Obama orders 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan - no new strategy announced

[bigtree]

WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, in his first major military decision as commander-in-chief, has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to tackle an intensifying insurgency, the White House said on Tuesday.

"The decision was communicated to the Pentagon yesterday. The orders were signed today," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama in Denver.

The new forces will include a Marine expeditionary brigade of some 8,000 troops, who will deploy in late spring, and an Army brigade of 4,000 soldiers equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, who will arrive this summer, the Pentagon said.

A further 5,000 support troops will also deploy.

The extra forces will go to southern Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO troops have struggled to hold territory against an increasingly bold Taliban insurgency.

"There is no more solemn duty as president than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm's way," Obama said. "I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action."


http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKN17386763._CH_.2420



Saying the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan “demands urgent attention and swift action,” Obama said the strategy is under construction. The troop increase could not wait for the strategy, he suggested.

“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” the president said. “That is why I ordered a review of our policy upon taking office, so we have a comprehensive strategy and the necessary resources to meet clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region.”

. . . questions range from how much emphasis to place on securing populations and fostering development and democracy, versus limiting the focus to a mostly lethal exercise in attacking al Qaeda and the Taliban. Also of concern is the role of Pakistan and other regional powers and the extent to which tribal leaders, versus the central government, become a linchpin of security.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., anticipated the questions about the strategy in his statement.

“I support President Obama’s approval of a request from the ground commanders for more troops,” Reid said. “I also strongly support the comprehensive strategic review of our policy that is currently under way.”

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003055003

[1620rock]

1. I don't like the sound of this.

[bigtree]

2. a bear trap is hidden under the sand

“The sum of many factors leaves me with a bad feeling about all this. The Iraq war, even during the worst times, never seemed like such a bog. Yet there is something about our commitment in Afghanistan that feels wrong, as if a bear trap is hidden under the sand,” he says.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/how-much-is-afghanistan-really-worth-to-us.htm

[PurityOfEssence]

18. Iraq was also "merely" a conquest and subjugation; THIS is a religious and cultural war

How does THAT sound?

There's no escaping that nagging issue, even if it doesn't ever get mentioned.

[ProgressIn2008]

3. Sigh. Perma-war. Just what we need.

[originalpckelly]

5. Empires go to Afghanistan and Iraq to die.

It takes a lot of ignorance to think one can force someone into self-determination and that this country can force the people of another country to become a democracy at the end of a gun barrel.

[bdamomma]

24. well Russia certainly died when they were in Afghanistan all those years.

when we will ever learn???

[originalpckelly]

4. I think someone needs a change we can believe in (tm)

So it makes more sense in Afghanistan rather than Iraq that we can force people to choose to become a democracy? Ah yes, the brilliance of the American Empire fails to surprise me.

[steelmania75]

6. Hopefully we'll find the Taliban and Al Quada...

...since Afganistan was the place were the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were from.

[spanone]

8. oh really?.....tell us more

[Beam Me Up]

9. Uh, no. THAT was just one more Bush lie. Why do you believe it? n/t

[spanone]

11. please please please enlighten us....we are all wrong and need your wonderful guidance

[bigtree]

12. Fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia

. . . two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.

[MrPerson]

20. But they were based in Afghanistan.

I agree with Obama.

[bigtree]

22. some were 'based' in the U.S.

. . . but I don't see us bombing New Jersey.

It doesn't take much to see who the targets of these reprisals of ours have been in Afghanistan. The original perpetrators of the attacks were killed and their accomplices and orchestrators are believed to be hiding in the mountains of Pakistan/Afghanistan.

Pres. Obama may well be right in his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan but he hasn't yet produced a strategy which could be called a solution. Just introducing more troops to defend against what amounts to the effects and resistance to their very presence isn't a long-term strategy, it's a stop-gap. Commanders have predicted more casualties as a result of the escalation and have provided no assurances at all about the result because they don't have a clear mission for these troops except to help the ones there hunker down.

I actually welcome the addition of the troops to the south, rather than deploying them to defend their nation-building adventure in Kabul. The troops patrolling the miles of mountainous terrain toward the border with Pakistan are stretched out too thin to be effective to even their own defense. If they are going to be deployed there they should have adequate protection from the resistant elements coming back and forth across the Pakistan border.

I don't believe there is anything to 'win' in Afghanistan, as the president suggested yesterday. There is, however, much to lose in this repeated flailing of our military forces against the Afghan people. In that cynical exercise of our forces there, I disagree with Pres. Obama. We have already been shown, repeatedly, that our nation-building efforts behind the force of our military in the Middle East has produced more individuals inclined or resigned to violent expressions of resistance than it's succeeded in establishing any of the 'democracy' or 'stability' promised.

[bdamomma]

27. oops I just posted that all 19 were from Saudi Arabia, thanks for the clarification.

[blues90]

15. The ONLY thing we are going to find there is More death

Jesus, why cannot people see this. We cannot win anything there of find anyone there. Hell it's been 7 years and you think the 9/11 attackers will be found now and they were never proven to be from there.

We send soldiers in there and all they can do is attempt to stay alive, it's a human sacrifice for a damn pipeline and that's all it is.

