Perpetual War- Obama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops For Afghanistan

Obama leaning toward 34,000 more troops for Afghanistan
By Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef

November 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.

As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the U.S. is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional U.S. trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.

The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional U.S. troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/78516.html?storyli...

Oil and natural gas prices may be relatively low right now, but don't be fooled. The New Great Game of the twenty-first century is always over energy and it's taking place on an immense chessboard called Eurasia. Its squares are defined by the networks of pipelines being laid across the oil heartlands of the planet. Call it Pipelineistan. If, in Asia, the stakes in this game are already impossibly high, the same applies to the "Euro" part of the great Eurasian landmass -- the richest industrial area on the planet. Think of this as the real political thriller of our time.

The movie of the week in Brussels is: When NATO Meets Pipelineistan. Though you won't find it in any headlines, at virtually every recent NATO summit Washington has been maneuvering to involve reluctant Europeans ever more deeply in the business of protecting Pipelineistan. This is already happening, of course, in Afghanistan, where a promised pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India, the TAPI pipeline, has not even been built. And it's about to happen at the borders of Europe, again around pipelines that have not yet been built.

If you had to put that Euro part of Pipelineistan into a formula, you might do so this way: Nabucco (pushed by the U.S.) versus South Stream (pushed by Russia). Be patient. You'll understand in a moment.

At the most basic level, it's a matter of the West yet again trying, in the energy sphere, to bypass Russia. For this to happen, however - and it wouldn't hurt if you opened the nearest atlas for a moment - Europe desperately needs to get a handle on Central Asian energy resources, which is easy to say but has proven surprisingly hard to do. No wonder the NATO Secretary General's special representative, Robert Simmons, has been logging massive frequent-flyer miles to Central Asia over these last few years.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/01/opinion/main5...

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LASHKARGAH: Artillery and mortar shelling by the NATO-led international troops killed nine civilians in southern Afghanistan, locals said.

However, Afghan and NATO officials claimed only militants were killed in the mortar shelling on the outskirts of Lashkargah, capital of the southern Helmand province, on Wednesday evening.

People, who brought bodies of their slain relatives to Lashkargah, said the dead included three children and six men. They died as a mortar shell landed in the fields covered with maize crop, said the locals.

Haji Shah Muhammad, a tribal elder from Babaji area on the outskirts of the provincial capital, told Pajhwok Afghan News the victims were busy collecting the harvest.

"I lost four members of my family. They included my three sons and a son-in-law working in the fields" said another elder Syed Gul. The foreigners were intentionally targeting civilians, said Nisar Ahmad, a third resident of the area.

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http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/11/05/nato-strike-...

I will officially give up on him. and I wont care anymore.

Ike said it on the way out.	orpupilofnature57	Nov-07-09 06:44 PM	#1
gay marriage bad, appeasing the generals good nt	msongs	Nov-07-09 06:50 PM	#2
Pepe Escobar: Iran and the `Pipelineistan' Opera (CBS Op-Ed)	Junkdrawer	Nov-07-09 06:59 PM	#3
Insane	pscot	Nov-07-09 07:03 PM	#4
Sounds about right.	Nikki Stone1	Nov-07-09 07:17 PM	#5
Hhmm same fellow who received he Nobel Peace Prize......	avaistheone1	Nov-07-09 07:18 PM	#6
Wow, striking photo whatever your position. Gotta save.	shadowknows69	Nov-08-09 09:39 AM	#11
NATO strike kills nine civilians in Helmand, Afghanistan	Orwellian_Ghost	Nov-07-09 09:19 PM	#7
he does, and he wont get my vote again.	Mari333	Nov-07-09 09:22 PM	#8
Has to earn that Nobel Prize, doesn't he???	maryf	Nov-07-09 10:59 PM	#9
War is peace. Ignorance is strength	Orwellian_Ghost	Nov-08-09 09:05 AM	#10
+1	shadowknows69	Nov-08-09 10:01 AM	#12