UK Election results…
Uh oh-‘Britain wakes up to hung parliament’, Gordon Brown is trying to cut a deal with Clegg and keep his seat PM job, unreal, and Stirling is dropping on the news.
Americans support more troops in Afghanistan 47/43
Update: 6:57 pm EST Special Report just noted an AP report indicating two military (?) sources saying TOTUS has made a decision and is planning to send 20k troops. All panelists agreed it was a political decision and will be seen as such and Stephen Hayes noted it endangers the entire war effort.
UK Politics: David Cameron speech for Tory Party/ PM elections
Highlights from ITN:
More clips after the break:
Update: USAToday poll shows Americans support reinforcing the troops; Memo to Obama: The Taliban ARE our enemy. The Taliban are terrorists. The Taliban are enemies of the Afghani people.
Update, Ace HQ:
From Goldfarb’s Tweet: A USA Today poll says Joe Biden’s brilliant strategy of leaving our troops to twist without reinforcement or plan of victory commands 7% support.
Pull out? 38%.
Give them the reinforcements and resources they need? 48%….
warning video content is disturbing and violent
(…)Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…
Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary, the official said.
In other words, rather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists rather than invest another 40,000 troops, he’s going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.”
What happened in Basra when American troops withdrew? What happened to the women we promised to protect?
(…)This is dangerous and cynical. They don’t want to be seen as bugging out, so they’re going to leave our troops in the meat-grinder without any actual intention to resource and reinforce them and give them a chance at actually accomplishing anything besides defending the Democratic Party’s interests.
Update: TOTUS’ comments from WH/Congressional leadership meeting on AfPak a bad sign?: TOTUS ready to vote present again, this time in Afghanistan?
Update 2: Oh this is IMO a very very bad sign. It sounds like TOTUS will do what McChrystal called the worse case scenario. Send in less troops than the Generals say is needed but not withdraw, leaving our people unprotected:
(…)“Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan,” as White House officials later described his remarks.”..
Update: Richard Cohen WaPo of all people:
(…)But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough — so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.
God Bless the troops, their families and the Afghani people. We need leadership, we have an empty suit. Reuters reports TOTUS is about to take the MIDDLE WAY sending in only 10-15k more troops, and McChrystals worse case scenario. Ironic considering he will not meet with the Dalai Lama no? We cannot excerpt Reuters as they are toolz about it Please go read the linky.
Meanwhile General Petraeus is making it known he fully supports Gen McChrystal’s call for 40k troops, courtesy of AllahPundit at HotAir:
(…)he knows how these comments will be interpreted. More military weight thrown at The One:
Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, said that the situation in Afghanistan needs “sustained and substantial” commitment.
His statements echoed the assessment made by the senior U.S. general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal.
However, Petraeus, in his comments Tuesday to a convention of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), refused to detail what a substantial commitment means and whether it would translate to sending more troops into Afghanistan….
UK: Gordon Brown’s big government solutions to ‘social problems’ the twin to Obama’s but without the polished delivery: The Sun endorses ‘Cameron’s Conservatives’ and Tory Party, dumps Brown and Labour…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Our previous posts on the UK political troubles ie MP Expenses and Brown cabinet terminations and resignations.
Listen to Brown and it is a rougher Obama. All spending programs and ‘care for the poor and middle class’ but no means testing, no job creation, just handouts, yet he is going to magically cut the deficit. The newscaster keeps pressing on how this is possible and notes Britain’s borrowing is at a record, Brown keeps redirecting to the Debt level, and ignoring obfuscating the FACTS on the borrowing.
When pressed he cries ‘why would we apply means testing to day care?!” He is aghast! She replies, it would save 6 billion and we are broke. He says that is not for OUR PARTY, inferring the suggestion to cut spending is somehow heartless, instead of practical application of necessity’s demands and common sense.
Somehow he supposes by magic they can cut the deficit, not cut programs, not means test, continue record borrowing, crackdown on capital formation, AND best of all ADD NEW, UNMEANS TESTED PROGRAMS! This round for elder care for the middle class ! Adding billions MORE to the budget.
AND he says there need to be union ‘arrangements’ but NO JOB CUTS in the same breath! While talking about EXPANDING ELDER CARE to MIRROR NHS!! The biggest government employer IN THE WORLD!Thereby EXPANDING the base of government workers he says need to cut back, making that lobby even larger and more unwieldy practically guaranteeing it cannot be streamlined in the future to be part of a mobile, nimble work force.
HA HA! DERANGED MAGICAL THINKING ! Could be TOTUS’ Twin on policy.
In other big news The Sun has endorsed Cameron and the Tory Party!
This endorsement is EXACTLY what our media should be saying to the Democrats in D.C. I would apply every word to the Obama Administration and the abominable legislation coming out of this Congress. This is just the closing, please go read the entire endorsement, It is a stunner for a paper that traditionally supports Labour.
Britain needs a brave and wise Government to restore our self-respect, our natural entrepreneurship and the will of every family to improve its lot through its own efforts, without depending on handouts.
We need a Government that will cut the red tape strangling businesses, that will make affordable tax cuts to stimulate growth, that will reform wasteful public services.
We need a Government with a genuine will to win the war in Afghanistan and the commitment to give our forces whatever they need to do it.
This will not be a Government that merely talks the talk, as Labour has. It will ACT.
We hope, and pray, that the next Government will have the guts and the determination to do these things. And we believe David Cameron should lead it.
Between now and the election Cameron’s Conservatives must earn voters’ trust by setting out their promising policies in detail.
If elected, Cameron must use the same energy and determination with which he reinvigorated the Tory Party to breathe new life into Britain.
That means genuine, radical change to encourage self-improvers, not wasting time on internal party wrangling or pandering to the forces of political correctness. It also means an honesty and transparency of Government that we have not seen for years.
We are still a great people and, put to the test, will respond to the challenges we face.
The Sun believes – and prays – that the Conservative leadership can put the great back into Great Britain.
Update: McChrystal troop request to go to the WH this week – Tick Tock Barack; Memo to TOTUS: The CiC cannot vote ‘present’
Update: 9/23- Reports that the McChrystal troop request WILL be sent to the WH Gates no later than the end of this week. (where it will sit til TOTUS ‘is ready’ to receive it- no word on why our troops should have to wait that long). Double whammy – Gen Petraeus today states he fully supports and concurs with McChrystal’s assessment and troop request. Also chiming in with agreement Admiral Mullen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Back to you Barack...TICK TOCK TICK TOCK….
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Central Command, have sent letters to Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsing Gen. Stan McChrystal, NPR’s Tom Bowman has learned from someone familiar with the letters…
At least one key Democrat supports McChrystal:
In a letter to the president Tuesday, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, threw his support behind McChrystal.
“The final approach would be a real counter-insurgency plan that is properly resourced—including both U.S. and allied military forces and civilian experts—to carry out the strategy you announced in March,” Skelton wrote. “The elements of such a plan are well known, although the implementation will be challenging. I believe that General McChrystal’s recent assessment outlines a way to do this with the best chance of success.’…
Pink Floyd courtesy of VjZman
Original post after the break:
Moderate in the Middle 