[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Obama's Afghan War Plans May Run Into Weary Public, Deficits Obama's Afghan War Plans May Run Into Weary Public, Deficits Buzz Up Send Email IM Share Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print Indira A.R. Lakshmanan Indira A.r. Lakshmanan – Mon Nov 10, 6:01 pm ET Featured Topics: Barack Obama Presidential Transition Play Video ABC News – Jake Tapper on the Transition of Power Slideshow: President-elect Barack Obama Play Video Video: Obama to reverse stem cell policy? AP Play Video Video: U.S Troops Blamed for Afghan Civilian Deaths AP AP – President-elect Obama talks on his cell phone after boarding his plane at Washington's Reagan National … Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Staff Sergeant Brendan Kearns went through urban combat training six months ago with the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, preparing for a planned return to Iraq. In January, his brigade is heading to Afghanistan instead. While Iraq has long dominated headlines, Afghanistan will demand more immediate attention, as President-elect Barack Obama becomes the first commander-in-chief since Richard M. Nixon in 1969 to take charge during wartime. Intensifying violence is ramping up U.S. involvement, costing money and lives when America faces a record budget deficit and the public is weary of war. Backing off may allow al-Qaeda and the Taliban to return to power. ``The most pressing problem for the next president will be the Afghan-Pakistan conundrum,'' says retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, lead author of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. ``A resurgent Taliban threatens stability and perhaps survival of the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a nightmare scenario, and we may have reached a tipping point where the Taliban is winning.'' The Bush administration is reviewing its military and humanitarian strategy in Afghanistan and will offer recommendations to Obama's transition team before he takes office Jan. 20. Refocus Attention On the campaign trail, the Illinois senator vowed to refocus attention there while pulling out most of the 152,000 troops in Iraq within 16 months. That's becoming increasingly possible as deadly attacks have dropped dramatically since 2007, when President George W. Bush sent 30,000 additional U.S. troops. The surge -- along with the so-called Sunni awakening, in which tribes turned against al-Qaeda and formed U.S.-funded, government-allied militias -- is credited with stabilizing the country. The Iraqi and U.S. governments have tentatively agreed on a phased withdrawal of American combat forces by 2011, subject to conditions. Obama, 47, has said a ``responsible drawdown'' from Iraq would allow the U.S. to upgrade military equipment, pay for veterans' care and redirect expenditures -- which currently top $10 billion a month -- to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be operating along the porous border with Pakistan. Funding Decisions Deciding what the U.S. can afford to spend is complicated by the $700 billion the Treasury is using to rescue the financial system, which may push the federal budget deficit next year to more than $1 trillion, following a record $455 billion this year. ``I know there's a lot of economic problems in the U.S.,'' says Kearns, 40, who's based at Fort Drum, New York, and has served in both wars. ``But the military at this point doesn't need its budgets cut. With seven years of war, there's a lot of wear and tear on equipment and personnel.'' Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, with a reconstituted and emboldened Taliban mounting more attacks on American forces. Neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan -- threatened by domestic extremists, assassination attempts and a financial crisis -- hasn't been able to control border security in its autonomous tribal areas where militants take shelter. General David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has asked for 20,000 more American troops next year; the 3,500-person 3rd Brigade Combat Team deploying in January from Fort Drum will be the tip of that spear. Opium Production The view of U.S., European and United Nations officials is that more foreign soldiers won't be enough to save Afghanistan. The country needs a sustained international effort to shrink opium production, build roads and establish basic utilities including running water and electricity. The Afghan government, widely criticized as weak, corrupt and inefficient, needs to better deliver services and secure its territory. Obama will face a balancing act with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commands a force in Afghanistan that uses 13,000 of the 31,000 American troops now in the country. European leaders have made clear they aren't keen on sending more soldiers into a widening war. Still, there's no doubt Afghanistan needs better security. In