World-News

Obama Invokes 9/11 to Explain Afghanistan Troop Surge

Jason Leopold, Truthout: "After months of deliberations, President Barack Obama finally outlined his revised strategy for the Afghanistan War in a nationally televised address Tuesday night. The commander-in-chief repeatedly invoked 9/11, attempting to justify his plan to escalate the eight-year-old war, which calls for the rapid deployment of 30,000 additional US troops to the region by next summer."

https://www.truthout.org/1201098



Obama, Afghanistan and US National Security

Melvin A. Goodman, Truthout: "President Barack Obama announced last night that he will send 30,000 additional US soldiers and marines to Afghanistan over the next seven months and that additional resources will be used to train Afghan security forces and bolster the Afghan government. This is a seriously flawed policy. The troop deployment and the appropriations will have no impact on the insignificant al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan; no significant success in controlling the growing Taliban presence; and will make only a limited contribution to nation-building in Afghanistan."

https://www.truthout.org/1202096

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Obama’s blurry vision for Afghanistan
https://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/adc97509668f9995?hl=en

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What Is Obama Thinking?
https://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs138.html

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Now Obama’s got his own phony war

J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review
by J. Neil Schulman

12/02/09

Obama sounded — in his speech at West Point tonight — almost like Ronald Reagan. President Obama said what the mission was — to tromp down on the Taliban and round up Al Qaeda — then promised the American people what true conservatives promise when sending American troops to war: when the mission is accomplished I’ll bring the troops home. Obama even gave a timetable for the mission and homecoming — troops back home by 2011 — as Reagan would have done. Which of course got President Obama all the attacks from the Neocons on Fox and CNN for promising precisely what Ronald Reagan would have. The problem is that the Afghanistan mission President Obama outlined makes no sense...

https://tinyurl.com/ygevych


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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https://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/browse_thread/thread/5b2cea765909764f?hl=en

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Obama Had Rejected His Own Speech's Surge Rationale
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/02-0

Afghans Unimpressed by Obama's Troops Surge
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/02-1

Between the Lines, an Expansion in Pakistan
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/02-8

US Anti-War Activists Step Up Protests
https://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/12/02-0

Obama: War President
https://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/12/02

Obama's War
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/02-1

Obama Has Spoken; Now, Let's Have a Debate
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/02-0

Here We Go Again
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/02-11

Obama with Blood on His Hands
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/02-12

Kucinich: Afghans Want to be Saved from Us, Not by Us
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/02-7

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Obama's "Empire"

By Real News

Obama says US is not an empire as he sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24104.htm



Why Obama's Surge in Afghanistan?

By Shamus Cooke

Obama is compelled to tell the really big lie because the truth is too damning. If he remotely approached the real motives behind the war, the public would be pushed into total defiance - Obama's new $660 billion military budget for 2010 would have caused mass demonstrations.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24101.htm



Some Simple Questions After Obama's Afghanistan War Speech

By David Sirota

Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24102.htm



Full text: Obama's Afghan policy speech at West Point

Following is the transcript of President Obama's speech Tuesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

https://snipurl.com/tj40r



Afghanistan war tax met with skepticism on Capitol Hill

Lawmakers from both parties reacted with skepticism Tuesday to the idea of a war surtax to pay for the Afghanistan troop surge, a sign that the White House may have to look elsewhere to fund the effort.

https://snipurl.com/tj412



Obama quietly authorises expansion of war in Pakistan

CIA has submitted its plan to widen its campaign in Pakistan to the White House and has asked for commitment to jack up the agency's budget for operations inside the country.

https://snipurl.com/tj41x


From Information Clearing House



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https://www.russfeingold.org/get-involved/afghanistan.html

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Dems wary of Afghan commitment; Obama needs GOP

Boston Globe

12/02/09

President Obama last night made the argument for 30,000 more US troops in Afghanistan with a heavy burden: He cannot count on his fellow Democrats for support. Key Democrats yesterday offered tepid endorsements or were openly skeptical of the president’s deployment decision. After Obama’s speech, Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada praised Obama’s ’sound strategy,’ but pointedly noted that ‘our resources are not unlimited and our commitment is not open-ended.’ The Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, offered no promise of support, and Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin threatened to try to block funding for the troop increase...

https://tinyurl.com/yhr7h7g


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
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US-Präsident Obama hat sich für den Klassiker unter den US-Militärstrategien entschieden: Mehr kämpfende Soldaten und engere Zusammenarbeit mit der umstrittenen Führung des besetzten Landes.

https://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/31/31627/1.html



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan

As President Obama begins to share his plans for the future of US operations in Afghanistan, Truthout will be following the developments every step of the way. Our Surge in Afghanistan feature will provide readers with complete coverage of Obama's speech on Afghanistan, as well as the surrounding debate. Please be sure to visit throughout the evening and beyond!

