Huckleberries Online

Obama Orders Troops To Afghanistan

Feb. 18, 2009 1:37 p.m. • 19 comments

President Barack Obama has ordered the first combat deployments of his presidency, saying Tuesday that he had authorized an additional 17,000 U.S. troops “to stabilize a deteriorating situation” in Afghanistan. The new deployments, to begin in May, will increase the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan by nearly 50 percent, bringing it to 55,000 by mid-summer, along with 32,000 non-U.S. NATO troops. In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said that “urgent attention and swift action” were required because “the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and al-Qaida … threatens America from its safe haven along the Pakistani border”/Washington Post. More here.

Question: Should we be sending more troops into Afghanistan? Or be trying to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as possible?

19 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

toadman on February 18 at 2:04 p.m.
“Should we be sending more troops into Afghanistan?”

Yes. We have some unfinished business with someone hiding there.
Bob on February 18 at 2:47 p.m.
Toad are you one of those horrible liberal hawks? Osama is in pakistan. Why doesn’t someone total up all the billions wasted on Iraq and afghanistan and divide it by the number of dead in the 9/11 attacks and tell me if you really think a human life is worth that much. Add in all the dead military men and women with the money. Its a sickening waste of money. Revenge costs too much.
danofthecommunity on February 18 at 2:48 p.m.
Our son is due to go on his 2nd tour over in Iraq in about May. I wondered if they might get diverted to Afghanistan instead. His army unit (1st Armored Division) is from Fort Bliss Texas but it sounds like those new troops are Marine Units and an Army brigade from Fort Lewis. Of course all that can change at any time…
toadman on February 18 at 3:05 p.m.
I dunno bob…you know me, I hate war as much as the next liberal. We may differ on this slightly, however.

I really would like to see Osama brought to justice. To be sure, justice, in this case, sounds a lot like revenge. So yes, it’s unsettling for me, sending in more troops.

But I am of the opinion that we got side tracked on Iraq, and lost our focus, back in 2001-2002. It just feels unfinished, messy. You’re right also, that Osama is likely in Pakistan, or at least on the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Honestly, I don’t know what to do about that, or how to deal with that. But one thing I’m sure about, is that I think I can trust Obama to do the right thing, better than I could, the last administration. In fact, pulling out of Iraq and finishing things in Afghanistan was one of Obama’s biggest selling points for me.

So, does that make me a liberal hawk? I don’t know. I’m not a complete pacifist, though I often play one here. I still believe there are times to fight, and even times to die for ones country. But I really think you have to get it right, because the stakes are so high.
poolman on February 18 at 3:25 p.m.
We should bombard them with porn and modern technology.
toadman on February 18 at 3:33 p.m.
“We should bombard them with porn and modern technology.” - poolman

Don’t they have WiFi?

;-)
Joker on February 18 at 4:36 p.m.
At some point, we’re going to have to rebuild that country and keep it propped up with money and military to make sure gansters like the Tailban can’t come through the backdoor again.
JamesBond on February 18 at 4:40 p.m.
I was hoping Obama would send Jimmy Carter to negotiate with the Taliban.
Escapee on February 18 at 7:15 p.m.
On the bright side, if there is one, the newspaper article I read called President Obama’s sending forces to Afghanistan as a “direct slap at the Bush Administration”. Not exactly sure what that means, but if going to Afghanistan can better help to stabilize things in that region of the world, well, it’s probably the thing to do. Although, I must admit that Obama sending troops ‘over there’ does make me a bit queasy. I just hope we’re not ‘going to Afghanistan’ the way we went to Iraq (with no hope in sight)…
Transplanted_Texan on February 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Escapee - I’ve seen a lot of coverage like that. When Obama ordered the review process for closing Gitmo begin, it was covered as “further distancing himself from the Bush administration” - as if that was his primary motivator rather than actually disagreeing with the old policy and implementing one he thought better. And so it is with Afghanistan: oh, no, it’s not about ordering the military policy he thinks best; it’s about insulting his predecessor! Because clearly he’s a conservative Republican who just doesn’t want us to know it and so acts like a liberal Democrat unlinked to Bush.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.