Obama's Afghanistan Plans: 30,000 More Troops, Withdraw By July 2011

With the entangled situation in Afghanistan it leaves no doubt that Obama is going to have a tough time in Afghanistan. Anyway true leaders prove their metal in tough times so lets watch Obama.

does anybody remember he "won" a nobel "peace" prize??

add 30,000 more troops, start moving out a little less than that in two years and call it a transition or withdrawl and you end up with the same amount of troops..HAHHA ya gotta love politrix!!

its not a war its an occupation, called democracy building, nation building or whatever clever term the media uses.

and im not sure why the people or the media dont question

whats up wit dat?

he didnt say withdrawl, he said "beginning" a withdrawl

http://www.slate.com/id/2237263/

either way 2011 is a long time from now...

years of war, death & destruction for no reason at all.

NEWEST SURGE

We've had enough

Vietnams--

Drop the bombast,

Not the bombs.

You can be in favor of the war, or opposed to it,

but this war is not a Republican war or a Democratic war.

It's just a war.

Please quit bickering over politics.

Make the right alliances with the right warlords in Afghanistan, buy a split in the Taliban, declare "victory" and get the fuck out of there. Obama needs to put the expensive toys away and focus on the economy. They talk about "driving while distracted"? How about leading a country while distracted?

O = W

Recall W ran on 'small government' and 'no nation building'.

They lie like they breathe.

There is no Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Petraeus said it, McChrystal said it. 9/11 wasnt planned there, it was planned in west palm beach. They didnt train on flight simulators in Kabal, it was in Florida, Minnesota, Arizona. They didnt hijack flights from London or Germany, rather from Boston and Newark. This was all planned and prepared for..IN the U.S.

So we were just chasing ghosts in Tora Bora?

Obama's Afghanistan strategy:

Phase 1: Emulate Bush's Iraq strategy

Phase 2: ????

Phase 3: Profit

Oh yeah, and he's announcing a troop withdrawal to take place during his next election year.

Yeah Change! Bring on the Change! The Change is here!! Change!!!!!

18-year-old kids with machine guns are not going to win this war. We need more spooks, more intel, more spying, more assassinations, etc. Keep cutting the head off every time it grows back, disrupt their supply chain, stoke infighting among the Taliban, pay off defectors and warlords, etc. Occupation creates too much animosity and dead soldiers too much bad press.

How will this affect the Ghani black hand-pressed hash market?

I'm still hurting over the blond Lebanese.

I'm going to vom all over when he uses dramatic photos of troops returning home after his conveniently-planned withdrawal for his re-election campaign.

terrorism will never go away. You wipe out one chunk of bad guys, there'll be some more bad guys in training waiting to avenge their fallen predecessors.

So lets let them all live so there are more of them, right? What is that "new math"?

drewo FTW!!

This could either go really well, or really horrible. No middle ground here. Obama has the balls to take things there, I commend him for that.

Lets leave all the red and blue lines out of this for now.

and smoochies!

Let's open up to Cuba, but perpetuate the hypocrisy of the embargo.

Let ordinary Iranians choose their own destiny, but let's threaten to punish them with sanctions for their leaders' bellicose callousness.

Let's stand up to Israel and support Palestinians, but let's still give Israel military and economic aid.

Let's stymie Al-Qaeda recruiting by assuring the Muslim world that we're not at war with them, but let's continue to rack up collateral damage in Muslim countries.

Yeah, I know he's light years more evolved then Dubya, but I still hoped that he wouldn't be another Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, or Clinton who genuinely want peace and brotherhood but still find only "gun boat", "big stick" and (how did #5 Sir Jimbob put it) "military industrial complex" solutions.

So sick of this bullshit.

And you presumably have a better idea? If you're volunteering to go negotiate with the Taliban, you're welcome to go. But before you go, tell us whether you prefer oak, pine or walnut for your casket.

"And you presumably have a better idea?"

Yyyeeeeeeeesss!!!!

I'll refer you to the distinguished gentleman from Texas who has to constantly answer this question: Ron Paul on Afghanistan and Perpetual War.

Afghanistan is ungovernable. I think we're wasting our time and human resources on anything their. Start bringing our armies home.

The thing to do is burn the poppy fields from the air and end the dope supply and the resulting wealth. They can't recruit without the money. We will need a dramatically lesser amount of wealth to buy off the local warlords if necessary.

Right. Just destroy what they have without giving them alternatives. That'll keep people from lining up to be martyrs.

Or we could try building a real economy by educating and empowering women, difficult as it is of course in this culture; but, nah, burning things from the sky and pushing an already marginalized people further into poverty usually lessens violent extremism, so let's go with that.

I agree. In fact, most of the islamic world needs reform in the way women are treated. Any society that throws black bags over their own women, murders its own daughters in "honor killings" and affords them the same legal status as livestock is bound to be dysfunctional. Just overthrowing the taliban was a major step forward for Afghan women. That said, misogyny and shari'a law are inextricably linked. Can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other. Hopefully, once muslim women have experienced something resembling decent treatment, they will refuse to go back to the old ways.

