President Obama Issued Final Orders on Afghanistan Strategy in Sunday Meeting

[Xeric]

President Obama Issues Final Orders for Afganistan Troop Increase - ABC News


President Obama Issued Final Orders on Afghanistan Strategy in Sunday Meeting

The President Will Announce His New ****** Strategy to the Nation on Tuesday
By JAKE TAPPER and HUMA KHAN
Nov. 30, 2009

President Obama met with members of his war council Sunday night to lay out his orders on a new strategy for Afghanistan, which he will announce to the nation Tuesday evening.
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Obama is expected to make a decision regarding sending additional troops soon.

The president first told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton his decision by phone on Sunday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today. Obama then met at 5 p.m. with his war council, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Adviser James Jones. At 6 p.m., he spoke via secure video teleconference with U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.

The president "communicated his final decision on the strategy... and issued orders on the strategy's implementation," Gibbs said
Today, the president contacted international leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to inform them of his decision, and will reach out to other counterparts in the coming days, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Today's calls to foreign leaders will be to update leaders on the "strategy, the process that's gone into this," Gibbs said, noting that Secretary Clinton will head to Europe for meetings with NATO next week.

Obama is putting the finishing touches on his speech Tuesday night, which will be broadcast at 8 p.m. EST from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Obama is expected to call for an additional 34,000 troops in Afghanistan at an estimated cost of $1 million per soldier.

"The president will talk about, 'This is not an open ended commitment,' that the goal and the purpose of the strategy is to train Afghan national security force, comprised of an Afghan national army and a police, that can fight an unpopular insurgency in Afghanistan so that we can then transfer that security responsibility appropriately back to the Afghans," Gibbs said. "I think he will go through why we are there, what he believes this process, what this process brought about and outline what he hopes to see."

The decision comes after months of discussions and deliberations with the president's national security team.

Before leaving to give his speech at West Point, the president will meet with Congressional leaders at the White House to explain his decision.

Sources say the president's speech will touch on four major points.
Barack Obama to address troop deployment to Afghanistan

First, the president will explain how he intends to, as he said last week, "finish the job" in Afghanistan, where the number of Taliban supporters continues to swell even though U.S. and NATO troops have been there for years. The focus of the new strategy, sources say, will be going after al Qaeda and affiliated extremists, with less of an emphasis on nation-building.

Second, the president will also explain to the American people his exit strategy. Part of the president's challenge is explaining that while he's sending more than 30,000 new U.S. troops to Afghanistan -- bringing the total to around 100,000 -- he is just as keenly focused on bringing them home.

Third, the president will convey to the international community that this is not just a U.S. mission or one country's problem, nor is it an issue affecting just that one region of the world. This must be an international effort, the president will say.

Finally, the president will convey to the Afghan government that it needs to get its act together and improve governance and combat corruption, a push he will make by saying the U.S. will insist on very strict benchmarks.

Very quickly after the speech, sources tell ABC News, U.S. troops will be sent out for deployment in southern and eastern Afghanistan, especially Kandahar and Helmand Provinces.

While Democratic lawmakers are increasingly opposed to a possible troop increase, Republican lawmakers say the move is necessary and that the president needs to convey that in his speech tomorrow.

[ajpirzada]

lets see if this will help US in expanding her writ from 30% (wat they are in control of now) onwards

[A1Kaid]

Here in the US this is seen as an unpopular move in the view of Obama's supporters. The Left-wing groups and institutions are now turning on Obama and condemning him because Obama is now breaking his campaign promises.


The left-wing of the Democratic party are really voicing their criticism of Obama, his popularity has fallen faster than Pres. Jimmy Carter. When Obama entered his presidency most news polls showed his approval rating at 65% which is quite a strong number and makes him very popular. Today many news polls show he is now below 50%, I've seen numbers suggesting he is in the 45%-50%.

This major war escalation is not simply an Obama policy, it is a policy of those......Clearly, Obama is loosing political support at home for this major war escalation.


Those who once blindly followed him, are now beginning to question him!

