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Afghan Surge Reax
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — A round up. The left seems split over the idea. The right side of the blogiverse is mostly silent. Yglesias: To remain effective in Afghanistan, we desperately need to reduce the civilian death toll. That means less airstrikes. Which probably means more boots on the ground. And hopefully more boots on the ground can also reduce civilian exposure to death-by-Taliban. That’d be how you get the job done. Krauthammer: The question here is why did he release this announcement right now in this way, just sort of this ...

Troops Before Strategy?
democracyarsenal.org — There has been a lot of concern about the fact that President Obama announced the 17,000 troop increase in Afghanistan prior to completing his 60 day strategy review.  These concerns are valid and at NSN we have argued for a focused strategy that attempts to achieve limited ends using comprehensive means and move far beyond a military centric approach.  But it is worth pointing out that the first of the 17,000 troops won't make it into Afghanistan until late spring - long after the strategy review has been completed. In fact, many won't ...