# More Troops Approved by Obama



## tomahawk6 (17 Feb 2009)

Petraeus and McKiernan wanted 33,000 so Obama splits the difference.  :


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/military_obama_afghanistan_troops_021709/

Obama announces Afghanistan buildup

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 17, 2009 18:43:44 EST
   
President Barack Obama will send an estimated 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer to help quell rising insurgent violence, the White House announced today.

“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a statement. “The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action.”

The deployment marks the first time the new president has deployed troops overseas.

Obama said he approved Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s request to send a Marine Expeditionary Brigade “later this spring” and an Army Stryker Brigade and additional support troops and specialists, “later this summer.” The Pentagon confirmed late Tuesday that the units are the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., and the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, of Fort Lewis, Wash.,

The Marine unit will include about 8,000 Marines and the Stryker brigade will total about 4,000 troops, the Pentagon said. An additional 5,000 troops approved by Obama, which could include engineers, intelligence specialists and military police, will be identified later, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Marines began planning for the 2nd MEB deployment in January, said one person familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Details, including which units from II Marine Expeditionary Force would be tapped to go, have not been released.

All of the forces will be deployed to Regional Command South, Whitman said.

Obama gave the order although an interagency administration review of strategy in Afghanistan and the tribal areas in neighboring Pakistan that harbor Taliban and al-Qaida extremists, ordered Feb. 10, won’t be done until well into March. Obama said the new deployments do not pre-empt that study but will instead provide some measure of stability.

“This troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review,” Obama said. “Instead, it will further enable our team to put together a comprehensive strategy that will employ all elements of our national power to fulfill achievable goals in Afghanistan.”

Last fall, Army Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, requested an additional 30,000 troops. With the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division having already been sent in response and with the two units announced today, just one combat brigade out of his original request remains to be sent.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen. The Associated Press reported Feb. 4 that the Pentagon will or has advised Obama to shift strategy in Afghanistan by de-emphasizing democracy-building and focusing military efforts on striking insurgents hiding across the border in Pakistan, with the help of Pakistani forces. The report also emphasizes a greater role for U.S. military training of Afghani army troops, AP said.

Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that Afghanistan is “our greatest military challenge” and that the Pentagon would be in the position send McKiernan two of his desired four combat brigades “in the relatively near future.” But he also said the U.S. needs “more modest goals.”

That, he said, means getting “more of an Afghan face” on the effort.

Currently, about 38,000 U.S. and 32,000 other NATO troops are serving in Afghanistan.

Among those is a Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force composed of various units from across the service. Lejeune’s 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment serves as the infantry leg of that unit.

Larger than a MEU, but smaller than a full MEF, the MEB is a scalable, mid-sized option for the Corps. The brigade can swell to as many as 20,000 Marines, and is usually built around a reinforced rifle regiment — similar to the regimental combat teams currently deployed to Iraq — plus a composite Marine Air Group and a combat logistics regiment.

The command structure for the MEB is embedded within its parent MEF, as the deputy MEF commander also serves as the MEB commander. That position is currently held at II MEF by Brig. Gen. John E. Wissler.

Lejeune’s 2nd MEB has a history dating back to 1936, when it was activated in San Diego only to be deactivated later. On Nov. 10, 1999, the unit was brought back to life.

The brigade deployed in February 2003 to Kuwait, where it was reorganized as Task Force Tarawa and commanded by now-Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski. During operations in Iraq, the MEB lost 23 Marines.


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## Smirnoff123 (18 Feb 2009)

Wow the US has a lot of troops that can be deployed.


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## GAP (18 Feb 2009)

Smirnoff123 said:
			
		

> Wow the US has a lot of troops that can be deployed.



If we had 300 million people instead of 30 million, how many more could we deploy...? Do the math.


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## Maria3a (20 Feb 2009)

Hi, got this article from US  DoD about the Obama visit here, thought I'd pass it on in contextual .. context ..

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53172

Anne




			
				tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Petraeus and McKiernan wanted 33,000 so Obama splits the difference.  :
> 
> 
> http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/military_obama_afghanistan_troops_021709/
> ...