[bdamomma]

30. I wonder how Karzai will feel about the escalation of more troops.

[ConsAreLiars]

19. Actually, no Afghan had killed any American before the invasion began.

I think the US policy of importing, arming, training and funding religious crazies from foreign countries and supporting the most vicious warlords, drug traffickers and turning that poor country into a killing field, causing the slaughter of a million or two and driving millions more into refugee camps, I think these might have given them some motivation to retaliate. But the fact is none of the 19 were from Afghanistan. 15, I think, were from your government's good and honorable ally and trusted friends, the bat shit insane religious dictatorship Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

[bdamomma]

26. I would just like to correct you on that, 19 of the terrorists were from

Saudi Arabia.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Are they shipping the bodybags with them?

"If yer wounded an' lyin' on Afghanistan's plains,
An' the women are comin' to cut up what remains,
Jist roll on yer rifle an' blow out yer brains,
An' go to yer God like a soljer."

Rudyard Kipling

[Gregorian]

10. How can we do this while going broke? Not to mention the moral aspect.

I didn't like it during the campaign, and I don't like it now.

Although, like someone said here today, I will defer my doubts of Obama until things begin to mature and ripen. But I do have serious doubts about this. Who knows what is up his sleeve. I think he has a plan. Please?

[wroberts189]

13. I heard the Russians are going to help us. Sound good now?

Don't have a link.

[mike_c]

14. I've erased several replies because I'd likely regret them....

This is wrong. Really really wrong. The worst decision Obama has made, by a long shot.

[bigtree]

16. /

[leftstreet]

17. \

Kick!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

21. Why aren't more folks

utterly appalled by this?

Amazing that some screed can get 60 recs and this abhorrent bit gets largely ignored.

K&R

[bigtree]

25. I've been thinking on it

I believe that many of us rationalized the military aggression in Afghanistan as a fight against the '9-11 terrorists' and lost track of the fact that the original perps and their Taliban accomplices fled Afghanistan at the time of the invasion. It's no accident that the language of even the new administration conflates the issue of the Sept. 11 killings with the actual nation-building effort that's become the mission there.

It'll take quite a bit to get folks to understand that the Afghan people never waged or threatened war against the U.S., but that some individuals were responsible for deliberately drawing our nation into military aggression in the region to foment resistance and align the folks there against the U.S. and in support of the original rag-tag band of thugs. It's going to take quite a bit more deadly folly in Afghanistan before we get a majority to accept that our militarism has limits and counter-productive consequences to the stated goals of 'eliminating al-Qaeda' and stemming terrorism.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

28. I think it goes deeper than that

Many folks are so ideologicaly invested they can't see the workings of Empire for what they are.

Many more 'liberals' than we might care to admit identify with the oppressor and so can rationalize all sorts of bloody adventures.

[burythehatchet]

31. because I've been told that Barack Obama is my lord and savior. So it becomes difficult to express

my real opinion that Barack Obama is simply a new package wrapped around the same corporate bullshit that brought us here. He will be remembered as the first black president.

[LWolf]

23. Consistent with his positions during the primaries and GE.

And one of the reasons I never supported him.

There's no reason for surprise unless you weren't paying attention, and no reason for dismay unless you are one of the few who, like me, opposed him all along on this (and other) issues.

The majority of American voters are getting what they voted for.

[bigtree]

32. surprise and dismay

I'm not going to accept that every action by the administration had been signaled in the campaign. He certainly advocated for more involvement in Afghanistan, but the limits and consequences of the use of military force abroad should be well understood by now.

And, there was such a vast difference between the candidates that I'll accept that there were certainly many in the middle of the candidates' positions who opted against the republican party continuing in power, rather than voting with some unanimity of faith (or cynicism) in every expression the candidate made during the campaign. This opportunity for advocacy (for or against the announced plans) is the point where our contribution to our democracy becomes more vital than our vote.

[LWolf]

34. I agree with most of that,

although I have to point out that it was a majority of democratic voters who put many in the position of having to make the lesser of two evils vote in the GE to begin with.

I'd be advocating for action on issues, including this one, no matter who won. I never stopped.

Here on DU, though, where criticism of Obama makes one a target (and I know this, having been a critic since I first heard him speak at the '04 convention,) there seems to be a large contingent ready to go to war to support Obama no matter what he does. If he does it or says it, they believe it, and will fight for it. Even if they themselves were advocating the opposite a year ago.

There's another contingent expressing surprise and dismay every time he does something that fits the right, and the status quo, because they actually believed that he was some great liberal hope.

[MadHound]

29. Yeppers, it doesn't matter whether a 'Pug or Dem is in the White House,

The merchants of death are going to get their pound of flesh, and their billions of dollars, no matter what.

Is this change, hardly. This is more of the same ol' same ol' imperial war. For those of you saying that "Osama attacked us from Afghanistan", well gee, rather than going in with a full scale military invasion, should be be treating this as a police matter instead? Instead of blowing the hell out of innocent Afghani's and Pakistani's now, how about we try to win them over with kindness instead.

But nope, the endless war on a noun must grind on, making a select few wildly rich, and destroying the rest of the world.

[OwnedByFerrets]

33. Rah Rah GO GO ....lets throw MORE money and lives down the drain

[Mari333]

35. there go our kids again into endless war

yay, now we can bankrupt the united states completely. fucking idiots.

[blindpig]

36. "You fools, he said he would do this."

The authors of all such statements, and we see many of them, reveal more than their mindless loyalty to The Man, they show their agreement with said policy, their commitment to Empire.

[tonycinla]

37. WHY?

Of all the things that Obama has done or says he will do this is the one that puzzles me,it seems inconsistent with the rest of his agenda?????????????