The Telegraph is reporting similar numbers.
Beginning in March!!!????? Another 4 months away?????
<< ... the (once) white House is incensed by leaks .... that didn’t originate in the (once) white House ... >>
Working evil secretly. Or the pretense of what presently passes as a “presidency” by insidiousness.
These are the same morons who had no problem being in favor of an $787B porkulus bill that they knew couldn't work, a $1.2T and counting health care "reform" that they know will not work, 0bama's budgets that are going to bankrupt the country to the tune of >$1T per year, and a cap-and-tax program that will crush our economy and income tax base.
These troops are largely already being paid. What they will expend in ammunition, and plenty of it I hope, and other costs of being on a war footing may amount to a total of $5B for the duration. We will blow that on bribing 2-3 senators on the health care fiasco before we're done.
Hypocritical b@st@rds!!
That’s a better number than I thought he would come through with. Perhaps as troops are able to leave Iraq, they will be transferred to Afghanistan.
Wondering what Geneal McCrystal is thinking right now.
He will “send” 34,000 troops...or he will not “bring home” 34,000 troops that otherwise would have been brought home?
Just like the supposed sameness of “creating” a million jobs or “not losing” a million.
It’s all smoke, mirrors, and semantics with this guy.
I have yet to read the replies on this thread, but I find it very easy to believe this decision was timed to be announced after his first victory with healthcare this weekend.
Or...
We owe them our fullest support. They are not just photo ops!
Gordon Brown bit the bullet last month to send 500 more British troops. Brown has left wingers and Muslims who don’t like the idea to deal with.
At the time, the BBC reported that Obama had already decided to send more troops. The White House denied the report, but it all made sense to me.
Gordon Brown would not have gone out on a limb to have sent more British soldiers without knowing Obama planned the same. His people leaked that info to the BBC because it would help him politically for Britons to know Obama was doing the same thing.
But Obama has been keeping his announcement back for the right political timing.
Obama needed to keep his left wing happy through the election in November and through the recent health care votes.
With his popularity down, now is the time to look tough, talk tough and send troops.
The announcement of his decision delayed and timed for maxiumum political benefit.
The Republican claim he was dithering in making a decision was inaccurate. The real deal here is that Obama uses the decision making and public announcement process for his own political benefit.
He already decdided to send more troops and Gordon Brown knew it.
Its just that Obama has to play politics with announcing his decision.
Unless they change the ROE all they are doing is adding 34,000 new targets.
Don't be so quick to criticize.
It takes a lot of time to weigh the relative values of losing anti-war supporters vs not losing other blocks; and taking enough polls to see just exactly what level, if any, of troop increase will result in the fewest lost donations, votes, and photo-ops.
This is comical. zero only worries about strains on the budget when it comes to national security, unless of course the cost in question is associated with a trial aimed at exposing the U.S. to more attacks and trouble within our own shores. Then the sky is the limit, even though it would have cost about 1/100th as much to try KSM and his buddies in military tribunals.
When it comes to something he believes in, zero will spend us into oblivion, but let the subject matter be something that protects or advances the U.S., then he wants to pinch pennies if he even begrudgingly agrees to do it in the first place.
He thinks he deserves praise for not voting "present".
Since the left will be hypocrites about it then I guess I'll just go ahead and do to Obama what they did to President Bush.
First the Friends reported that Barry would address the nation tonight in prime time to make this grand announcement. And that the RICH will pay for the war. Now it will come next Tuesday. I guess tonight is the big State Dinner so Barry has other plans...Jennifer Hudson is singing.
Am I correct that the brains in DC have now told the bad guys how long it will take to screw us?
” Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1 “
everything after making that point is nothing but political theater
..... also a slight distraction from healthcare vote
I am sure the leak last month with the 30-40k troop increase was by someone who was trying to influence him on this with public opinion.
Remember how Hillary got her job as SOS? She went out and announced he had asked and she accepted on a Friday, by the following Monday it was now a fact, and Obama would look like an idiot if he didn’t give it to her.
This had the same feel to it right from the start. The numbers were released, the MSM ran with it, and now there was a baseline to judge his decision on. I would just love to know who put that fake former announcement out, whoever did it was brilliant in manipulating Obama’s team.
Ahm, yes, we've seen them wring their hands about spending our money -