4um: Bush Pledges to Send More Troops to Afghanistan

Title: Bush Pledges to Send More Troops to Afghanistan
Source: AP
URL Source: [None]
Published: Jul 2, 2008
Author: AP
Post Date: 2008-07-02 20:50:34 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 263
Comments: 10

WASHINGTON — Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised Wednesday to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year's end. He conceded that June was a "tough month," in fact, the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began.

"One reason why there have been more deaths is because our troops are taking the fight to a tough enemy, an enemy who doesn't like our presence there because they don't like the idea of America denying safe haven (to terrorists)," Bush told reporters. "Of course there's going to be resistance."

Bush said it was a tough month too for the Taliban. But the once-toppled Islamist regime in Afghanistan has now rebounded with deadly force.

More U.S. and NATO troops have died in the past two months in Afghanistan than in Iraq, a place with triple the number of U.S. and coalition forces.

In June, 28 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan. That was the highest monthly total of the entire war, which began in October 2001.

For the full U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan the death toll was 46, also the highest of the war.

Bush confronted the grim direction of the Afghanistan conflict during a sun-splashed Rose Garden appearance. The president used the event to tout his agenda for an upcoming Group of Eight meeting in Japan with world leaders, then addressed Iran, climate change and gasoline prices in a short Q&A session with reporters.

The Pentagon predicts the pace of attacks in Afghanistan by a resurgent Taliban is likely to rise this year, despite U.S.-led efforts to capture key leaders.

"We're going to increase troops by 2009," Bush said, without offering details about exactly when or how many.

It amounted to a reiteration of the promised buildup of U.S. troops before Bush leaves office in January. He said coalition forces have doubled in size over two years, and pledged that the twin strategy of fighting extremists and supporting Afghanistan's civil development "is going to work."

In terms of public attention, the war in Afghanistan has been obscured by the far costlier and deadlier one in Iraq.

But it is a matter of consensus within the Bush administration, and between the U.S. and key allies, that there are far too few troops in Afghanistan to fight the accelerating Taliban and to train Afghan soldiers and police.

Overall, roughly 32,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, including 14,000 serving with NATO forces and 18,000 conducting training and counterinsurgency.

Afghanistan, not Iraq, was the original target after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The United States led the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 for providing haven to terrorists, including al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The Pentagon's top military officer said Wednesday that if security continues to improve in Iraq he is hopeful he will begin to have troops available to shift to Afghanistan by the end of this year. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more troops are essential to stem the violence.

"The Taliban and their supporters have, without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks, and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate," Mullen said. He added that "there's no easy solution, and there will be no quick fix."

The latest assessment from the Pentagon, released last week, describes a dual terror threat in Afghanistan: the Taliban in the south, and "a more complex, adaptive insurgency" in the east, made up of groups ranging from al-Qaida and Afghan warlords to Pakistani militants.

Military officials say security has deteriorated in large part because of the lawless, tribal border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bush said he will seek to remind his peers at the G-8 summit that the battle against violent extremists goes on.

"The temptation is to kind of say, well, maybe this isn't really a war, maybe this is just a bunch of disgruntled folks that occasionally come and hurt us," Bush said. "You know, that's not the way I feel about it. This is an ongoing, constant struggle to defend our own security."

The other G-8 nations are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. The summit will be the last of Bush's presidency.

— Bush said he wants a multi-country diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff with Iran, but will not remove the option of a military strike. Asked directly about the possibility of an Israeli strike against Iran, "I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be solve this problem diplomatically."

— The president blasted the Democratic-led Congress for not advancing his energy proposals, including lifting a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling. The president even went so far as to ask Americans to get involved in a lobbying effort. "They ought to be writing their Congress people about it," he said.

— Bush said he hoped the G-8 leaders would come to terms on long-range goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He said that should come first, before an attempted agreement on shorter-range goals for cutting emissions, a matter of higher priority for many European nations.

— Bush said he will urge other nations to make good on earlier pledges to help alleviate malaria, HIV-AIDS and other diseases in the developing world. "We need people who not only make promises, but write checks, for the sake of human rights and human dignity, and for the sake of peace," he said.

Obama stakes turf, outlines counterterrorism plan - Would add troops in Afghanistan, double foreign aid

WASHINGTON - The United States must add at least 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, double foreign aid spending to $50 billion, and be prepared to strike unilaterally against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said yesterday in a major speech laying out his counterterrorism plan.

The thrust of Obama's 35-minute address on national security was that America is less safe today than it was before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He argued that the "misguided" war in Iraq and the sacrifice of American values in military detentions have sparked fresh anti-Americanism and diverted attention from the crucial task of bringing Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his followers to justice.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," Obama said to a roomful of journalists and scholars at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Obama delivered his speech, in which he outlined a robust foreign policy with several military and diplomatic components, amid a fierce debate with presidential rival Hillary Clinton about when it is appropriate for a US president to meet with leaders of rogue nations such as Syria and Iran. Obama continued to sharpen their differences yesterday by obliquely equating the New York senator's reticence to meet with such leaders with the policies of President Bush, which he said has failed.