This is the height of ignorance. Afghanistan wasn't always like this. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was a thriving culture, usually religiously tolerant (at least outside of rural villages) and quite progressive, a Southeast Asian counterpart of Turkey. It was the US that really brought it to this point. Anything to beat the Soviets, so the government -- especially under Reagan -- funneled funds first to anti-Soviet efforts then when the Soviets got mad and invaded, funded the Mujahedeen, who eventually gave rise to the Taliban. Okay, we pushed the Soviet Union to bankruptcy, but it came back to bite us in the ass.

Actually, the 'epicenter of violent extremism' is Saudi Arabia but no politician of any party will tell you that.

"They won over Bush and Cheney,"

Really! - you're an idiot.

"but since the Dum Dum twins were doing their Saudi paymasters' bidding"

Funny, I remember W holding hands, but not bending over and fellating Faud like Øgabe did. And the Chinese, and...

" that's no surprise. Let's give the real (at least not bought and paid for) Americans a shot."

You must be on drugs. (a) Obow-mao is so paid for by the arabs, the chinese, Soros, Jodie Evans, Pritzker, Khalidi, and Goldman. (b) second, maybe you didn't notice but your Pres Training Pants just told the TAHLEEBAN they can wait out 18 months and then he pulls the troops home so you can gloat before the 2012 campaign.

FUBO.

Your memory is (at best) selective - W liked to smooch with the Saudis.

hold hands.

lal @ military industrial complex

*cries*

Basically he's saying the Taliban won. Why bother sending more troops?

The Taliban won the day that the Bush administration made official their plans to invade Iraq, something they had been scheming since before the stolen 2000 election.

What's your alternative? We pull out immediately, that country falls into complete chaos with the Taliban in full control again and bin Laden and al Qaeda can come out of hiding to start gloating and recruiting anew? Sure would be a real victory for the US. We wouldn't be in this fix if Dubya had left well enough alone and finished the job in Afghanistan instead of splitting our forces to go to Iraq. Nobody with half a brain opens up a second front. It didn't work for the Third Reich, but obviously Dubya wasn't paying attention in history class.

"We pull out immediately, that country falls into complete chaos with the Taliban in full control again and bin Laden and al Qaeda can come out of hiding to start gloating and recruiting anew?"

Right, and then they go "nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah" - who gives a sh*t about these people and their third world country? Let them have it! Do you really think having American troops stand around this place for a couple of years is going to radically change centuries of Afghan culture?

Let's take the time and money and American lives and use it to secure our own borders, secure our airlines and rails, and prepare for any possible terrorist scenario on our own soil. And let these petty despots do all the "gloating" and "planning" they'd like. They have no army, no advanced weapons, no organization. They are not even supported by their general populace.

This movement of troops just demonstrates that Obama has no clue how to fix our economy here - since there's no jobs, he might as well send folks off to war - and only benefits one of the few industries we have left - the military industrial complex.

That's exactly the same attitude isolationists had before 9/11. "Who cares if al Qaeda is safe in Afghanistan? They can't do anything to us anyway."

They won over Bush and Cheney, but since the Dum Dum twins were doing their Saudi paymasters' bidding that's no surprise. Let's give the real (at least not bought and paid for) Americans a shot.

How sweet the drums of war sound when tapped by the Blue Team.

at least i can hear the drums this time, because when it was the red team's turn the drums were drowned out my the mindless "...'merica ...'merica" mantra.

Actually most people on the Blue Team want us out of there.

Not this blue. Afghanistan was a just war. We had the right to go in there and the rest of the world agreed. But Dubya just had to be overconfident and split our forces instead of finishing the job, pissing off most of our allies in the process. If he hadn't invaded Iraq on false pretenses, the chances are excellent that we wouldn't be discussing the Taliban today.

'... If he hadn't invaded Iraq on false pretenses, the chances are excellent that we wouldn't be discussing the Taliban today.'

We just have to endure the imperialism until it wrecks the country, as it has wrecked every other modern country that went for it. Then, when we are economically, politically and morally bankrupt, we will probably have to endure some kind of fascist dictatorship. It's the way things are done, in part thanks to you true believers.

Very good observation!

It's all about oil? Interesting that Afghanistan has no petroleum industry to speak of.

Couldn't say it better!

not sweet at all by any drum beat.

Oh yeah, because many of these new dispatch will come back alive or the same?

I don't think so.

What this presents is more loss on all catergories.

Economically, nation's reputation and integrity, and of course LIVES.

Great logic!

here is president Obamba's steps to losing weight:

Step 1: hit up KFC and order some southern krispy chicken wings.

Step 2: Go to the gym

Step 3: rinse and repeat!

Obvious Troll is Obvious.