[Araz]

He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. His problem is that if USA exits from Afghanistan without a tenable exit policy, it would loose so much face and political clout that it would be a fate worse than Viet Nam. The war has no end in sight and in its desperation, US is offerring pakistan every carrot it can reasonably afford to dangle, but the pak Army for obvious reasons in being careful. I think it is the last 2-3 yrs before US decides that it either has control over the situation or decides to cut its losses and run.
For pakistan the situation remains grim in either case. We have too much baggage from the last US excursion to off load. We have been coerced into a war which we did not want but have to face the consequences of. Interestingly, we are not being given the resources fast enough to do a job yet there is pressure on us to do it efficiently . I think we need to clear our side of NWFP and pour money in to placate the local populace and develop the area before resentment sets in. If we dont do so, there will be a cost to pay in the shape of a contiuing insurgency fuelled from various sources, which will continue to leech the system for years to come.
Araz

[Neo]

The situation is grim and tricky for Pakistan, the surge of American troops will only cause in more terrorists crossing the border and we don't have the means to guard it 24/7. Lets not make the same mistake we saw in the bombing of Tora Bora when thousands of AQ terrorists fled to Waziristan because the porous border was left unprotected.

Tricky because it might aswell be a will of US Neo-cons to thrive as many terrorists as possible into Pakistan inorder to further destabalise it so new front can be openen for future invasions, this time we will be the bad guys.

[Xeric]

Originally Posted by Araz

He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. His problem is that if USA exits from Afghanistan without a tenable exit policy, it would loose so much face and political clout that it would be a fate worse than Viet Nam. The war has no end in sight and in its desperation, US is offerring pakistan every carrot it can reasonably afford to dangle, but the pak Army for obvious reasons in being careful. I think it is the last 2-3 yrs before US decides that it either has control over the situation or decides to cut its losses and run.
For pakistan the situation remains grim in either case. We have too much baggage from the last US excursion to off load. We have been coerced into a war which we did not want but have to face the consequences of. Interestingly, we are not being given the resources fast enough to do a job yet there is pressure on us to do it efficiently . I think we need to clear our side of NWFP and pour money in to placate the local populace and develop the area before resentment sets in. If we dont do so, there will be a cost to pay in the shape of a contiuing insurgency fuelled from various sources, which will continue to leech the system for years to come.
Araz

Moreover, what if the vacuum created by US rush is filled in by our indian friends?

[Jana]

Afghans sceptical about fresh troops

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Kabul



There are 68,000 US soldiers based in Afghanistan
You do not have to go far out of Kabul to run into trouble pretty quickly.

Four years ago, Afghans - and foreigners - could drive the 300 miles or so from the capital to the southern city of Kandahar in relative safety.

But now the Taliban and other insurgents operate just beyond the outskirts of Kabul.

And it is for that reason that US military commanders want more troops. They say the extra soldiers will help stabilise the security situation and train the Afghan army.

They hope that by protecting Afghanistan's main cities and towns, the Afghan government, supported by the West, can win over the population.

'Negotiate with insurgents'

But Afghans on the fringes of Kabul are sceptical about those plans.

I met Hayit Allah pushing a wheelbarrow close to his mud-wall compound. He was an elderly man with a wiry spryness, and still worked in the dusty fields with his four sons.

He told me that the security situation was good close to his village. But he said that just five minutes' drive away, the villages were all Taliban-controlled.

But he was not worried about it, he said, and believed more foreign troops would be a bad idea.

His neighbour Haji Rabat, also a farmer, endorsed this view. He thought that deploying more US forces in Afghanistan would be a big mistake.
"Every time the Americans send more troops they create more problems with us," he said. "The only way to resolve this conflict is to negotiate with the insurgents."

Back in Kabul, I met a group of young men at a local fast-food restaurant.


The Taliban have proved to be formidable adversaries
They were all in their mid-twenties with good jobs. All of them freely admitted they had opportunities now that would not have existed under the Taliban.

But they too had their doubts about any increase in foreign forces.

"It is not good to have more American troops in Afghanistan," said Idris, who works for a local non-governmental organisation involved in reconstruction projects.

"They don't know much about our culture and they can't communicate with the local people."
But Idris would support more troops if they focused entirely on the training of the Afghan army.

His friend Jawed, however, believes that foreign forces are the source of Afghanistan's insecurity.

"In the last eight years they have gained nothing," says Jawed, who also works for a non-governmental organisation.

"Day by day the security situation is getting worse. The Taliban are fighting the international forces and if they increase troop numbers then it will only get worse."
Jawed advocated a complete withdrawal of foreign troops but would like continued international support for the Afghan government.

Recipe for disaster

But many Afghans think that simply pulling out would be a recipe for disaster and that the country would descend into civil war.

