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Team Obama: We'll Send 30,000 More Troops to Afghanistan, But, Like the Surge, We Don't Expect It to Work
The Corner on National Review Online — ... ] From the Washington Post : President-elect Barack Obama intends to sign off on Pentagon plans to send up to 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, but the incoming administration does not anticipate that the Iraq-like "surge" of forces will significantly change the direction of a conflict that has steadily deteriorated over the past seven years. P.S. See ...

Go heavy? Go light? Smash 'em from the air?
Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys.. — ... : The questions here are not a sterile academic discussion amongst soldiers and scholars. The answers to these questions about what force to use and how to apply it is center stage as Mr. Obama prepares to assume the reins next week. As reported by Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post today :President Bush ended up having to focus on Iraq and turn Afghanistan into an "economy of force" operation. Hopefully the trends in Iraq will hold up, and allow soon-to-be President Obama and his Generals to turn their full attention to Afghanistan, with the willing assistance of other ...

Progressive Bloggers Launch ‘Get Afghanistan Right’ Campaign Opposing Troop Escalation
Think Progress — ... on a plan to deploy up to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But the “incoming administration does not anticipate that the Iraq-like ’surge’ of forces will significantly change the direction” of the conflict. Instead, it hopes that the troops will “buy enough time for the new administration to reappraise the entire Afghanistan war effort and develop a comprehensive new strategy,” the Washington Post reports today. ...

Now They Tell Us: WaPo, Setting Bar Lower for Obama, Tells Us that US "Will Never Have Enough Troops" to Elminate Taliban
Ace of Spades HQ — Now They Tell Us: WaPo, Setting Bar Lower for Obama, Tells Us that US "Will Never Have Enough Troops" to Elminate Taliban Securing a country with so much space, so many mountains, and so many people is a difficult thing, it turns out. And bringing genuine democracy to such a backwards place might be impossible. Please do note that all of this was equally true a year ago -- but the media then was busy telling us that Afghanistan could be secured fairly easily if only we "hadn't taken our eyes off the ball" and fought the War in Iraq. Now that Obama's President, the media are ...

A Little More Conversation is Key for Afghanistan
democracyarsenal.org — ... 1st Embrace the debate.  Regardless of how progressives feel about Afghanistan, there is at least broad agreement that U.S. needs to have some kind of strategy before significantly altering our footprint there.  Yet what is clear from today’s Karen DeYoung piece is that the next administration’s plan for the region is at this point either unknown or unfinished.  This makes it all the more important to have an honest exchange about options and limitations, opportunities and drawbacks, as well as overall U.S. objectives for the region – because these ...

Gareth Porter: Obama Team Should Reappraise Afghan War Efforts Before Doubling Troop Levels
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... The front-page story in the Washington Post Tuesday reports the intention of Barack Obama to commit a stunningly irrational blunder: to escalate dramatically the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan even though he has no clear proposal from the Pentagon on what is to be accomplished with the new "surge" in troops. ...

Is Afghanistan Worth The Fight?
Taylor Marsh — ... Bush’s Iraq-centric focus leaves an inheritance around the world but especially in Afghanistan. A limited troop increase is being reported as "buying time" for Obama and his team to evaluate what should be done next. Amidst that evaluation is the core definition of what comprises America’s strategic interest post-Bush. ...

The More Things Change...
Antiwar.com Original — ... a significant U.S. presence for at least a decade. It amazes me that Americans of various ideological stripes think that a country that has never had a strong central government and has taken no steps to put one together is just aching to have a bunch of Western advisers come in and erect a European-style parliamentary democracy. But there it is. To be sure, some Obama advisers have suggested that the U.S. military surge is unlikely to be the final answer in Afghanistan but is a way of buying time while Team Obama assesses the situation from the ground up and comes up with a ...

Gates: Civilian Casualties Doing 'Enormous Harm' in Afghanistan
Taylor Marsh — ... The talk is that the policy review on Afghanistan is real on Obama’s part, with the final analysis yet to be made. But again, Obama’s inheriting a country in absolute chaos, so he can’t let it further unwind, with limited expansion of forces meant to "buy time" until an assessment can be made, something that has already been reported. ...

At-Largely — ... nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. --Sun Tzu Sun Tzu maintained that proper planning ensures victory before the battle begins. Carl von Clausewitz insisted that war must focus on the political aim. How is it, then, that we are about to put more troops into a war we know is unwinnable and have no coherent objective for them to pursue? President Obama announced on Feb. 17 that he will send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. That’s just over half of the 30,000 troop escalation that’s been discussed in recent months. Gen. David McKiernan , top ...

Obama's Bananastan
Antiwar.com Original — ... you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu S un Tzu maintained that proper planning secures victory before the battle begins. Carl von Clausewitz insisted that war must focus on the political aim. How is it, then, that we are about to put more troops into a war we know is unwinnable and in which we have no coherent objective for them to pursue? President Obama announced on Feb. 17 that he will send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. That's just over half of the 30,000 -troop escalation that's been discussed in recent months. Gen. David McKiernan , top ...

Bill O’Reilly Provides Affirmation And Validation For Dutch Islamophobe
News Hounds — ... a litany of Muslim terrorist acts in Europe while exclaiming that “Europeans don’t know” and accused them of “being cowards.” Wilders talked about stopping immigration because if it continues Europeans will lose their freedom. O’Reilly asked if Wilders was called a racist “like me.” While Wilders went on a rant about “appeasing,” Bill said “absolutely” and said “all you have to see is how many troops Europe sent to Afghanistan and it’s very small.” (Comment, Actually, Bill, it’s about 32,000) ...

Obama's House of Mirrors
NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias — It's no wonder Obama supporters are jumping ship, one day he's saying "buy American", the next day he's retracting it. Before the election he vowed to cut the budget, now he's spending a generation of wealth at a time. He said he would shut down Gitmo and end the war, he changed some words, pushed out dates a year, and expanded the war by 30,000 troops. Before the election he was pro-gun, now he's anti-gun. He said he was for stopping domestic spying before he was against it. He even swore ...

Why You Should Oppose the Troop Surge in Afghanistan
The Latest on Air America — President Obama says the main goal is to stop al-Qaeda and prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base to launch attacks against the US. But he hasn’t explained how a troop surge would further that goal or produce any positive results for people in Afghanistan. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates has written that, ...

What Did Bush Bequeath Obama in Afghanistan?
The New Republic blogs — ... earlier this month, but it does seem like a relevant piece of data: A military official familiar with McKiernan's thinking said his request for 30,000 troops last fall was tempered by a belief that the Bush White House would reject it outright if he asked for more. As it was, Bush tabled the request, leaving it to Obama. Also, from a Karen DeYoung WaPo article in January, back during the transition: Since the November election, Obama has been flooded with dire assessments of the war. A National Intelligence Estimate warned that a reconstituted al-Qaeda leadership, dug into ...

Dick can't stop talking
Political Animal — ... plan for the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. In Grown-Up Land, it's the former vice president who "dithered" his way through eight years in Afghanistan. Taking a few weeks to come up with a coherent plan doesn't put U.S. troops "in danger"; listening to Dick Cheney puts U.S. troops "in danger." Cheney said last night that the Bush White House left Obama with a great plan. That's an interesting claim.It'd be more compelling if we had any reason to believe it. Let's taks a quick look back at recent history. The Bush White House delivered a major review of Afghanistan ...