Afghanistan increase in USA troops to be 68,000 from the current 38,000.
Department of Defense: Troops Killed in Iraq: 4275, Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 671, Wounded in Action: 33815
After Obama's latest appeal to the leaders of NATO countries, as the New York Times reported Sunday, "his calls for a more lasting European troop increase for Afghanistan were politely brushed aside." Europe will provide no more than 5,000 new troops, and most of them just for the Afghan pre-election period till late summer.
If we are escalating this war, what makes it righteous? And why don't our NATO allies back us and participate? And how will we know when President Obama can say "Mission Accomplished?"
Democrats and War Escalation - Top Democrats and many prominent supporters - with vocal agreement, tactical quibbles or total silence - are assisting the escalation of the US war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The predictable results will include much more killing and destruction. Back home, on the political front, the escalation will drive deep wedges into the Democratic Party. In their eagerness to help the Obama presidency, many of its prominent liberal supporters - whatever their private views on the escalation - are willing to function as enablers of the expanded warfare. Many assume that opposition would undermine the administration and play into the hands of Republicans. But in the long run, going along with the escalation is not helping Obama; by putting off the days of reckoning, the acceptance of the escalation may actually help Obama destroy his own presidency.
-
Even among allies, the anti-terrorism rationale is not flying for a troop buildup in Afghanistan. After Obama's latest appeal to the leaders of NATO countries, as the New York Times reported Sunday, "his calls for a more lasting European troop increase for Afghanistan were politely brushed aside." Europe will provide no more than 5,000 new troops, and most of them just for the Afghan pre-election period till late summer. In the words of the Times: "Mr. Obama is raising the number of American troops this year to about 68,000 from the current 38,000, which will significantly Americanize the war."
http://www.commondreams.org/...
U.S. essentially has 4 options, from best to worst, going forward n Afghanistan.
The conflict in Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of concentrating on the critical mission of keeping Islamist terrorists on the defensive, we've mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be — and cannot be — transformed. In the absence of a strategy, we're doubling our troop commitment, hoping to repeat the success we achieved in the profoundly different environment of Iraq. Unable to describe our ultimate goals with any clarity, we're substituting means for ends.
Expending blood and treasure blindly in Afghanistan, we do our best to shut our eyes to the worsening crisis next door in Pakistan, a radicalizing Muslim state with more than five times the population and a nuclear arsenal. We've turned the hose on the doghouse while letting the mansion burn. Initially, Afghanistan wasn't a war of choice. We had to dislodge and decimate al-Qaeda, while punishing the Taliban and strengthening friendlier forces in the country. Our great mistake was to stay on in an attempt to build a modernized rule-of-law state in a feudal realm with no common identity.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
--
Afghanistan ultimately "will need 400,000 security forces" to secure the population against insurgents, including 250,000 soldiers?
Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to Washington, and Husain Haqqani, his Pakistani counterpart, gave a wide-ranging presentation at the Atlantic Council of the United States, in which both diplomats proposed modifications to the Obama administration’s approach to the region.
Jawad urged international assistance for the expansion of the Afghan security forces, a major component of administration strategy, to nearly double the size of the administration’s proposal. Husain Haqqani, his Pakistani counterpart, bridled at the prospect of his government having to meet benchmarks for the continued provision of billions of dollars of aid that Congress and the administration have proposed. American self-perceptions as a "can-do, fix-it nation" leads to an "attitude that the world is a problem for America to fix," Haqqani said. "Please don’t try to fix us."
Jawad said his government "very much welcomed" the administration strategy to Afghanistan, which increases U.S. troops for the war there; accelerates the training of Afghan forces; and pledges wide-ranging support for a variety of developmental and governmental projects to stem the tide of insurgent violence. But he cited counterinsurgency theory — something that architects of the administration’s new strategy like Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy have studied closely — to say that Afghanistan ultimately "will need 400,000 security forces" to secure the population against insurgents, including 250,000 soldiers. The administration announced two weeks ago that it would bolster U.S. training and advisory programs to grow the Afghan national army to 134,000 soldiers and the national police force to 82,000 police by 2011. Asked by TWI how long the expansion would take, Jawad estimated it would require "five to seven years." He declined to cite a figure for how much the increase would cost. Absent the expansion, he said, "your soldiers will be dying [in Afghanistan] and we don’t like that."
http://washingtonindependent.com/...
Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?
President Johnson was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation, and the "War on Poverty." Simultaneously, he escalated the American involvement in the Vietnam War from 16,000 American soldiers in 1963 to 500,000 in early 1968.
Johnson's popularity as President steadily declined after the 1966 Congressional elections, and his reelection bid in the 1968 United States presidential election collapsed as a result of turmoil within the Democratic party related to opposition to the Vietnam War. In the end, the divided Democratic Party crumbled allowing Republican Richard Nixon to win the election. Richard Nixon’s number one campaign promise to Americans was that he’d end the war.
--
Vietnam. Over 50,000 Americans were killed and many of those who returned suffered and still suffer deep physical and emotional scars. Many more veterans took their own lives, or ended up on America’s streets among the homeless.
--
DoD Announces Recruiting and Retention Numbers for March 2009 Recruiting. All services met or exceeded recruiting goals for March.
Army – 6,548 accessions with a goal of 6,425; 102 percent
Navy – 2,857 accessions with a goal of 2,857; 100 percent
Marine Corps – 2,017 accessions with a goal of 1,411; 143 percent
Air Force – 2,748 accessions with a goal of 2,745; 100 percent
http://www.defenselink.mil/...
Will You Remember Me? The Ultimate Sacrifice
http://www.youtube.com/...
Tragic Wars?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Do Not Confuse Dissent with Disloyalty
Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam
http://www.youtube.com/...