Looking To Deny McChrystal’s Troop Request, Obama Demands Options For Lower Commitment That Will Look Better To The Left
WAPO: “President seeks options for sending fewer to war”
President Barack Obama grappled Friday with the costs and consequences of a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, but reached no decisions about troop levels, a top aide said, as military advisers briefed the president on an armed services already taxed by challenges around the globe.
The president reviewed his options with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and made clear he wants at least one more meeting with them and with his broader national security team before deciding on a revamped war strategy for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, said a senior administration official.
The Washington post reported two officials as saying late Friday Obama asked the Pentagon’s top generals to provide him with more options for troop levels.
He reportedly is expected to receive several options from them next week.
U.S. officials have previously told the Associated Press Obama is considering sending a large number of additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan next year but fewer than Gen. Stanley McChrystal prefers. The president appears willing to send at least 10,000 to 15,000 troops of the 40,000 forces requested by McChrystal.
The Post reported Obama is seeking a strategy that would satisfy both his military and civilian advisers.
Obama’s much anticipated review of how to right a deteriorating war effort is nearing its end but still weeks away from being wrapped up. Once made, he is expected to explain his decision to the American public and the international community in a prominent way, such as a major address. The details are not yet set.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff includes the service chiefs from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The group’s main mission is to ensure that the armed forces are trained, ready, healthy and large enough to carry out the missions of the military. In that sense, the body plays a vital role in Obama’s war planning.
Each of the chiefs spoke about the state of their military branch. They did not make recommendations to Obama about troop levels, the senior official said. Rather, they put Afghanistan in the context of all deployments, including an even larger war effort in Iraq, and reviewed options that the president is considering.
McChrystal has bluntly warned of a deteriorating overall effort in Afghanistan and assessed that the war against insurgents will end in failure without more troops.
After eight years of war, the U.S. armed forces — particularly the Army and Marines — have endured repeated tours to the war zones, often for 12 to 18 months. Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates has vowed that troops will get to spend at least 12 months at home before they are sent back to the front lines, increased demands on the force could jeopardize that promise. Forces have also seen growing numbers of suicides and stress disorders that the services have struggled to confront. Increased war deployments could stretch that already stressed force.
The 90-minute meeting in the Situation Room was the seventh Obama has conducted with a range of military and national security advisers.
Obama gave the chiefs a rundown of the factors he is weighing, including how long it would take U.S. forces to achieve their goals in Afghanistan.
No timeline for the war effort was set, the official said.
The president also reiterated that no matter what he decides, the U.S. will maintain what the official called a “very robust commitment in Afghanistan.”
Obama sent in 21,000 more troops this year, upping the U.S. posture there to 68,000 forces.
At least one more White House-Afghanistan meeting is set for next week.
 |
|
I have been writing that Obama is a dangerous incompetent as Commander in Chief, but he really is not a Commander in Chief. He is acting as a left wing politician.
May the American people take this as a lesson that when you elect a President, you are electing a Commander in Chief and you have to consider the candidate’s qualifications to be Commander in Chief as a primary criterion in choosing a President.
More options?
Yeah, I got an option.
Bring the troops back and remove the usurper…
This is fucking intential from the left. There is a special place in the pit of hell for Obama and his America haters. The next time there’s some black militant racists at your polling booth, or an accorn census jack booted ass crack at your door taking GPS coordinates. Go nose to nose…a little spital flying as your barking. Gotta fight the battle back here why the troops are being used as politcal kill. I’m fucking ready.
Look for a token increase in troops starting at the beginning of the year, followed by talk of a withdrawl around mid-year, and an implementation of the withdrawl by years end. Remember you heard it here first folks.
better to have them home killing commies, than dying in the desert waiting for help that is never coming.
if we are brought back to the States, we won’t be killing commies, especially with this political military leadership we have in place, secondly what impact do you think will occur if we are suddenly withdrawn and how do you think that will affect us in the future? leave us here so that we can finish the job, the more the usurper drags his kenyan feet, the worse he looks…the more public pressure mounts against him, let’s not make America look like it lost again.
-aTb
A.T.B. You ask how will a witdrawl affect us in the future…negatively…just like everytime a democrat has done it in the past.
No way the poser was going to ‘act’ in ANY way before the elections next week.
I think there’s no way he will jeopardize his December 10th Nobel Peace Prize. The committee could rescind it if he looks too much like a war monger. Watch for things to happen AFTER December 10th. He can always use the “brutal Afghan winter” argument to postpone more troops until the spring thaw.
“My friends, worry not, Barak Obama will make a fine Commander in
Chief.” -John McCain during the last few weeks before the election.
How many moderates and undecided voters heard him say that and decided to take a chance on Obama? One, two, three million voters? Enough to swing the election?
F’in idiot.
decisions, decisions, decisions. Where will he find the answer? After conveying his sympathies at Dover, and phrasing his commitment to the troops, so eloquently, one would have thought that the dithering would be over. Contrare, monsuere. He will fuck around until the violence becomes un-manageable and then declare that the best option will be retro-grade back to the states and will find a new way to blame Bush/Chaney. This POS will never be a POTUS, even if he had a legitiment birth certificate. bring on the revolution, let the shit-bums defend his presidency in lieu of credentials of being an American.
The generals will ALWAYS ask for more troops, as they should, because as this nation’s great warriors and in true American fashion they loathe ‘not winning’. Thankfully, we have a government run by civilians who are accountable (hypothetically!) to we the people.
We need to make clear that there is no shame in leaving Afghanistan at this point in time. Bin Laden and friends have been dispersed by our military like poppy seeds into the wind. And now the enemy is cowering in the mountains in Pakistan, in the cities in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and in the universities in Egypt and Iran, waiting and watching. Now we begin a different kind of fight, where we use ideology as a weapon rather than predator drones. A war that will be measured not in terrorists killed, but in Americans educated and our working class rebuilt. A war that will be won not with Tanks rolling down alleyways in far off places but with hybrids and electric cars rolling off Detroit factory lines. While we seem to be so preoccupied as a nation with tending to the homes of others, why can we not see that it is our own home now in most need of tending?
hmmm…one perspective that has no clue on what is happening in the war and how it impacts America if we were to leave it. Take your liberal, socialist views somewhere else! This economic downturn was not the cause of Conservatives, it was the cause of liberals and amplified by the liberal media in order to emplace someone who is not even born in America.
-aTb
Fed up with Peter Puffers!