The White House braced for a tough sell of President Barack Obama's long-awaited decision on whether to commit tens of thousands of new U.S. forces to the stalemated war in Afghanistan, even as the president met Monday with top advisers for the last major discussion before an announcement "within days."There's plenty more detail to the story, so I'd suggest everyone go have a look before discussing.
Military officials and others expect Obama to settle on a middle-ground option that would deploy an eventual 32,000 to 35,000 U.S. forces to the 8-year-old conflict. That rough figure has stood as the most likely option since before Obama's last large war council meeting earlier this month, when he tasked military planners with rearranging the timing and makeup of some of the deployments.
The president has said with increasing frequency in recent days that a big piece of the rethinking of options that he ordered had to do with building an exit strategy into the announcement -- in other words, revising the options presented to him to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.
As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it to reporters on Monday, it's "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out."
Question: What should Obama do about Afghanistan? What exactly constitutes "a win"?
Obama's Afghanistan Decision: 34,000 More Troops And An Exit Strategy, Reports Say [AP]
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I would like to see the President end the US war in Afghanistan. It is too costly and serves no point other than keeping the defense industry going. There is no "win" available.
There's alot to unpack in Afghanistan. It is Pakistan's #1 foreign policy objective, as well has a launching pad for one strain of the Taliban.
Then you have narcotrafficking, which affects Russia, Central Asia, and Europe as well as Afghanistan.
Then multiethnic make up of the country and the lack of development in the country itself.
The focus might be better served by dealing with Pakistan/India/Kashmir.
The President promised that he'd win this war. This was supposed to be the "good" war. Remember we "took our eye off the ball"? I have no time for people who think we can't win, and thankfully neither does the President.
This is what everybody voted for. A long time coming, but hopefully it'll let us start to turn the corner in Afghanistan.
@spool,
Not to get all CF in here. (I keed, I keed)
What is winning in Afghanistan? We create a viable country where one wasn't prior to 1978? We remove the Taliban but leave everything else as is?
More troops (read: surge) worked in Iraq b/c that country was adequately developed. Afghanistan needs a development surge and a crop besides opium.
There is no "win" in Afghanistan. This war has been going on for eight years now. All it is is a sacrifice of blood and money for no good purpose. There is no definition of victory. There's no justification to be there. The Afghans have made it clear that they will not accept occupation.
Killing more people in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not what most Obama voters wanted from what I can see. But since I didn't vote for him over precisely this issue perhaps I am wrong. I don't say no to that.
Perhaps Americans are eager and excited to send more troops to kill and die in Afghanistan and spend ever more money to do so. Time will tell. God bless em..
However I think that much like Vietnam, Angola, Algeria or several other places a few years from now Afghanistan will see a withdrawal of the foreigner-either via financial ruin or military exhaustion. LBJ and Nixon thought they could hold Vietnam. They were wrong. And Obama will be wrong about Afghanistan.
Well this is basically what the president said he was going to do during the election cycle. I don't see why now everyone wants to start a fuss now. I don't have a problem with the troop increase as long as their is a clear military and diplomatic strategy for success. Afghanistan is basically a double edge sword for the president if he withdraws completely than the wing nuts will call him a traitor and if he over reached then he's he next LBJ. I say you were elected Mr. President to protect and defend this nation than from all enemies foreign and domestic so forget all the noise from left and right.
Co-Sign what Wave said.
@stankoniforous:
Good question. Wouldn't it have been awesome if some liberal had asked Obama that in September of 2008?
Sadly, they were too busy guzzling Hopenchange to ask these and other questions.
IMHO a win is one where we stabilize the country and break the back of the radical islamist elements, and one where we deny safe haven for the similar groups over the border in Pakistan.
@shady:
Assertion does not create truth. ON what do you base the idea that it's impossible to get any sort of victory?
What will you say to the Indians when they learn we've abandoned their nuclear quasi-enemy to radical elements who have recently been murdering their citizens?
@wave:
+1. I'm behind him on this one.
@ Shady:
"It is too costly and serves no point other than keeping the defense industry going."
YEP. Why do you think this whole thing was started in the first place? It wasn't to get Bin Laden, that's for sure. By the time we got to Afghanistan in October 2001, old Tall'n'Ugly was already in Pakistan, where he evidently remains to this day.
From day one, this has always been more about exploiting 9/11 for financial gain than anything to do with justice---or even justifiable vengeance. Obama is continuing this disaster either because he's just as corrupt as all those who came before him, or because he genuinely feels trapped. It hardly matters. Whatever his motives are, either way, the disaster continues. I have very little optimism about this ending well. Hopefully I'm wrong.
