iraq who wasn't involved at all.

That ''nested'' shit might work on the right wing boards, but it just seems ignorant here.

[rug]

10. He admires LBJ.

[yurbud]

30. who didn't want to be revered for Great Society but scorned for Vietnam War.

[Numba6]

11. mebbe he actually ran on something like that as a policy???? ?????? ??

[yurbud]

21. duh--the question was WHY?

[Numba6]

24. duh-- your question is "Why is Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan?"

A lot of people on the internet don't read the posts they're responding to

But only a few don't read their own post they they reply about.

Welcome to the mighty few! Your impact on the intertube is far more than your numbers should indicate!


"Why is Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan?"

He's fulfilling his campaign pledge. That's why. He's doing that w/ a lot of his stands.

If you want to know his reasoning, rather than ask anonymous poster why they think he's doing it & set up false dichotomies or irrelevant categories, maybe you should read his position papers that were at

http://www.barackobama.com/

or could be found if you look thru

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

That's assuming you actually want to know "Why is Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan?"

[yurbud]

26. on our actions in the Middle East, most Democrats have only been about 10% more honest than GOP

and that's being charitable.

the closest they get is saying we need to end our dependence on foreign oil that funds terrorists, but they don't say that the terrorists are pissed at us because we have propped up dictators who are compliant to oil companies and screw their own people for decades, and that we are doing the oil companies' business there even now.

[RollWithIt]

12. Because Afghanistan & Northern Pakistan are where the real terrorism threats are?

Just pointing that out.

[yurbud]

23. see my post above on Pakistan, Saudi, & 9/11. The problem isn't the hillbillies in the

border region of Afghanistan & Pakistan, but which governments helped then get here, and more importantly WHY. It's odd that the two countries that most directly controlled and supported al Qaeda were Bush's allies.

Saudis
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/02/probe-this-sen-bob-graham-said-two-911.html
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2008/03/foia-doc-shows-911commission-lied-about.html

Pakistan
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/01/28/020128fa_FACT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/apr/05/pressandpublishing.pakistan

[Occam Bandage]

34. There isn't "the problem."

A problem is the resurgent Taliban in the border region. Another problem is Saudi support for extremist groups. Another problem is Pakistan's teetering on internal collapse.

[yurbud]

35. the Taliban is not our problem. they have no capability to harm us beyond not being about to chase

nuts like al Qaeda out of their country.

[yurbud]

36. It's odd that for the last eight years we've worked on the least of the three

It's kind of like arresting mafia street thugs and never looking up the chain of command to the boss.

Or like the way we sent the privates to prison for Abu Ghraib and didn't let them even mention the orders traceable to the civilians in the White House that they were following.

[BluePatriot21]

13. I voted other and...

I say that the surge did not work in Iraq. I say other reasons also led to things changing in Iraq. If we look back the surge had about 18 criteria that were to be met if the surge were to be considered a success. I believe very few of those criteria were met. From what I've read as I've tried to understand surge success it is several things that led to a decrease in violence and partially it may have been the extra 20,000 troops or so. But I believe overall it did nto achieve the benchmarks for success and the troops were not the main reason to toot the horn of success like McCain and bush did non stop.
For one, it was never bush's surge, it was made up by other guys that recommended it and proposed it, so let's stop giving bush all the credit for it :) someone else did the work and he took credit.
The Anbar awakening was one of the reasons that violence in Iraq declined. Cheney knew that the various factions in Iraq all didn't get along and allowing Iraq to fall into civil war would only help them in their plan to draw out the war as long as possible. They did not want quick action but rather endless war. If you look at the Anbar awakening it is one of the reasons that violence decreased as the people of Iraq revolted against Al Qaeda within their country.
Another reason was that the US spent lots of money and arms on bribes to stop Iraqi's from fighting against the US. Bribes not soldiers or some surge stopped most of the violence against US Soldiers, I believe Muqtada Al-Sadr was one of these warlords who we paid to stop fighting against us, so thank the taxpayers and yourself for being a part of the successful surge.
The excess troops played a small part in this, but Al Qaeda helped by continually killing the Iraqi people and causing their own blowback.
Overall the surge did not meet a lot of the criteria for surge success and should be considered a failure if we were to grade it along those lines. I may have missed some of the other points, but I read about this long ago to debunk the reich wing talking about suck-sess :)
Peace!
I would also like to thank my secret admirer for my heart down below. <3 <3 <3

[snowbear]

16. If I would'a had any hearts left..

.
.

...I would've added a second one to your page!

Very nice response BluePatriot21!! ~~


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[yurbud]

25. compare troop levels per civilian and per square mile in Vietnam to Iraq

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/05/graphs-iraq-troop-surge-vs-vietnam-peak.html

[leftofthedial]

15. JFK made noises about de-escalating Viet Nam

then they killed him.

Obama is no dummy.

[Dawgs]

19. Did you pay attention to anything Obama say when he ran for President?

This isn't some new policy of his.

He campaigned on going into to Afganistan to attack the terrorists where they live and fight; unlike George Bush.

Of course he thinks it's going to work; because it will. Not because of some stupid surge in Iraq.

[yurbud]

27. that's circular reasoning. I didn't say I was surprised, I wondered why, and why BEYOND

the platitudes in campaign speeches and on his website.

If you think we are in the Middle East to chase around religious fundamentalists, you need to read some history like the Pulitzer Prize winning history of oil by Daniel Yergin, THE PRIZE, which was written by a homie of Papa Bush, so it's hardly a left wing screed.

When Democrats perpetuate the same childish propaganda the GOP does, they make us look retarded to the whole world.

You don't need to send occupation troops if we are really just trying to root out al Qaeda, and even if that is what we are doing there, it is pointless to do so when the countries that gave them money and logistical support, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, still have the means to do so.

What has not been discussed is why those countries backed al Qaeda, and why Bush did nothing to punish them. If we don't have an adult discussion about that, we are vulnerable to another terrorist attack no matter how many weddings and baby showers we napalm.

[Colobo]

22. The people responsible for 9/11 are probably there.

[yurbud]

28. bin Laden, Prince Bandar, and Musharraf?

[IndianaGreen]

31. Obama is trying to save Kabul from falling before he can strike a deal with Taleban

along the lines of Pakistan in Swat Valley.

[AtomicKitten]

32. I think he intends to get busy on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Just like he said he would. Just like Junior promised on the pile of Twin Towers and then didn't. I don't think he has any interest in Afghanistan except as a launching point.

I think he's going to do what he said he would do, finish it, and get the hell out of Dodge. I don't necessarily agree, but he has been forthright and explained himself so we know what to expect.

That's how I see it, but I could very well be dead-ass wrong.

[Occam Bandage]

33. Because a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan represents a long-term security threat to

both the Western world and South Asia, as well as a humanitarian threat to the Afghan people. Moreover, our current Vietnam-esque strategy is clearly failing, and more troops will be required for a more intelligent clear-build-hold strategy modeled off successful UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa.

[Vattel]

38. I doubt that it has much to do with attacking members of Al Qaeda.

I think Obama wants decent governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Being a nuclear state, Pakistan is obviously especially important. The current government in Afghanistan is corrupt, but it beats the hell out of the alternatives, and improvement through democratic means is a possibility. I hope it all works out, but I'm not terribly optimistic.