Obama nixed full surge in Afghanistan - Asia Times

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Is Obama becoming this generations LBJ?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KB24Df02.html

WASHINGTON - United States PresidentBarack Obama decided to approve only 17,000 of the 30,000 troops requested by General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus, the Central Command chief, after McKiernan was unable to tell him how they would be used, according to White House sources.

But Obama is likely to be pressured by McKiernan and the Joint Chiefs to approve the remaining 13,000 troops requested after the completion of an Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review next month.

Obama's decision to approve just over half the full troop request for Afghanistan recalls a similar decision by president Lyndon B Johnson to approve only part of the request for US troopdeployments in a parallel situation in the Vietnam War in April 1965 at a comparable stage of that war. Johnson reluctantly went along with the request for additional troops within weeks under pressure from both the field commander and the Joint Chief of Staff.

What had changed in the nine days between those two statements, according to a White House source, was that Obama had called McKiernan directly and asked how he planned to use the 30,000 troops, but got no coherent answer to the question.

The unsatisfactory response from McKiernan had been preceded by another military
non-answer to an Obama question. At his meeting with Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon on January 28, Obama asked the Joint Chiefs, "What is the end game?" in Afghanistan, and was told, "Frankly, we don't have one," according to a February 4 report by NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski.

[anonymous171]

1. I was thinking more like Nixon. Pakistan = Cambodia

We cannot win defensive wars. I wish the people at the top knew that.

[madokie]

2. This is the kind of things that is the makings of a great President.

You go President Obama I'll have your back bro'.

[NeedleCast]

3. "Frankly, we don't have one"

That's just sad.

As a person who served in Afghanistan, who saw what Taliban rule meant, I have little problem with continuing operations in Afghanistan. But to do so with no real goal in mind is insane. With our current troop levels we appear to be playing a game of cat and mouse with the taliban, with no real definition of who is cat and who is mouse in any particular area.

However, with Pakistan basicall turning over the Swat Valley area to the Taliban and AQ, there becomes less and less possibility of ever pushing the bad guys so far into the ground that they can't pop back up.

[thereismore]

6. That's right. Unless we go after AQ in Pakistan, all effort in Afghanistan is pointless. If we're

unwilling or unable to go into Pakistan, we might as well wrap it up in Afghanistan and go home. In fact, that's what I think we should do now and that's what we will do eventually anyway.

[ananda]

4. We need to get our of the war biz altogether.

First, war is inhumane.. particularly insane,
unjustified ones.

Secondly, war is a money sinkhole.. and these
economic times are perilous.

Thirdly, war is not the way to peace.

We must leave the ME now and never return except
as diplomats and invited guests and aid workers.
Not the word "invited."

[anonymous171]

5. Peace in the ME will only come from within the region.

No amount of aid will make them stop hating each other.

[bigtree]

7. I've posted a lot on this

The defining period for the president will be after he presents a comprehensive plan . . . or his actions in the period after which he's promised one.

We can draw plenty of reasonable conclusions from his escalation, but there are short-term goals which make perfect sense IF the intention is to continue with a more focused military activity there.

There is the defense and protection of the election registration and polling centers which NATO has pledged to oversee. That effort will be as unbalanced as the Iraq election facade as the 'protected' communities will be more advantaged in the outcome of the vote than the ones under assault by NATO and Afghan forces. But, other nations are also pledged to assist in this. They're bound to make a token new commitment to spur a reluctant coalition to do more.

There is the bolstering of the effort in the south toward the Pakistan border where militarized resistance fighters are moving back and forth into Afghanistan; some say advancing toward the capital with their frequent attacks and roadside bombs. That effort has my sympathy for the relief the incoming reinforcements will provide for the sparse troops who are tasked with defending miles more in South Afghanistan than is recommended as a military tactic.

The rest of the NATO effort in the interim - specifically the announced 'drug eradication' exercise is bound to stir up reprisal attacks and inflict even more casualties among the troops and the population. The heightened military presence and the heightened attacks make any escalation risky and potentially destabilizing, but it's even more so with so many of the efforts of our forces directed at the effects of the resistance to that heightened presence.

It's a open question whether we are actually affecting any credible defense of our national security or if we're just fighting echoes of our own grudging militarism. The direction the president chooses in the weeks ahead for both Iraq and Afghanistan will give us a better measure of the weight of our folly than this stop-gap deployment.