@ Spool
It's not just the radical Islamists who are fighting the US. The US occupation and bombings increases the number of Afghans willing to fight and die to rid their land of foreign occupation.
The US can't even close down its own southern border and you think it's going to be able to enforce an arbitrary border between Afghanistan and Pakistan? Where it's the same ethnic groups on both sides of the border in some cases? Not going to happen.
The most powerful military machine in all of world history has faltered in Afghanistan. Why? Because neither the terrain nor the people are amenable to foreign control. They never have been and never will be. Ask the Russians or British. The US is currently supporting a corrupt regime implicated in narcotics trafficking-which has skyrocketed since the US invasion. There are limits to coercive power. The US has been fighting the Afghan war for EIGHT years. We cannot stabilize the country by shooting its civilians at checkpoints, bombing wedding parties, making its young men disappear into detention centers, kicking down doors and arresting people in the middle of the night or other such actions. Evil begets evil and blood begets blood.
Al Quaeda and other like minded people do not need Afghanistan as a safe haven. They can work anywhere. The final plans for 9/11 were done in Germany and Florida.
I would tell the Indians that the US must pursue its own interests-the same thing which the US should tell a myriad of other states.
This is Vietnam all over again but more tragic because the US evidently learned all the wrong lessons from the Vietnam war.
Assertion does not create fact.
Shady, I think you're completely off base here but its in such a fundamental way that I don't think we can really discuss it. I see your view of the US military in the post above, and all I can really do is give you a link and hope you get a glimpse of a different perspective from it; one that comes from a complete experience rather than an ideology.
Dispatches from the Frontlines
I'd direct you first to the entry titled "Bad Medicine".
"Assertion does not create fact".
Indeed, because facts have a liberal bias. Reality tends to work that way.
Seriously though Spool, just because I happen to disagree with you doesn't mean that I do so solely because of ideology or that you don't have your own set of blinders on. The idea that there's some dispassionate reality that the conservative sees but that the liberal missed because he is only motivated by ideology doesn't make sense. It's also quite self-serving.
There are also soldiers and other military experts who disagree fundamentally with the Afghan war or don't think a troop increase will do any good. The experts I cite agree with my position; the experts you cite agree with yours. What a surprise...
Col. Davis urges drawdown
Matthew Hoh urges end to war
Veterans for peace
So the "experts" disagree. Or are the experts I cite also blinded by ideology? These are people who've been there-fought and killed- and they oppose escalation. Are they missing some "complete experience" or otherwise unqualified to speak in your opinion? If so, why? After all , assertion does not create fact.
In any event, fortunately we aren't governed by "experts". The citizens have to weigh in. That's how this system works and I am happy about that.
My hope (although it won't happen) is that Congress will refuse funds for the escalation as it finally did with Nixon and Ford in Vietnam. Sadly I don't think we're quite at that point yet. It's not a liberal or conservative issue either, some of the most consistently trenchant analysis of and commentary about the war is found on the conservative side of the aisle.
Obama’s War
I don't see how you can claim to know ANYTHING about my views of the US military. Part of the reason I am opposed to an escalation is the strain it will put on the US military-not only in terms of those who are wounded and killed, but increasing the numbers of those who see marriages dissolve, suffer from PTSD, depression, substance abuse, commit suicide or have to go on yet another tour of duty.
This is why I think getting out is the prudent (and moral) option.
Getting Out
There are estimated to only be less than 100 Al-Quaeda members in Afghanistan.
Afghan Report
Marbles said
Obama is continuing this disaster either because he's just as corrupt as all those who came before him, or because he genuinely feels trapped. It hardly matters. Whatever his motives are, either way, the disaster continues. I have very little optimism about this ending well. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Well said, Marbles. The other thing which amazes me is that people that are deficit hawks on such things as health care or stimulus or other domestic programs throw those considerations out of the window when it comes to the warfare state.
It's estimated to cost $1 million a year per soldier. Where does that money come from? Are there better uses? What's the impact on the budget? On the deficit? This is going to crowd out domestic concerns but won't win PBO any friends on the Right.
Cost
I'm reading through the links, but when you said "facts have a liberal bias" I pretty much knew there was no more discussion to be had.
What a supremely arrogant load of crap.
@Spool
The sentence I wrote after that
"Seriously though Spool,..."
indicates that I am JOKING. You need to work on your reading comprehension. It was rather arrogant of you to ASSUME that the my perspectives only come from ideology or that you know anything about my views of the US military.
The attacks are coming from you. I haven't written anything about you. My only interest is this escalation.
You seem to be unable to accept that I have a different view on the Afghanistan escalation than you do without attacking me personally or making incorrect assumptions.
As far as "supremely arrogant" well, look in the mirror...
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