US commander warns American troops will be in Afghanistan for years

[Karmadillo]

I wonder how much this will cost and whether there might be better uses for the money.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/afgh-f21.shtml

By Peter Symonds
21 February 2009

The top US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, warned on Wednesday that the huge boost to US troop numbers announced this week would have to continue for years. His comments underscore the fact that the Obama administration is preparing for a dramatic escalation of the war in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan that will inevitably heighten tensions throughout the region, especially in Central Asia.

In a bid to shore up the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, President Obama announced on Tuesday that an additional 17,000 US soldiers would be sent there. McKiernan told the media that the troop buildup was "not a temporary force uplift" and would "need to be sustained for some period of time," adding that he was looking at "the next three to four to five years". The US already has 36,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, along with about 30,000 other foreign soldiers operating under NATO command.

The latest troop increase will not be the last. McKiernan repeated a previous request for an extra 10,000 in Afghanistan on top of those already announced. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates did not rule out additional US forces, but noted that no additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan until the Obama administration had completed its current strategic review.

At a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Poland, Gates pressed NATO allies for further support for Afghanistan. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned that NATO could not "afford the price of failure in Afghanistan" and urged "all members of the team... to pull closer together and pull harder in 2009". But the commitments made were cosmetic, underlining the continuing deep tensions inside NATO between the US and European powers such as Germany and France.

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[drdtroit]

1. Ah, sacrificing the young at the altar of Exxon. n/t

[Double T]

2. Years? Try forever.