Though President Obama’s planned December 1 address announcing his Afghan War escalation plans is being presented chiefly as an attempt to sell the increasingly skeptical American public on the seemingly endless war, analysts suggest an ulterior motive.
Rather than the American public, whose opposition to the war seems to have virtually no impact on the government’s determination to continue it, many see the speech as aimed more at NATO allies and trying to secure an escalation from them as well.
President Obama is expected to announce a 34,000 troop increase, essentially all the military could withstand but well short of the 80,000 troops that Gen. Stanley McChrystal had sought. Officials seem to hope NATO contributions will make up at least some of that difference.
NATO will be meeting just two days after Obama’s speech, and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been pressuring members of the alliance to contribute the “maximum possible” number of troops to the war.
Obama says Afghanistan is the “right war”. __Obama is wrong.__The Taliban offered to hand over BinLaden if evidence linked him to 9/11. But Bushco wanted war, and brushed aside attempts to negotiate. (Vexed about the Taliban refusing Unocal pipelines?) __http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va… never claimed responsibility for 9/11, and no evidence has been made public.__http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&… we believe Bush, Cheney, and Obama that the only option was to invade (inevitably causing the deaths of Afghan civilians who always get in the way) to get someone responsible for US civilian deaths. __After flubbing that mission, why after 8 years do we occupy Afghanistan? Why the military bases and our puppet drug lords and Karzai? __Allegedly to prevent another BinLaden from arising. Really? What we are doing seems precisely designed to create more enemies.__Besides, BinLaden was not Afghan, he was Saudi.__Obama contends he is right to cause Afghan civilian deaths, to save US civilians from unknown future threats which do not now exist except in the minds of Pentagon hawks.__Obama’s explanation is chicanery, and suggests more insidious motives. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va…
A sentence from my previous post corrected:
SHOULD we believe Bush, Cheney, and Obama that the only option was to invade Afghanistan, (inevitably causing the deaths of Afghan civilians who always get in the way) in order to get someone BLAMED for US civilian deaths?
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Europe to pony up to the table. Europeans have little, if any, desire to play the role of "posse" to America's self-appointed role of "global sheriff". The Europeans have already done the whole empire thing. They have been there, done that. They have moved on. In any case thanks to very bad immigration policy much of western Europe has cities teeming with angry, unabsorbed muslims. This is a potential tinderbox for Europe making American cities in the 1960's look mild by comparison. And the Europeans know it. NATO is a farce and should be ended.
The timing is not in Obama's favor, he can't stand to lose more support in the Senate right now. The only way out of this is allow a surge with so many conditions attached that it can be turned into a pull-out as well during 2010, as the absorption capacity of Afghanistan would allow for maximum 10,000 at the half year mark. A risky strategy with "blood on the hands". But really there's no political viable alternative here. Sink or swim!
Obama is turning into a smiling idiot and moron – sending more troops to Afghanistan is a dumb and stupid idea advanced by generals who are just as WRONG as the generals were during the Vietnam War. As to "finishing the job in Afghanistan" – exactly what is that? History has shown that Afghanistan has the well earned reputation of being "the graveyard of empires and of soldiers" – it will be the gaveyard of the arrogant American empire. It was a British soldier of generations ago who said it best: "If anyone ask why we died, tell them because our fathers LIED". Obama appears to have learned the knack for lying from the master of all LIES – George W. Bush. There will one day be a "day of reckoning" – when 'they' will do to US what we are doing to them – we are murdering tens of thousands of them – continuing to commit the war crimes initiated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. Jefferson once feared that God's justice would one day be on America!
He's going to be just like LBJ. And for the same reasons.
Calling Obama an idiot and a moron is insulting to idiots and morons. Has this man ever heard of LBJ? Has he read any history? Is destroying his presidency and ruining our country worth demonstrating to neocons that he's "tough"? Another 34,000 men and women are being sent into the meat grinder for no other reason. It's sheer insanity.