Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/09/world/main5592551.shtml?tag=topnews" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...=topnews</a> CBS News is reporting that Obama is going to give Gen. McChrystal most of what he's asking for and that the soldiers are in it for the long haul. "The first combat troops would not arrive until early next year and it would be the end of 2010 before they were all there. That makes this Afghanistan surge very different from the Iraq surge, in which 30,000 troops descended on Baghdad and the surrounding area in just five months." I'm all for it as long as we wind down and end it in Iraq. Afghanistan is where we should have been all along as soon as the World Trade Center went down. Eradicate the Taliban, and don't stop until they drag bin Laden's carcass out of a cave and Al Zawahiri along with him, something Bush couldn't get done. What I'm not for is a war on two fronts. We need to close up shop in Iraq.
Originally Posted By DAR Aside from a few bumps here and there, Iraq seems to be in control. I'm all for us focusing our attention on Afghanistan.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt Are you sure about this? I couldn't find any online news reports to back this up. If true I will not happy about it. Either way I'm trusting that he'll made an informed and wise decision. If a surge has been approved and fails the blame will rest on his shoulders.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt Okay, I did find this, but the number of troops has not been confirmed. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/09/world/main5592551.shtml?tag=contentBody;featuredPost-PE" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...dPost-PE</a>
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy Just wondering how 100,000 troops in Afghanistan are going to defeat the Taliban that has relocated to Pakistan? Will the deficit hawks in Congress scream about the additional $40B a year that 40,000 troops costs?
Originally Posted By ecdc I'm very hesitant about this. Generals always want more troops - when do they ever want less? And the rationale is that "Well, the Generals know what they need." But they didn't in Vietnam. I much prefer the Biden plan - pull out most troops and have special forces focus on surgically eradicating Al Qaeda. I hope it's the right call....
Originally Posted By dshyates "But they didn't in Vietnam" We never put more than 60K troops on the ground at a time in Nam. Otherwise we couldn't claim to congress that it was just a Police action. Viet Nam was NEVER a war because of this quailification.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt I really wish someone would explain to me why we are fighting the Taliban when we went there to thwart Al Qaeda and extract Osama Bin Laden. I'm really anxious to hear Obama's explanation for continuing this mess.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>We never put more than 60K troops on the ground at a time in Nam. Otherwise we couldn't claim to congress that it was just a Police action. Viet Nam was NEVER a war because of this quailification.<< Unless we're using different definitions of "on the ground" (which is possible), that's not right. Johnson expanded the war to several hundred thousand almost overnight. We had 200,000 Marines on the ground by Dec 1965. We had over 500,000 soldiers there at the height of the war in 1968.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy The cost of 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan would pay for universal health care. Priorities?
Originally Posted By pecos bill Bad feeling here. What good will more troops do when they are going to have one arm tied behind their backs in the same old politically correct style of warfare? There will be a huge spike of delusional maniacs joining the Taliban, and they sure as hell aint gonna play by the rules. The only way to win this thing is with an all out blitz, but too many intermingled civilians make that impossible. Same thing happened to Russia, and the only politically correct thing they did was not using nuclear weapons. How many years have we already been there, and with what results?
Originally Posted By gadzuux Unlike the fort hood shootings, on this one I need more information - hopefully from the president himself. On the face of it, I might have prefered that we dial down our involvement in Afghanistan, not up. I'm wanting to hear if this is part of a larger well-defined strategy with clear cut objectives. And I want to hear that it's not nation-building and instilling democracy. I want to hear that some portion of these troops will also be securing areas on the Pakistan side of the border. It's madness to exclude vast swaths of this wilderness area just because it's on the other side of some vague map line. And yes - I want to hear about timetables. They got a bad rap during the `08 campaign, but they're very important. Even if we don't always meet them, it at least provides for a structure or a framework. I'm prepared to be disappointed, but for the minute I'm holding out for more details. Until then I remain unconvinced.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 I am disapointed with his decision, albeit for purely personal reasons... I honestly thought he would decide not to send additional troops. This is going to bite him in the ass come 2010 and beyond....
Originally Posted By LoyalOrderWaterBuffa ~~~~~~We never put more than 60K troops on the ground at a time in Nam~~~~~ is there any way that you are confusing total ground forces with total deaths? did not we lose 55 to 60 thousand troops in vietNam? Does not the wall in washington DC have about 57,000 names? just asking and not looking to start fights. I think total visiting forces were in millions but not at one time. my neighbor's dad is on tHat wall and he visits it from time to time.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << I hope it's the right call.... >> You know, that's exactly what I was thinking back in 2003 when the decision was made to invade Iraq. Nothing about that whole endeavor seemed to make sense, but I felt obligated to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt. Even though the leadership has changed, I don't feel the urge to give the benefit of the doubt anymore. We've been in Afghanistan for 8 years and it's getting worse instead of better. Now we're escalating. Here's an article that I think captures this situation pretty succinctly: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/the-goldilocks-principle_b_350611.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...611.html</a>
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Nothing about that whole endeavor seemed to make sense,*** I completely agree. ***but I felt obligated to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt.*** I never felt any sense of obligation towards that completely illegal and unconscionable endeavor. I guess I don't see America as some sort of righteous entity in all things pertaining to war-making, and certainly not her leaders who have done horrible things from time to time. I continue to give the current President the benefit of the doubt however. He has inherited this mess, and I do believe he's trying to put an end to it somehow (ask me again in a year though...I might have changed my mind by then).
Originally Posted By Spyderman Gernal Jim Jones, the national security advisor has come out to say that this news report is FALSE and there is another report saying this is an attempt by the pentagon t force Obama's hand. His decision has not yet been made.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << I continue to give the current President the benefit of the doubt however. >> Why? I've been pretty consistent in saying that there was no real way for President Obama to fix any of the messes he was handed by the previous administration. However, he ran on a platform of change. And for 10 months we've been getting nothing except more of the same over and over again. President Obama was catapulted onto the national stage specifically because of his rhetoric against our warmaking in the Middle East. I don't think for an instant anyone who voted for President Obama though they were voting for 40,000 more troops in Iraq. The people who voted for President Obama weren't voting for a watered down health care reform that doesn't disrupt the status quo. The people who voted for President Obama weren't voting for 10 months of inaction on human rights legislation that would end discrimination of Americans in the workplace. If the trend continues, were going to see 2010 come and the loss of progressive majorities in Congress. What then? Do we have to wait 10 more years before any substantive issues can be addressed again? The window of opportunity to change things is very small, and so far half of it has been wasted.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***<< I continue to give the current President the benefit of the doubt however. >> Why?*** Because he's been President for less than a year and he's already somehow turned the markets around from total disaster, set the tone of world dialogue to something actually worth getting excited about, and managed to do after a hundred years what no other President has...pass a healthcare bill in Congress. After less than one year. I will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt on Bush War I and Bush War II a little while longer.
