Posted on 12/02/2009 12:29:12 AM PST by myknowledge
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced he was pouring 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan, vowing to "seize the initiative" to end the unpopular war and start a pullout in July 2011.
In a significant speech unveiling a new fast-track war strategy, Obama pledged for the first time that US forces would start coming home in 19 months, as he groped for an exit from a conflict many backers see as a Vietnam-style quagmire.
"Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years, it has moved backwards," Obama said, placing a bet that more forces could defeat al-Qaeda, crush a resurgent Taliban, and pave the way for a withdrawal.
The speech, before cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point who will fight Obama's war, marked his biggest test yet as president, and best opportunity to redefine the conflict.
Although he set a date for the start of a US withdrawal, he stopped short of establishing a deadline to complete the mission launched more than eight years ago following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"As commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interests to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan," Obama said.
"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home," he said, seeking to reassure Americans the new plan would not signal a war without end, and rejecting the comparison with Vietnam as a "false reading of history".
The first US Marines could be in place by Christmas, just four months after war commander General Stanley McChrystal warned the war could be lost without more manpower. All the new troops will be fighting within six months.
McChrystal hailed the new strategy, saying it gave him "a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task.
"The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the president's address are critical steps towards bringing security to Afghanistan and eliminating terrorist safe havens that threaten regional and global security," he said.
Obama also increased pressure on NATO allies for more troops, saying they were also threatened by Afghan-based terrorism.
Following an exhaustive strategy review, Obama rolled out new political approaches to Afghanistan and Pakistan and vowed to chase down al-Qaeda wherever it emerged.
He warned the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai that the days of a US "blank cheque" were over, demanding a drive against corruption.
The White House said a key element of the political strategy would be support for Afghan efforts to reintegrate Taliban members who renounce al-Qaeda, lay down their arms and enter politics.
The same "cancer" of extremism that had torn at Afghanistan was also hurting Pakistan, Obama warned, crediting Islamabad with an unprecedented effort to combat home-grown extremism.
"We will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan," Obama said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the new strategy courageous and urged "all countries which want to help the Afghan people to support it".
Obama cautioned that strikes against America were "being plotted as I speak" and warned he would go after Osama bin Laden's terror group in Somalia or Yemen or further afield if necessary.
As many of Obama's Democratic allies baulk at the cost of the new troop surge, the US leader warned the new Afghan war operations would cost $US30 billion ($A32.44 billion) this year.
But in a swipe at the former Bush administration, blamed for not paying for conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said he would be open and honest in financing the operation.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of Obama's fiercest critics in the US Congress, praised the new "surge of forces" and said it would help "reverse the momentum of the Taliban".
But others bluntly dissented. "I do not support the president's decision to send additional troops to fight a war in Afghanistan that is no longer in our national security interest," Democratic senator Russell Feingold said.
In Kabul, the Afghan government "welcomes the new strategy", foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Faqiri told AFP.
And US ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who was reportedly opposed to the build-up of US troops, said Obama's decision provides "clarity and focus" to the US mission in Afghanistan.
"My team and I will energetically implement this strategy in closest possible partnership" with the Afghan people, government, the NATO-run force in Afghanistan, UN mission and other international partners, Eikenberry said.
Japan also welcomed Obama's troop announcement and reiterated a pledge of $US5 billion ($A5.41 billion) in aid to help rebuild Afghanistan.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was confident members of the transatlantic alliance would make a "substantial" increase in their commitments.
NATO foreign ministers will be meeting in Brussels on Friday to discuss Afghanistan, where more than 40 countries have troops.
Seriously, winning Afghanistan is out of the question. Please do not lampoon me as a defeatist, but the coalition forces are left with few options, and prolonging the occupation is no option I would consider, unless the overall strategy is changed to our advantage.
Lame Duck Military Strategy
Obama is running away from battle 18 months before the battle is over. ...and now Afghan civs are running away from US and towards the Taliban
America, kick the dems out in 2010 or worse will follow.
Committing troops makes Obama a hypocrite. The anti-war goof balls on the left aren’t happy and neither are the hawks on the right. Either go after OBL and the Taliban and relegate them to the ash heap of history or don’t. But don’t commit 30,000 troops and tell the world you’re gonna gut defense funding. This speech is nothing new that we haven’t heard from this egg head since he arrived on the world stage 5 years ago as the keynote speaker for the 2004 DNC convention.
And don’t lecture and bitch about the cost of war while wrecking and controlling 26 percent of the US economy.
Or lecture and bitch about the cost of war and commit 30,000 more troops for a war you ain’t got the guts to finish.
Obama is playing politics pure and simple with this speech.
He heads off Republicans by “sending more troops” for the mid-term elections in 2010, then pulls them out for his own re-election in 2012.
What garbage?????
And don't forget about the opium fields. The globalist elite, including the CIA, have been making nine, ten figure sum mountains of cash enough to stack Mt. McKinley.
Obama had to squeeze this one in between “health care” and “climate change.”
Destroying the nation’s economy is more important than winning war.
Whereever Islamists are left to run a nation after we’ve fought and bled and died, the outcome is as if you sink your fist into a bucket of water. When you withdraw your fist you can look in the bucket and see how much impact you’ve made over the long haul.
I hate it that American blood is spilled on the ground in those kinds of countries where we are prevented by political correctness from introducing any alternatives to Islam while we are there.
Our soldiers who are genuine Christians and love their souls are either discouraged or forbidden from personal witnessing or Gospel literature and Bible distribution. Just shoot at them, kill some, or be killed by roadside bombs, or get out alive, but we leave little other impact.
It is not the fault of our fighting troops who are brave, patriotic, professional. I grieve for them. I hate that they risk their lives and give their lives where they are not allowed to win a war. I grieve for their families.
I still do not see why we didn’t, . . . .
1. by use of superior intelligence (including superior technologies), identify targets that were the orignial key threats to our own national security (e.g. after 9/11).
2. Keep the news media from knowing and broadcasting our military strategies . . . .
3. use all superior air forces and special forces to eliminate the threats we discovered . . . .
4. and keep doing it . . . and keep doing it . . . and keep doing it.
Agreed!
If you are concerned about some poppy field on the other side of the world, your priorities are screwed up.
I don’t care if he’s acting on the advice of the Easter Bunny. Obama is incompetent and evil.
The dimocrats better remember that O has said Afghanistan was the ‘good war’ and now it’s his ‘unpopular but good war’. The blood on his hands he got from dithering can’t be transferred to Bush.
...we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
As long as it takes to get them into that hell hole, if things turn worse and China, Pakistan and the the other stans decide to try to crush our soldiers, it could become disastrous. A sad, remote graveyard for our brave troops. Just what the left seems to want.
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