Parts of Afghanistan have made real progress. In Kabul there are several thriving markets. And that would not be possible without the military, which provides the security, so normal life can go on.

But many Afghans still appear lukewarm about the prospect of more foreign soldiers arriving in their country.

One vegetable seller told me that he didn't want foreign forces in the city because they attracted suicide bomb attacks.



Many Afghans believe foreign forces are the source of insecurity
While this sentiment may appear ungrateful, it should be remembered that Afghan soldiers are fighting and dying here - they are bearing the brunt of the conflict.

Over 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces were killed last year. That is a higher death toll than that of all foreign troops combined.

Mohammed Din knows the cost. I met him on a hillside close to his home. His brother Mohammed Rabat, an officer in the Afghan army, was killed in a suicide bomb attack last year.

We were supposed to meet in his home, but his parents are still so grief-stricken that they cannot bear to have their son's name mentioned in their presence.

Mr Din believed that foreign troops should stay here.

"We want them until that time we have proper peace and security in our country," he said.

"For the moment we need them to fight together."

The Afghan army is making progress but will not be able to operate on its own for several more years.

And while most Afghans do not like having foreign troops in their country (and increasing numbers are fighting them), many know that they will have to depend upon them for some time yet.


BBC News - Afghans sceptical about fresh troops

[Solid Beast]

In case you missed it, it is not a brand new strategy for Afghanistan. In previous times we've heard it referred to as a "surge" tactic...send in more troops when your arse be taking too much angry Afghan lead. The review is finally over and here you can see what Barack H.W. Obama has to say about Afghanistan (and mostly Pakistan).

Viewer Warning : Might sound like an eloquent version of bushism's, tired cliches and other jingoism of the past.

YouTube - Obama's Afghanistan speech

YouTube - Obama's Afghanistan speech

[Solid Beast]

Now you will be thinking to yourself, gosh SB why you got everything in a twist? Obama made a huge positive reference to Pakistan and didn't even mention any partnerships with India, Iran, China or Russia to diffuse the Afghan situation! This is a prime moment for Pakistan right? Not so fast...

It's not what Obama said to an extent (the cliched jingoism didn't go down any smoother with an educated and eloquent political American freak of nature delivering the dosage).

It's what he didn't say. He specifically mentioned that Pakistan was the "key" to achieving the goals of the U.S. in the region. There was no mention of coming at Afghanistan in a regional manner, no the U.S. feels just fine and dandy using Pakistan as a mop, as the after speech analysis by CNN was vividly clear as to what really is the threat...the entire Pakistani border with Afghanistan is considered to be the "pivotal axis and epicenter of global extremism" in the entire world...not Afghanistan's lawless provinces, not the Irani, Saudi, Chinese or Russian meddling...but the tract of land which stretches from the extreme north of our border to past Quetta...they have added our entire border as a trouble spot which means our army is going to be bogged down before the fight really even begins. The surge tactic will force thousands and thousands of Taliban into Pakistan more than it has already as most sharp people have a sense of feeling that the final showdown is not around the corner and the actual time line for withdrawal from Afghanistan which is in 2011 leaves way too room for internal politics to stay the course. The Korean war ended decades ago, has the U.S. left South Korea? Use your itsy bitsy brains!

[Solid Beast]

Despite all the emotional, financial, human and societal efforts Pakistan has made, we apparently are being implicitly told by the President himself that GoP didn't do enough. 1/5 to 1/3 of our nation is considered to be the epicenter of hell on earth AFTER we engaged terrorists in Swat and South Waziristan... The case is being made again that September 11, 2001 justifies even more meddling in this region and this time the dagger goes deeper inside Pakistan. This situation will lead not only to destabilization of the country as a whole, but the complete eradication of the Pakistan-Afghani border due to necessities and the intricate maneuvering required in this type of warfare which the U.S. is not only prepared to fight, but loudly boasting about the capability to do so irrespective of the fact that TTP has largely been destroyed...we are only fighting pissed off people at this point. The Mehsud tribes know it and the Pakistan military know it...damnation is on them if they can't realize the legitimate struggle of the Afghan people in kicking out a foreign occupation which has placed an imposter government that won the election by fraud as quoted by Obama in this same speech, who is active in making war against Pakistan and legitimately resisting Afghans with the help of the Satanic Axis. Death to imperialism.