Afghanistan Surge Planned

US increases Afghan troop pledge

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff says up to 30,000 extra troops could be sent to Afghanistan in 2009, almost doubling the US presence
[...]
On Friday, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates ordered the deployment of a combat aviation brigade by spring.

There are currently 31,000 US troops in the country, 14,000 of whom are part of the 51,000-strong Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).

Speaking to reporters after a visit to the Afghan capital, [J-CoS chairman] Adm Mike Mullen revealed that the US military planned to as much as double its presence by the middle of next year in order to fight the growing Taliban insurgency.

Wait a sec. Lame Duck pResident George Warmonger Bush claimed that the Taliban were destroyed as early as 2003, and has repeated the claim numerous times since. Maybe he brought them back to accomodate the millions of patriotic 'country first' Republicans who feel that leaving Iraq by 2011 may not give them sufficient chance to die heroically in the service of their country. It reminds me of the old Vietnam-era song by Country Joe and the Fish (bowdlerized somewhat.)

Mothers and fathers throughout the land/
Send your children to Afghanistan/
...Be the first one on the block to have your boy come home in a box.
And it's 1, 2, 3, What are we fighting for?

Good question. What are we fighting for? Looking for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan is about as likely to produce results as looking for WMDs under the couch in the Oval Office. "Stabilizing the region" and "spreading democracy and freedom" are obvious canards. So what's left other than protecting the heroin trade?

Frankly I don't like the fact that Barack Obama's going along with this strategy. It's not change I can believe in. Nor do I hold out much hope that all the newly elected Democrats in the House and Senate are going to spend their political capital on trying to put an end to what is obviously a futile exercise in big stick foreign policy. I'm ready to concede that the next four years are going to be not much better than the last eight.

Sad, but true.

TAGS: Afghanistan, The Forever War
Where's Waldo Osama bin Laden?
Afghanistan you say? Isn't that the place the Soviet Union tried to occupy just before the collapse of the Soviet Union?