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## Bruce Monkhouse (22 Feb 2009)

Margolis is a stooge.........thats it, thats all.


http://www.ottawasun.com/Comment/2009/02/22/8481011-sun.html
Gorby smarter than ObamaSoviet leader accepted defeat and brought his troops home from Afghanistan 20 years ago
By ERIC MARGOLIS

Twenty years ago this week, the last Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan. During the Soviet occupation (1979-1989), 1.5 million Afghans died at the hands of the Red Army and Afghan Communists. 

The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, proved a leader of great humanity, decency and intellect. I rank him with Nelson Mandela. Gorbachev determined the Afghan war, begun by his dim predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a coterie of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won. 
Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt imperium held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet empire together. 

The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev's wisdom. Barack Obama's inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the U.S.-led Afghan war and open talks with Afghans resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and U.S. branded them "terrorists.") 
Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year, $62-billion war. Ottawa's cost: $600-800 million in 2009 alone.   

President Obama just declared he will send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan on top of the 6,000 troops dispatched by George W. Bush. 
Another 13,000 will follow. Reinforcements are supposed to come from the U.S. Iraq garrison. But the Pentagon is trying to delay or thwart the drawdown from Iraq. 

OBAMA'S WAR 

Welcome to President Obama's war. Obama just defined his goals in Afghanistan as: "Preventing it from being used as a launching pad for attacks on North America" and "defeating al-Qaida." 

He also allowed that some sort of negotiations to split the Taliban might be tried. 
Both goals are patently bogus. The 9/11 tragedy was organized in Germany and Spain, allegedly by Saudis and Pakistanis. Attacks on New York, Washington, London, Madrid and Mumbai were plotted in apartments and houses, not the mountains of Afghanistan. 

If Obama plans to "crush" anti-U.S. groups in South Asia, he will have to invade Pakistan, a nation of 167 million. Al-Qaida never had more than 300 men and is today reduced to a handful hiding in Pakistan. Its primary role, as my new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?, explains, was as a guesthouse and data base for foreign mujahidin fighting the Soviets, not a worldwide "terrorist organization." 

By expanding the Afghan war, Obama fuels the growing threat of a major explosion in Pakistan. Today, U.S. warplanes and CIA killer drones operate from three secret Pakistani air bases. Washington has rented 120,000 Pakistani troops for $100 million monthly (plus secret CIA payments) to support the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. 

PAKISTAN 

Pakistan's government, a key American ally, is being paid by Washington to attack its own people, and allow U.S. forces to do the same. Pakistan is bankrupt. Its last U.S.-backed regime stole whatever money there was. Yet at some point, Pakistan's rent-an-army is going to rebel and turn against the government that orders it to kill its own people. 
Our high expectations for Obama are fading fast. His administration seems set on continuing many of the illegal, repressive policies of the disgraced Bush White House it vowed to end: Torture, kidnapping, wiretapping, assassinations, constitutional infringements, denial of due process. 

What happened to the Obama who was supposed to bring change? Leftover hardliners from the Bush days appear to be driving Obama's foreign policy in the Mideast and Afghanistan. 
Soviet veterans of Afghanistan warn the U.S. and its dragooned allies face defeat there. I suspect Obama politely suggested to his hosts in Ottawa this week, "if you want to keep GM in Canada, keep your troops in Afghanistan." 

The Obama White House cannot even articulate a coherent political strategy for Afghanistan. Its latest big idea is to kick out the hapless President Hamid Karzai and install a new puppet. 
Washington hopes U.S. troop reinforcements finally will bludgeon the Afghan national resistance into accepting American domination. Then the long-planned pipeline from the Caspian Basin across Afghanistan to Pakistan can finally be built. George W. Bush must be smiling. 

eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca


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## derael (22 Feb 2009)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Then the long-planned pipeline from the Caspian Basin across Afghanistan to Pakistan can finally be built. George W. Bush must be smiling.
> 
> eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca



Seriously? People still believe in that crap?


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## MarkOttawa (23 Feb 2009)

derael: An e-mail sent to Eric the Erroneous on Feb. 1 that, amazingly, received no response:



> Dear Mr Margolis,
> 
> You are constantly harping on a supposed oil pipeline as motivating US interest in Afghanistan.  In your column today, "Afghan war takes a hit",
> http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/02/01/8221436-sun.html
> ...



Mark
Ottawa


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