Iraq, there are 800,000 local, U.S. and international forces. In Afghanistan, there are at most 210,000 combined troops, and many of the Afghans lack training and equipment. Clear, Hold, Build ``Classic counterinsurgency strategy is `Clear, Hold and Build': You clear enemy forces, you hold the area, generally with the host nation's security forces, and then you build a better society,'' Nagl says. ``In Afghanistan we have not had enough forces to hold and have not put proper emphasis on build. We've cleared the same towns over and over and over.'' Every time U.S. forces leave a village they have cleared without Afghan soldiers to take their place, ``the Taliban comes back and they shoot people who worked with us in the head,'' he says. ``After the second or third time that happens, there aren't enough people left to work with us.'' Analysts say the best solution would be to greatly expand the Afghan army, supported by U.S. military advisers, and enlist militias into something like the ``Sons of Iraq,'' which turned enemy forces into associates. What worked in Iraq may not work in Afghanistan, however, where the terrain is rougher, the country poorer, corruption more visible and the insurgency more complicated because of hundreds of tribes -- many living in autonomous territories along the Pakistan border. Military Strikes Obama has consistently said that if Pakistan fails to act against militants on its soil, he would support unilateral military strikes -- something the Bush administration has already begun. In the past two months, Pakistan has accused the U.S. of launching 15 missile strikes in the Waziristan tribal area along its Afghan border, and late last month Islamabad lodged a formal protest. Soldiers at Fort Drum say if they had the ear of the president-elect, they would tell him that while military involvement in Afghanistan is necessary, it isn't sufficient. ``We need to focus on the basics: infrastructure, food, building roads and security,'' says Captain Matthew Burnette, 29, who commands a Howitzer unit headed back to Afghanistan as Obama takes office. ``If the three villages you're working in are happy, they talk to each other, they talk to us, and the Taliban can't take hold again.''
Poster Comment: war, war, war.... "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: ALL (#0)
Related: Taxi to the Dark Side trailer. This is a film every American should see.
When has that ever stopped them?
AIPAC/PNAC/ADL/NAACP/FEDERAL RESERVE/SPLC/JINSA/ACLU/CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS/AEI/FEDERAL MEDIA & HOLLYWOOD: Oh, those Islamofascists.
Butt, butt, wasn't he selcted on a platform of change?
Yes--by the shit for brains.
AIPAC/PNAC/ADL/NAACP/FEDERAL RESERVE/SPLC/JINSA/ACLU/CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS/AEI/FEDERAL MEDIA & HOLLYWOOD: Oh, those Islamofascists.
There is propaganda and anti-propaganda. We have to be careful in discerning where one ends and the other begins and to make sure BOTH are not coming from the same source.
Just think! We have at least 4 years to smack them about the head and body for falling for such a POS.
The day Obama takes over and his disciples bow down in reverence, we can blame everything on them. Vast and the others will join a Nunnery to get away from us.
But they wouldn't be attacking our people if they weren't there I don't think. And we need to withdraw our forces from Europe, Japan, Korea and wherever we have any and let them pay for their own defense. I think Americans have been played for suckers way too long.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. LOL!!! Good one.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Record deficits, a tanking economy, and low public approval never stopped Bush's foreign policy games. Why should they stop Obama?
Nothing will stop the Agenda, especially w/50% of the nation engaged in idol worship.
Hear, hear! Let's give a chance to an isolationalist foreign policy.
It's now or never. Truly. Looks like the sheeple choose destruction.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
The idea that most of these nations need "defending" is just an excuse to keep military bases around the world. For example, we have bases in Germany. Who's going to attack Germany? We have bases in South Korea and Japan with the thin excuse of protecting them from North Korea and China. China isn't stupid enough to jeopardize its trade relations and economy with the rest of the world by attackign Japan or Korea, and the South Koreans are fully capable of defending themselves from the north.
As Shirley Q. Liquor says, "I know that's right!"
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Sure, but my point (beyond whether we are actually "protecting" anyone or not), is that it is d@mned expensive to keep troops all over the world. And there is no need for it and certainly can't be justified no matter how you look at it.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||