Obama announces Afghanistan buildup

[unhappycamper]

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.


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/news/2009/02/military_obama_afghanistan_troops_021709/%2e

[ixion]

1. it's a foolish thing he does, deploying the wiles of empire

and it will have the exact opposite effect he desires, if history serves.

America, having won it's independence largely through guerrilla tactics, should know better.