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Originally Posted by aceventura3
The first issue for me is on Afghanistan. I heard Obama say many times that he wants to bring our troops home. I assume he means from Iraq, but lately he seems to be saying the real war is in Afghanistan. Are the troops he wants to bring home, going to be deployed in Afghanistan?
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Obama wants a phased withdrawal of 1-2 brigades a month from Iraq over the course of 16 months. A much smaller, undisclosed number of troops will remain to try and address terrorism issues in Iraq and to assist the Iraqi government, but in a more passive way.
Afghanistan will be a bit different, as Obama sees that Afghanistan and Pakistan are more directly tied to the "GWOT", and more specifically an ongoing and future threat. To that end, he'd like more attention on Pakistan than there has been, which means more incursions and probably more public troop deployment to the border and even across the border. He'd like to deploy 2 additional brigades to A-stan who are not coming off deployment there or elsewhere ( he's used the term "rested"). He wants to work more closely with NATO, and help NATO get more support from the NATO countries that keep putting conditions on the use of their troops and such. He's especially interested in equipping the Afghan police and military with better weapons, as theirs are likely soviet era and are in dire need of replacement. To increase the strength of the government and economy, he wants to send non-military aid to the tune of $1b.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Obama stated that he did not support the surge in Iraq, but know seems to be suggesting that a surge in Afghanistan is needed. Is this his view? He seems to suggest that our military is weary and needs a break, how does that fit in with what he wants to do in Afghanistan?
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This is an interesting point, but he spoke about this clearly when he said that the additional brigades that he plans to deploy in a-stan cannot be coming off active duty. He wants 7,000 fresh troops. As for it being a "surge", things are a lot different in Afghanistan than they are in Iraq. I don't know all the details, but it seems that most of the high military leadership agrees with Obama about Afghanistan. I hope some of our proud TFP military people can elaborate on this better than I can.
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Does Obama see our military in Afghanistan as an occupation? Does he have political goals for Afghanistan? Does he have a time frame for withdraw? How does he define victory in Afghanistan?
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Victory is leaving the place in good enough shape that they can run themselves and they won't be housing "terrorists".
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Overall, my real concern is that Obama is using Afghanistan to sound like he can be tough and is using Afghanistan as a means to rationalize being against the Iraq war.
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It's a very reasonable concern. Progressives are less likely to see it as black and white, though. I personally recognize that Iraq was a mistake and that Pakistan should have been our target instead, along with Afghanistan. The Taliban training camps were no secret and housing OBL is a bad move.