https://www.truthout.org/surge-in-afghanistan



Afghanistan: Our 177th Colony

David Swanson, Truthout: "During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the US military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it's been for weeks, speculation as to whether and how much a single individual will escalate war by sending tens of thousands of additional troops to nation number 177, Afghanistan."

https://www.truthout.org/1201094

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Man-of-Peace Obama Has an Xmas Present for Afghanistan: Death
https://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/lindorff4.1.1.html

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Obama's Afghanistan escalation speech is unconvincing PR
https://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9185/

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Obama pledges 30,000 troops, two-year extension of Afghanistan debacle

Houston Chronicle

12/01/09

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he will send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next summer and begin withdrawing forces in July 2011 after nearly a decade of battle. … The 30,000 additional U.S. troops amount to most of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, requested at the end of August. But by setting a date to begin removing U.S. forces, scheduled to number about 100,000 by next summer, Obama is effectively holding McChrystal to the timeline he laid out in his bleak assessment of the situation...

https://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6748068.html



Needed: New national security thinking

The Nation
by Katrina vanden Heuvel

12/01/09

Tonight President Obama will announce his new Afghanistan policy. By all accounts it will be one of military escalation. This is a tragic moment — both for the nation and his presidency — and it is one I had hoped the President would avoid by courageously leading us in a wiser direction, one that views 21st century challenges anew, in fresh and necessary ways. It is true that Obama would have needed real political courage to extricate himself from his predecessor’s war. … But in a war-weary nation, amidst great economic trouble, he could have used his great oratorical and political skills to marshal people of all kinds to his side. Instead … Obama will now be held hostage to this mindset as a war bequeathed to him by a reckless and destructive administration becomes his own war...

https://tinyurl.com/ye2ph8p



Anthropologists and the war in Afghanistan

CounterPunch
by David Price

12/01/09

A core feature of the Obama administration’s plans for victories in Iraq and Afghanistan has been an increased reliance on counterinsurgency, as Americans try to win the hearts and minds of peoples whose countries they’ve invaded. Some critics highlight similarities between Kennedy’s and Obama’s interest in counterinsurgency as a tool to conquer peoples who have historically been difficult, if not impossible, for outside colonial powers to dominate. President Obama’s reliance on old Harvard hands to socially engineer conquest justifies many of these comparisons. Even counterinsurgency’s lustiest cheerleaders, such as the political scientist David Kilcullen, admit that historical instances of successfully using counterinsurgency for military victories have been extremely rare in the past half-century. But Washington’s counterinsurgency believers share a certain hubris, or vanity, that they are clever enough to overcome this daunting record of historical failure...

https://counterpunch.org/price12012009.html



Obama, conflicted Commander in Chief

National Review
by Rich Lowry

12/01/09

Prepare for the advent of Barack Obama, neocon. On the Afghan War, he is throwing in with the lying, warmongering running dogs of neoconservatism by ordering a surge of some 30,000 troops. Obama has to become a president of victory even though he hails from a party of defeat. The responsibilities of office separate him from a political base that only sounded stalwart on the Afghan War so long as it was a handy political tool with which to beat George W. Bush about the head and shoulders...

https://tinyurl.com/yk6qadg


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
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Die lange gepflegte Strategie der Verschleierung bricht nicht nur wegen der Tötung von Zivilisten, sondern auch wegen der sich zuspitzenden Lage in Nordafghanistan zusammen.

https://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/31/31607/1.html



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Schwarz-Gelb

Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn south have claimed they are so neglected by government in Kabul that their children are dying from hypothermia for want of the most basic supplies.

https://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/2009112783816298143.html


From Information Clearing House



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan

Jason Leopold, Truthout: "President Barack Obama intends to announce next week that he will deploy tens of thousands of additional US troops to Afghanistan, according to numerous published reports citing unnamed administration officials, to fight an eight-year-old war that a majority of Americans do not support and numerous Democratic lawmakers say is no longer worth waging."

https://www.truthout.org/1124099

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Senator questions US troop buildup

Charleston Daily Mail

11/29/09

The leading Senate Democrat on military matters said Sunday that President Barack Obama’s anticipated plan for significantly expanding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan must show how those reinforcements will help increase the size of the Afghan security forces. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that more Afghan army and police are central to succeeding in the 8-year-old war and more U.S. trainers and equipment can help meet that goal...

