Last month, the Pentagon confirmed that it would be removing 14,000 support troops from Afghanistan and replacing them with 14,000 combat troops, saying they needed more “trigger pullers” on the ground.
Today, officials are reporting that President Obama has approved another 13,000 support troops for Afghanistan, essentially completing the backdoor escalation that many predicted the moment the support cut was announced.
Defense officials claim that President Obama has been planning this move and has approved of it since March, when he unveiled his “21,000” troop escalation which has quickly become a 34,000 troop escalation. Officials say the number of soldiers on the ground won’t increase by years end, but it seems the president has already made arrangements to see the overall force rise to 80,000+ sometime next year.
This is in addition to the over 60,000 additional soldiers requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which seems poised to raise the occupation force to one larger than even the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s. If approved, it will also mean President Obama will have more than tripled the number of American soldiers on the ground since taking office.
Hey, got to earn that Peace Prize!
I think we just had a little bit of that "ol' okie dokie", that Obama warned about during his campaign, played on us with this non-transparent troop escalation —- and the non-transparenter and champion okie dokier was the O man himself.
Alan MacDonald
Check out the smug mug of our newly crowned Nobel laureate in the photo accompanying this article. The caption could easily read, "Keep hoping for change, you gullible suckers! I'm playing you like a Stradivarius."
Is there anyone that believes this troop increase will be the end of it? For those that think we have any chance of succeeding (however you want to define it) in Afghanistan, I've got some swamp land to sell you.
Next thing you know. Obama will institute a draft to get his troops. Just how will all his young foolish supporters take that!!!
Yaa, Alan, you may see the 13,OOO as capitulation, but as a student of bargaining, I can tell you that the Pentagon boyz do NOT…… Remember it was 45,OOO…then Mr O "studied"…….. Then it became OMG….we need those troops YESTERDAY…..or Al Qaeta's gonna WIN…. They did NOT envission 13 when they start with 45 and raise to 60…… 13 will be an insault to them… They will wanna get some of the agency guys to go right over there and show him the Zagruder film….again…and ..again…and. .again.
Yeah, I have been disappointed in him too…. I wanted him to out all the 911 lies and deceptions……
It didn't happen, and I still believe if it [911] were really investigated, the bush/chainey repubs would need to flee to their friendly No. 1 Welfare Queen and the primary or secondary recieptant of America's military largess. But it was not how Rahm see's their role in "G-ds Plan" or whatever the fruck they are usin as their chart… Sometimes I start wonderin what we would be talkin about at this time if John McCain had managed to slip in as president……. but I remember that no matter how bad Pres. O seems, Pres. Mcain would have been worse in policy and in appearences, we would have had imperial patriotism elevated to the new national religion… With baseball diamond sized flags and disabled former shock troops lecturing us about America's divine mission to vanquish all the ungodly wogs……. ………. A fate I find somewhat less preferable to death and taxes….
Hope and Change. Hope and Change. Pass the Hopium, and smoke it in your peace pipe. Only change is the little money left in your pocket after Obi taxes you to pay for all the "reform". Hope and Change. Hope and Change.
This action by the president should confirm the obvious: there is not a dime's worth of diffrence between the Democratic and Republican parties. Both parties are owned lock, stock and barrel by the American Ruling Establishment. As long as there are hundreds of billions of dollars to be made from the empire's wars of imperialism, we will have war right up until the time that the American people are brought to utter financial ruin. That time is not far off. A word to the wise: get prepared, while you still have the opportunity to do so. In a short while, economic conditions throughout America are going to resemble those of a poverty stricken third-world nation.
The US is not going to be like a third world country. Things may well get worse, but living conditions will still be considered luxurious by any real visitor from the third world.
canadaguy, you have no idea what can happen when families get kicked out of homes, kids get hungry, old folks and children get sick, no gas, no heat, no food, no money. The current US society has not been there before. If "town hall meetings" of either party are an indication of what is to come, it isn't pretty.
I don't mean to downplay the problems that people might be going through in the US, but it's just not the same thing as living in a third world country. I have friends from Latin America who have said that homeless people in Canada and US live better than the average person in the third world (mostly because we waste so much, of course.)
I hope the US ends the wars and uses the money for its own people. We have universal health care here, and I think Americans would be better off with it too. But even if none of this happens and things get bad, we have to put it in context. Poor people in the US often still have cars and houses or apartments. Even the homeless have access to clean, free drinking water. A lot of people in Africa don't even get that. I guess my point was just that it doesn't do anyone any good to exaggerate. And it's an insult to third world people who would often give *anything* to live in even an improverished American society.
Most of what you say is true, BUT people who live in third-world countries know how to survive in poverty because they have seen it all and been through it all before, (relative) prosperity and crushing poverty. The social fabric of many third-world societies is more tightly woven, so when poverty comes, they know how to respond. Families get together, live together, and eat together until the storm passes. Extended families have done these things before. Even extended families often live in the same towns or within close proximity.
The US has none of that! Families have disintegrated with amost no elderly parents or grandparents living with sons and/or daughters as in third-world countries. Children in many US families are out the door by the time of their high school graduation, at least to the extent present conditions have not forced them to stay with their parents longer.
When the governments, federal, state, and city, the FORMER lines of last resort in the US break down, people will not know how to respond or where to turn. They will face conditions outside their experience. Then you will see chaos.
This is true, the idea of the extended family has disappeared for a lot of people. In the Great Depression and through WWII, families got back together (or literally, people went back to the family farm) and you had a whole network of people to work together and take care of kids. You had parents, brothers and sisters (and their families), Aunts and Uncles and grandparents.
For those who still have grandparents who lived through the great depression (or remember their stories), this is a good time to listen to them. Unfortunately, as you say, we live in a different time now and most people live in the city, not on a farm. Still, their values are something we need to rekindle. Values like frugality, modesty, humility, perseverance.
During WWII the American people sacrificed because they had to and they got the job done. Maybe they didn't sacrifice as much as the British, but you still had the "can do" attitude back then. People pulled together, rationed, and did what they could. That's a history to be proud of. I don't see Americans (or Canadians) willing to make even modest sacrifices today, unfortunately. We could probably solve global warming with *half* the sacrifice our grandparents endured, but we're all too spoiled and entitled to be willing to even give it a go. 🙁
Most of what you say is true, BUT people who live in third-world countries know how to survive in poverty because they have seen it all and been through it all before, (relative) prosperity and crushing poverty. The social fabric of many third-world societies is more tightly woven, so when poverty comes, they know how to respond. Families get together, live together, and eat together until the storm passes. Extended families have done these things before. Even extended families often live in the same towns or within close proximity.
The US has none of that! Families have disintegrated with almost no elderly parents or grandparents living with sons and/or daughters as in third-world countries. Children in many US families are out the door by the time of their high school graduation, at least to the extent present conditions have not forced them to stay with their parents longer.
When the governments, federal, state, and city, the FORMER lines of last resort in the US break down, people will not know how to respond or where to turn. They will face conditions outside their experience. Then you will see chaos.