Obama To Send More Troops To Afghanistan
Nearly four months after receiving a request for the immediate addition of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, U.S. President Barack Obama has agreed to send at least 25,000 troops to the region.
Obama will announce the new U.S. policy in Afghanistan in a speech to the nation next week, the White House said Tuesday, marking the latest chapter in a conflict that began in October of 2001.
There are currently 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, which along with Pakistan continues to be a hotbed for militant jihadism.
This has been America’s bloodiest year yet in the war-torn nation, with 267 U.S. military fatalities. That’s up from 155 fatalities a year ago and 117 fatalities in 2007. By comparison, there have been 130 American fatalities this year in Iraq, down considerably from a peak of 904 two years ago.
In all, 5,248 American nationals have lost their lives in both conflicts.
Meanwhile, several Democrats in Congress have proposed a new surtax on wealthy Americans to pay for the troop increase, which is expected to cost anywhere from $20 -$40 billion depending on how many troops Obama eventually decides to send to the region.
Comments
By Liberty For Me on November 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
All right…25,000 more young Americans walking around Afghanistan like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.Obama not only extends an illegal American aggression,but also betrays his promise to the ones that voted for him(what a shock)….How do you win a war with no real enemy army or a focused objective?? Please somebody clue me in…
By Elmer on November 24th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Obama and Bush- what’s the difference? Afghanistan-After 8 years , it’s billed as the necessary war? Who are you kidding?
How many more long years will we be mired down in this quagmire?
The majority of US people are not in favor of this troop increase, but public opinion is irrelevant.
By Rod Tidwell on November 24th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Elmer i guess the public has short term memory and forgot that Sept. 11th was planned, orchestrated and the hijackers were trained in Afghanistan. Not to mention that if we abandon Afghanistan at this moment we only embolden the Tailban to re-assume power, thier return to power would mean again safe sanctunary for global islamic extermism and terrorism. In addition the Tailban would resume thier medival practices aganist women, to include not allowing women to go to school and executing people for listening to western music and beating people for not growing a beard. But like I said the public has short term memory, and not to mention, werent yall the same people that said a “surge” would never work in Iraq either?
25,000 troops is not the 40,000 requested but it is better than nothing.
By Elmer on November 24th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Rod,
Osama stayed in Afghanistan and trained there before 9/11. Then when we arrived in Afghanistan he LEFT THE COUNTRY. He isn’t there anymore- and we have no clue where he is.
Sending more troops to where Osama has left is the height of stupidity( unless you are making money on the war).
We aren’t at war with the Taliban and we didn’t go to war to straighten out how Mideast countries mistreat their women. Saudi Arabia has terrible treatment of their women. Should we go invade Saudi Arabia next?
Regarding the surge, just because the media told you it was a winner doesn’t make it so. If the surge has worked so well in Iraq and we won, why don’t all our troops come home?
By RP on November 24th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
The Taliban will wait us out. They’ll rule the country when we tire of losing young men and women and eventually pull out (hmm, kind of sounds familiar circa 1975). I predict about the same for Iraq as well. Once we tire of that mess and pull out the Islamic extremist will take hold and Iraq will be another extremist Islamic state that hates America.
And we’ll never “GET” Osama Bin Laden. He’s protected by too many sympathizers.
I say let’s pull out and bring the troops home.
Enough of this nonsense.
By Liberty For Me on November 24th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Yeah….Elmer 2012!!!!….
Not really…Ron Paul
By larrie on November 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Afghanistan is not worth one more drop of American blood.
However, let’s not forget that sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan is a troublesome country called Iran.
I only hope that are troops are strategically placed to address/contain Iran.
By COURTNEY on November 24th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
and my son leaves on Dec. 31st for this awful place….I rest easy at night knowing that I did not vote for the fool in the White House but those easy nights are coming to an end…God forbid anything happen to my child and that fool tries to take advantage of a photo op at Dover Air Base….what is Obama thinking ????? We can’t possibly win this war unless we blow Afghanistan completely off the map followed by all of the other countries with the same mentality.
