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.
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….
Update: Chuck Hagel to replace Gates? McDonough replaces Lippert and speechwriter Ben Rhodes will take on National Security duties; Backlash? Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Resigns(Lippert was Obama’s NSA adviser during the campaign also)
Update: Ace HQ posts on a ROY that Hagel is in and Gates out within a year. Sounds like peeps are getting clued into the antiHawk stance of TOTUS and withdrawing from posts. Get out of there Hillary!
As Think Progress notes, last night the boss floated a very well-sourced rumor that Secretary Gates will be out by the end of the year and replaced by Chuck Hagel, who the boss described as an “advocate of retreat everywhere.”
Taking Lippert’s place as chief of staff to the National Security Council will be Denis McDonough, a deputy national security adviser, and chief foreign policy speechwriter Ben Rhodes will step up to assume some of McDonough’s responsibilities, the administration announced.
Moderate in the Middle 