"It's time to turn the page on Washington's conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward, and that presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear," Obama said.

Political analysts interpreted Obama's speech as a pointed message to his presidential competitors: that he will not accept being portrayed as weak or inexperienced on terrorism and world affairs. Within hours of his remarks, however, the campaign of one of those competitors, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, dubbed Obama a "Johnny-come-lately" and said Obama had contributed little in recent months while Biden has worked toward many of the same goals.

Much of Obama's speech was devoted to how the United States should use nonmilitary means to rebuild relationships around the world. He vowed to attend a "major Islamic forum" in his first 100 days in office. He called for a new $2 billion global education fund to combat the influence of radical Islamic schools. And he said he would launch a public diplomacy initiative consisting of "America Houses" across the Islamic world with the "Internet, libraries, English lessons, stories of America's Muslims and the strength they add to our country, and vocational programs."

But though Obama proposed billions in new spending, he did not detail yesterday how he would pay for it. Aides said that drawing down the US military presence in Iraq would free up billions.

One striking element of the speech was Obama's tough rhetoric on Pakistan, which he said must do more to root out terrorists hiding in its remote regions or lose American aid. And he said that if Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was unwilling to go after high-level terrorist targets despite "actionable intelligence," the United States would act on its own.

"I understand President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama said. "But ... there are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again."

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and a former adviser to several Pakistani prime ministers, said Obama was right to address forthrightly Pakistan's role in battling terrorism. But, he said, the United States had to be absolutely sure of its target or a unilateral military strike could backfire.

"It sounds very good to say we're going to go in and strike, but who are you striking and what are you striking?" Haqqani said. "All you're going to do is turn people against the US."

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who is also running for the Democratic nomination and trying to get traction, was unusually critical of Obama's remarks on Pakistan, saying it was "dangerous and irresponsible to leave even the impression the United States would needlessly and publicly provoke a nuclear power."

Obama was introduced by Lee Hamilton, a former US representative from Indiana who helped lead the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group. Hamilton has not endorsed a candidate, but he gave Obama's speech high marks afterward, calling it "very well done."

"I'm very impressed with the number of quite constructive proposals he had in the speech," Hamilton said, highlighting Obama's strong warning to Pakistan. "It seems to me if we've learned anything at all about fighting terrorism, we have learned that we cannot permit Al Qaeda to have sanctuaries, and those sanctuaries must go."

In another veiled jab yesterday at Clinton, Obama stepped up his criticism of Congress's 2002 vote authorizing Bush to invade Iraq. "Congress rubber-stamped the rush to war," he said, also dubbing Congress "coauthor of a catastrophic war."

(/The Kingfish)

b. quite a list of impossible goals - I got news for the Bush Admin empty suits - there's a reason why the Afghans are primitive ( they have enjoyed playing soccer with human skulls for thousands of years because they like being primitive - it's easy and natural for them and no one in DC is going to convince them of the error of their ways) and there's a reason why the Afghans have never allowed themselves to be subdued by colonial outside forces( Afghans are born fighters and they will fight to the death as the Ruskies and as NATO has discovered). Let's just cut our losses and get the heck out of that hell hole. Afghanistan will never be anything but a backward ugly stretch of land in the middle of nowhere. Who cares if AQ hangs out there? In fact, encourage AQ to hang out there - a nice contained target.

c. give me a break - why deploy US soldiers from one useless failure of a war to another? hasn't the MIC made enough $ already?

d. let the Pentagon desk jockeys take their friggin' Captain Obvious reports and stick them where the sun don't shine. hello DC morons - there's way more of them than there are of us so let them live in their caves and kick their skulls around the deserts - who cares? - and let our troops do real defense of our nation by posting them on our southern borders as backup to our border guards.

e. LOL! - wakey wakey, Georgie - the "extremists", the warmongers live in the WH and on Capitol Hill and on K street

f. yeah most Americans would agree that this a bunch of disgruntled folks that occasionally come and hurt us - so let's move on, dummy. who cares how you "feel" about it? Two thirds of American taxpayers who are paying for these God forsaken 2 wars you started are sick and tired of underwriting your bad choices. In January 2009 after you become a private citizen, Georgie, you are free to go to Iraq or to Afghanistan to personally fight extremists to your heart's content. Now shut your ignorant mouth up and don't embaress America anymore with your same old, same old war on turrrrrror shiite and get to work on your memoirs like a lame duck President is supposed to do.

You betcha! However the only tweak I'd make to the above quoted message - in retrospect - is to advise Dummy in Chief to shut his ignorant yap instead of mouth - Georgie in year 8 definitely is wearing on me and the more times I hear him assaulting and soiling our ears with stupidity, the more I have come to realize that he speaks through a yap, not with a mouth like normal human beings.

Lets see, more troops to Afghan which has a small border with China, "China", good heavens. What would we do if Chinese had troops in olde Mexico?

We'd just suck it up like good little debtors when we face our more worthy creditors...