Pentagon Plans to Send More Than 12,000 Additional Troops to Afghanistan

[sabra]

Source: USNews

The U.S. commander there, in an exclusive interview, calls for a further buildup to counter the Taliban

The Pentagon will be sending 12,000 to 15,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, possibly as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009.

A request by Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, for three U.S. brigades with support staff has been approved. "Now that means we just need to figure out a way to get them there," adds a senior defense official.

The troops are slated to arrive earlier than has been previously discussed, on the heels of the deadliest months for American forces in Afghanistan since the war began.

The first wave of soldiers will be a U.S. Army brigade from the 10th Mountain Division, according to a senior military official. This brigade is scheduled to ship out between November and January, while two other brigades are likely to arrive "sometime in the spring or summer of next year," the official adds.

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2008/08/19/pen...

[blackspade]

1. That's just great....

Three more brigades huh?
Where are they getting them from? Oh, right, from the soldiers on leave or rotated out of the quagmire known as Iraq.
I'm waiting for penal brigades made up of convicts 'leant' to the DoD by the prison industrial complex.

[IA_Seth]

6. Lol..

Ok, so I hope that's exaggeration. You do know penal bridgades aren't going to happen, right?

While I agree that our military is stretched tight and sending more troops anywhere will be a challenge, sending them to Afghanistan is the ONE place I would agree we should be. We need to finish what we started there and get out. We need troops to do that.

[applegrove]

2. Obama called for it first.

[FVZA_Colonel]

3. He needs to keep that fact alive in the public's mind.

[applegrove]

5. He said it in his speech yesterday. He should put it in an ad.

[coalition_unwilling]

4. More cannon fodder into the meat grinder (sorry for the mixed metaphor). As if

the situation in Afghaistan is susceptible to a 'military solution.' Whatever . . .

[classysassy]

7. When will our fearless

leaders learn from history,russia was there for ten years and left with their tails tucked between their legs?

[and-justice-for-all]

8. And the reason to do this is....

what exactly?

US occupation of foreign lands is no different than what Israel is doing to Palestine.

It is fucking illegal and unacceptable, there is No reason for us to be in Afghanistan or Iraq for that matter.

[UpInArms]

9. when the rich wage war, the poor do the dying

"The plan is, carved up the region at the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The neo-imperial vision, which can be ascertained from the writings of key administration figures and their co-visionaries in influential conservative think tanks, includes not only regime change in Iraq but control of Iraqi oil, a possible end to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and newly compliant governments in Syria and Iran -- either by force or internal rebellion."

The Bushes are carriers of the deny-destroy-and-be-damned virus. Prescott Bush never apologized for trading with the Nazis. George Bush Senior professed to know nothing of the drug and arms dealing that funded the bloody, illegal Iran-Contra operations, although it was common knowledge that he directed them.

He and his sons enriched themselves through shady real estate deals and financial manipulations that brought down entire banking and savings and loan institutions. They are all consummate inside traders, looting and leaving ruin in their wake.

http://www.hermes-presscom/BushSaud.htm

[sofa king]

10. Methinks it's not Afghanistan they're worried about.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/20081...

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani ruling coalition showed signs of fracture Tuesday, only a day after embattled President Pervez Musharraf resigned to avoid impeachment, and a bomb that killed at least 26 people in the country's volatile northwest underlined the challenges faced by the new government."

You know what I think is worrying the Bush Administration? The fact that an authoritarian religious-right-pandering dictator with a finger on the button can be forced to resign or risk being impeached. They sure as hell don't want that idea spreading.