https://tinyurl.com/ydorbks



Object lessons from the Afghan quagmire

Boston Globe
by James Carroll

11/30/09

So tomorrow night, we hear from the president at last. Reports have it that he will lay out his plan for Afghanistan — how to ‘finish the job,’ as he put it last week. The judiciousness with which he has gathered information is impressive, and the slow pace of his decision-making suggests a welcome level of prudence. … Some of us wish to hear tomorrow that American forces in Afghanistan will join those in Iraq in a phased, but steady journey home; that soon our nation’s servicemen and women will be out of harm’s way; and that the United States will protect its interests in the Middle East and South Asia more through diplomacy and development than through military power. Reports also have it, however, that President Obama will more likely lay out a different plan, arguing that the best way out of the war is through it...

https://tinyurl.com/ykft22n



Protest against troop surge in Afghanistan
https://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=7142511



Throwing more troops at Afghanistan won’t work

Fox News Forum
by KT McFarland

11/30/09

So far, President Obama has failed to answer some basic questions on Afghanistan. Until he does, weighing how many troops to add is like putting the cart before the horse. President Obama must first clarify the mission: what does he want to accomplish in Afghanistan …? Is Our Goal to Destroy Al Qaeda? Well, Al Qaeda isn’t in Afghanistan anymore; we drove its ragtag remnant out in December 2001 when it decamped across the Tora Bora Mountains into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Is Our Goal to Prevent Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan? Yes, but can that be accomplished short of remaking Afghanistan? Do we really need 100,000 American troops and over $100 billion a year to keep a few thousand Al Qaeda from walking across the border?

https://tinyurl.com/yzbh6w7


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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The Hollow Politics of Escalation
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/30-2

Thoughts on the Eve of the Nobel Peace Prize Winner's Second Escalation Address
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/30-1



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AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

11/25/09

All in all, we face a depressing prospect: the Left brain-dead with Obama idolatry, the Right neoconized beyond redemption — and no one left to oppose a futile, draining, and horrifically destructive conflict, a war we cannot afford and which directly contravenes our real interests as a nation. No one, that is, except a clear majority of the American people, who, according to polls, think the battle for Afghanistan is not worth it. Here is a clear instance in which ordinary, everyday Americans are radically out of sync with partisan activists of both the Right and the Left - thus creating a huge opening for libertarians, particularly the campus arm of the movement...

https://tinyurl.com/yd4xexs



Limits of US power in Afghanistan

Hawaii Reporter
by Doug Bandow

11/24/09

U.S. President Barack Obama continues to consider a major military escalation in Afghanistan. Instead, the president should rethink Washington’s objective. The goal should be to minimize international terrorism, not build an Afghan state. Conflict in Afghanistan has raged for eight years, yet ‘victory’ looks ever more distant. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel declared that the goal is ‘a credible government and a legitimate process.’ Alas, neither exists...

https://tinyurl.com/yhb93qp



It’s Obama’s war now

CounterPunch
by Gary Leupp

11/30/09

There are now at present some 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces occupying Afghanistan, in league with the Northern Alliance warlords and the corrupt and feeble Karzai regime in Kabul. President Obama clearly wishes to increase the figure and will announce before an audience of West Point cadets Tuesday that he will add over 30,000 more while pushing the Europeans to add 10,000. This will bring the total number of occupation forces to around the level of the Soviet deployment at its peak in the 1980s. The Soviets were trying to protect the secular government in Afghanistan and to discourage Islamic fundamentalism, a potential threat to the neighboring Soviet Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan. What is Obama trying to do? Because make no mistake about it, this is Barack Obama’s war now...

https://counterpunch.org/leupp11302009.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Afghan Escalation 'Utter Insanity' and 'Morally Reprehensible'
https://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/11/25-0

Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-0

Obama's Afghanistan Decision
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-8

A Call for the U.S. to End Its Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/25

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Afghanistan Is A "War Of National Resistance": Former CIA Agent

By Robert Baer

"The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda," Baer says. "They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters."

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24061.htm



Are Some Democrats Getting a Spine?

Editors Pick

Some Democrats are proposing, in the same way that we have to find the money for social programs, that if we want to continue and or escalate the war, we should find the money to pay for war.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24060.htm



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President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to "finish the job" in Afghanistan and promised to unveil a decision soon on sending tens of thousands more US troops to battle Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

https://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091124/pl_afp/usafghanistanmilitarytroops



Top Democrat warns Afghanistan will bankrupt domestic programs

Threatens war surtax if Obama sends more troops.
https://snipurl.com/tem5k


From Information Clearing House

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Obama Plans to Send 34,000 More Troops to Afghanistan
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/24

Afghan Army Turnover Rate Threatens US War Plans
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/24-11

Obama's 'Finish the Job' Talk Sets Stage for Afghan Troop Surge
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/25-4



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