Black People Politics : Will Obama ship more young Black men and women to Afghanistan?

From The Sunday Times November 29, 2009

Democrats in revolt over Barack Obama’s troop surge
Christina Lamb in Washington

President Barack Obama
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.

After almost three months of agonising, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.

The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama’s dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.

Obama’s toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat — Al-Qaeda — is in Pakistan, and over the spiralling cost in both lives and dollars.

“I think the operative question is why we’re there,” said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. “That’s what I’ll be wanting to hear from the president.”

Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.

The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. “We’re still not out of Iraq and we’re getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive,” she said.

She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. “It doesn’t seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families,” she said.

In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. “There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?” said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.

Obey’s proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.

Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.

“I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. “That’s what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now.”

For this reason Obama’s speech will emphasise that sending more troops does not mean a neverending commitment to the war. “The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops “or risk failure”.

Obama is expected to back a compromise proposal from Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to send 30,000 troops. This is less than the 40,000-plus requested by McChrystal, but he hopes to make up the shortfall with 10,000 extra soldiers from Nato countries. Nato defence ministers are meeting this week but an official admitted its contribution is likely to be more like 5,000.

There is still more backing for the war in the US than in Britain — a poll last week showed slightly more Americans in favour of escalating the war than cutting troop levels. But this support comes largely from Obama’s political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be crucial to re-electing Democrats in Congress next year are sceptical.

“Voters, particularly women, thought they had elected an anti-war president to get them out of Iraq, not to get them deeper into Afghanistan,” said Karen O’Connor, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington.

With the 21,000 extra troops Obama agreed in February, he will have authorised more than 50,000 this year.

The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realised during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November.

The president will need all his resolve in the coming months. Military commanders admit that sending more troops will mean more casualties, though they hope that the McChrystal strategy of pulling troops back to the main cities and highways will show some results. The Americans are anxious to avoid getting entangled in remote valleys and villages fighting the Taliban.

The biggest obstacle to success may be the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who started his second term in office earlier this month after a deeply flawed election.

full article;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6936327.ece
 
From The Sunday Times November 29, 2009

Democrats in revolt over Barack Obama’s troop surge
Christina Lamb in Washington

President Barack Obama
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.

After almost three months of agonising, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.

The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama’s dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.

Obama’s toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat — Al-Qaeda — is in Pakistan, and over the spiralling cost in both lives and dollars.

“I think the operative question is why we’re there,” said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. “That’s what I’ll be wanting to hear from the president.”

Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.

The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. “We’re still not out of Iraq and we’re getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive,” she said.

She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. “It doesn’t seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families,” she said.

In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. “There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?” said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.

Obey’s proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.

Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.

“I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. “That’s what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now.”

For this reason Obama’s speech will emphasise that sending more troops does not mean a neverending commitment to the war. “The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops “or risk failure”.

Obama is expected to back a compromise proposal from Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to send 30,000 troops. This is less than the 40,000-plus requested by McChrystal, but he hopes to make up the shortfall with 10,000 extra soldiers from Nato countries. Nato defence ministers are meeting this week but an official admitted its contribution is likely to be more like 5,000.

There is still more backing for the war in the US than in Britain — a poll last week showed slightly more Americans in favour of escalating the war than cutting troop levels. But this support comes largely from Obama’s political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be crucial to re-electing Democrats in Congress next year are sceptical.

“Voters, particularly women, thought they had elected an anti-war president to get them out of Iraq, not to get them deeper into Afghanistan,” said Karen O’Connor, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington.

With the 21,000 extra troops Obama agreed in February, he will have authorised more than 50,000 this year.

The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realised during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November.

The president will need all his resolve in the coming months. Military commanders admit that sending more troops will mean more casualties, though they hope that the McChrystal strategy of pulling troops back to the main cities and highways will show some results. The Americans are anxious to avoid getting entangled in remote valleys and villages fighting the Taliban.

The biggest obstacle to success may be the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who started his second term in office earlier this month after a deeply flawed election.

full article;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6936327.ece
And what is the purpose of continueing and escalating a neocon war?
 
Obama will send 30,000 to Afhanistan and less then 100 Al Qeuda

According to General Patreus there are practicaly no Al Queada in Afghanistan and according to Gen Mc Crystal there are less then 100, so they are being sent there for what and for who?

digg Huffpost - Obama's Afghanistan Plan: Over 30,000 Troops, Marines To Be First Wavedel.ico.us JENNIFER LOVEN | 12/ 1/09 09:53 AM |

,
WASHINGTON — A senior administration official tells The Associated Press that President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to be deployed over six months.

In his speech to the nation Tuesday night, Obama also will lay out a rough timeframe, including some dates, for when the main U.S. military mission will end. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the details had not yet been announced.

The 30,000 new troops will bring the total in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 U.S. forces. The main mission of the new troops will be to reverse Taliban gains and secure population centers in the volatile south and east parts of the country.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) – New infusions of U.S. Marines will begin moving into Afghanistan almost as soon as President Barack Obama announces a redrawn battle strategy, a plan widely expected to include more than 30,000 additional U.S. forces.

Obama will try to sell a skeptical public on his bigger, costlier war plan Tuesday by coupling the large new troop infusion with an emphasis on stepped-up training for Afghan forces that he says will allow the U.S. to leave.

Obama formally ends a 92-day review of the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast address in which he will lay out his revamped strategy from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He began rolling out his decision Sunday night, informing key administration officials, military advisers and foreign allies in a series of private meetings and phone calls that stretched into Monday.

Military officials said at least one group of Marines is expected to deploy within two or three weeks of Obama's announcement, and would be in Afghanistan by Christmas. Larger deployments wouldn't be able to follow until early in 2010.

full article;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/obamas-afghanistan-plan-o_n_374995.html
 
The anouncement will be made today, any speculations?

According to the Bible, the answer is most definitely YES!!!

Human Sacrifice of African Americans...that is what this government is about and it doesn't matter who the president is, would be or will be.
 

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