The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Thursday said he believes American troop withdrawals should stop in 2013, keeping at least 68,000 by 2014 in contradiction of Obama administration plans to have combat troops out by that year.
Marine Gen. John R. Allen said in congressional hearings in response to questions from pro-war Senator John McCain: “My opinion is that we will need significant combat power through the end of 2013. . . . Sixty-eight thousand is a good going-in number.”
“I owe the president some analysis on that,” Allen said, but that he would not prepare this recommendation for the Obama administration until after the September departure of 23,000 surge troops.
The war in Afghanistan is failing on virtually every front and the instability has been exacerbated by successive outrages like the U.S. military’s Koran burning, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’s massacre of 17 civilians, and leaked video of Marines urinating on Afghan corpses.
Most Americans want an even faster drawdown of forces from Afghanistan than the administration is planning, according to recent polls, and even some Republicans in Congress have begun to express doubts about the worth and viability of the mission.
But Allen’s comments give fuel to exceedingly bellicose Republican presidential candidates who have claimed that Obama is not listening to his military commanders by planning to withdraw most troops by 2014. Despite the unpopularity and futility of the war, it may continue so that U.S. military commanders and political leaders fulfill their need to seem tough and effective. So far, that need has built their reputation as stupid and inept.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Thursday said he believes American troop withdrawals should stop in 2013, keeping at least 68,000 by 2014 in contradiction of Obama administration plans to have combat troops out by that year”.
Wasnet Obama who said: depending on the ground situation and the generals advise, then we start withdraw”? According to this general ground situation in Afghanistan is bad so Obama needs to rethink his standing, if he want us to attack Iran from Afghanistan when Israel start attacking Iran; therefore, this general wants to know the exact time and date for the attack, so he needs to have all his solders in Afghanistan.
Any one care to wager on how much longer the general remains in command? Isn't this how Stanley began his death spiral – talking out of school to the press and Congress and not the CIC?
And I'd wager that's Allen's plan, as it was McChrystal's plan. (Subconsciously, perhaps, if that makes anyone feel better.) Neither wants to be in the history books as the general who lost the one big war of their career. Not that Afghanistan was ever going to be all that "glorious" as wars go.
Sad and pathetic.
Look you Liberal/democrats and Republican, you are not democrats nor Liberal nor republican nor you know anything about democracy/liberalism and republic, liberalism is not only about sexual liberation, is about liberation of people from their slavery by the US and EU brutal and inhuman economical system, republic is not about vulture capitalism nor slavery by the system. Democracy is about the meaning of the word, a functioning democracy not a falsified one, is about democracy and its principals, is about people when and where they are free from such system, is not about militarism and wars, is about peace and prosperity, is not about helping or creating wars in hands of those feudalists in middle east, is not about Israel apartheid regime or any other dictatorial regime as such, and certainly is not about Saudis Oil or how much of US weapons could be sold to these regimes, democracy is about people, republic is about the republic, republic means people not bunch of hypocrites and thieves as Goldman Sachs from wall street. If you are democrats or republicans then you should know the meanings of the words and be able to define it, you should be able to explain the meaning of the word, its relation to a social economic and its political system where people are effected by the way that these words are defined and put into action, where the principals of the matters is respected, it is not up to AIPAC nor the Saudis to decide for the American people who is right and wrong, who should stay and who should be removed, that’s where the idea in "democracy and republic” is eluded and influenced by more outsiders and more of a business “elites" then American people, such social economic and social politics have left the American people with nothing and by itself to defend itself, Bush family didn't defend Kuwait Kingdom family from Sadam regime, they protected their business relation with the Kingdom made the Iraqi people suffer by lying to the world about their intentions in Iraq. Now US and EU wants to do the same to Syrian and Iranian people by using their military stationed around the world including Afghanistan. Now they are involved using their paid mercenaries and barbarians for the same reasons as a falsified democracy where “republic” have no say, such example is those senators and generals from both sides preaching for more wars, they do that because they are not republicans nor they are democrats, they have the tittles alright and pay their party membership but if they are what they say that they are and able to understand and demonstrate the meaning of either ideas, have respect for the words and its principals is another question. Next time you see anyone of them ask them this question, define the word democracy before I am going to vote for you, define the word republic without BSting the US constitutions, if you have any respect for the constitution or American people so lets talk, otherwise stay home and let people do their job, they have work to do defending their rights.
McCain, as the Representative of the tax payer subsidized industry of fear and hatred, must do damage control to stop the burning up of the Forrestal or Military Industrial complex plans, to prolong the Corporate Oligarchies profit from population control efforts in the Lands Beyond the Caspian Sea.
Yay. mojo. Prolonging a war which merely injures civilians and soldiers and the righteous defending their homes for TEN YEARS with no expressed reason beyond a lie makes for a change of CIC. No Afghani ever attacked the U.S. and anybody saying otherwise should consider that they are wrong and will be wrong again. I have heard one of these generals in a congressional hearing boast how he likes killing and war, and so people should "look out". It makes me wonder what he and his officers do in their spare time that blanks out going to a foreign country and murdering people because they want something