By Skidmarks on November 25th, 2009 at 6:57 am
This is disheartening.
By Rick on November 25th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Courtney, bless you for raising a son with such character. Eight years ago before we went to war I raised the question of long term sustainability with many of my friends. Few had any concern and most Americans at that time supported these wars. Like VietNam the long slow steady drain has left its mark and now the voices begin to question “when” and “why” and “for how long”? So, do we like in VietNam negotiate a surrender? Do we now believe that we can “pick up our toys” and go home with no repercussions for failure to follow through? Since the conclusion of WWII, we as a nation have decided to fight “fair” wars. This means a minimalzation of collaterial damage, rules of engagement, winning hearts and minds, respecting ones religious beliefs etc. War is a contest in which one individual, country, nation beats the hell out of the other until the other can’t fight anymore. Much like Germany and Japan at the conclusion of WWII. THe war ended because they couldn’t fight anymore, not because we felt sorry for the collaterial damage or we worried about women and children. War means breaking things and killing people and shouldn’t be entered into lightly. OK, so now we’re there, what do we do? We instill enough fear into the people that they fear us more than they do the Taliban. We reward our friends and supporters and elimenate our enemies. All over the middle east we have issues, not due to the common ordinary citizen, but because of the religion. In the past, how did we deal with Islam? We didn’t play nice, we used the precepts of their religion against them. Can’t be fouled with pork? I’ll kill you with a bullet soaked in pork fat. Use a religious shrine as means of attack, I’ll elimenate the religious shrine. Use IED’s, I’ll reward your neighbor for turning you in before I level your home with your family inside. Until we are willing to be even more savage than they are..we’ll continue to lose our best. Thats the shame, we’re so busy worrying about the rights of others, we sacrifice the health and blood of our sons and daughters on the alter of humanity.
By dakota fanning on November 25th, 2009 at 11:04 am
hmmmmmmm. 25,000 times the cost of one million dollars per each soldier per year it sounds like obama is just giving the military industrial complex a payoff of 25 billion extra dollars in profit to leave him alone on this issue. its certainly not as much as the obscene profiteering they made under the cheney/bush regime, but theyll just have to make do with the meager 25 billion. What’s so great about these fraudlent neo-colonial adventures is that instead of stealing the treasure and resources from the occupied peoples (afghanisan has absolutely nothing of profit except opium and war profiteering itself, LOL)-whereas the british at least invaded and colonized areas with resources which made their adventurism profitable via the conquered lands- modern American neo-colonial adventurism solely targets its very own national treasury to loot from.
By James the Foot Soldier on November 25th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Ooops, candidate obama painted president obama into that corner.
By upstatedweller on November 26th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Elmer has pretty well dominated this thread with logic and good sense. It never ceases to be a wonder how the good people oppose helping anyone within their own borders yet are eager, willing and supportive of sending other people to police a place on the other side of the world. All that money spent to kill non-Americans or non-Southerners if you’re a good South Carolinian is fine with them. They applaud all the money spent to pay for the deaths of people who have never even heard of South Carolina. All this talk of being more ruthless and believing in something so much that they are willing to sacrifice as many other people as it takes to do the job of invading foreign countries who have nothing. The good people aren’t worried about why there is a war. Usama is most likely dead, probably killed in Tora Bora. Why are they there? Don’t pretend to care about human rights when you’re willing to spend upwards of a trillion dollars to turn a country into a parking lot but you won’t spend a fraction of that amount on health care. If you’re willing to spend trillions on that, you are most concerned about the rights and profits of the defense contractors. What humanity?
By Mohammad Waheed on November 28th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I am a democrat and a United State Citizen. I voted for President Obama because a promised was made to end the war and bring home the troops. Well, that was then, now the promised is broken that is going to cost us $20-$40 billion.
Trackbacks