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Obama To Send 17,000 More Troops to Afghanistan
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by Rob Walker | February 17, 2009 at 12:28 pm
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Word has just come in that Barack Obama has signed a bill that will send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. While this does follow his campaign talk of Afghanistan being one of his main targets for terrorism, it also goes against the diplomatic negotiations that Obama discussed not 24 hours earlier.
The Obama administration is expected to announce by Wednesday that it will send one additional Army brigade and an unknown number of U.S. Marines to Afghanistan in coming months. One source says the total is about 17,000 troops.
In an interview with CBC news set for Tuesday night, US president Barack Obama discusses the war in Afghanistan and his priorities there. He told Peter Mansbridge that a 'comprehensive strategy' needed to be put in place in Afghanistan. He said that military means wouldn't solve the problems there.
The interview comes only two days before Obama's planned meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Diplomacy and development are the two tools Obama wants to discuss with Harper on Thursday. He also thanked Canadian military families and called their contributions 'extraordinary'.
But the president did not answer directly when asked whether he would use Thursday's meeting to suggest Harper reconsider the decision to end Canada's military mission in the country's volatile south in February 2011."I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means," he said.
A United Nations report says that fighting the drug trade in Afghanistan needs to be a top priority, but it can't be done with guns and bullets. Several volatile regions that aren't in UN control provide a huge amount of opium and funding to the Taliban.
"We never asked the military to destroy poppy fields or even arrest traffickers, but rather to enable Afghan counternarcotics authorities, and their international mentors, to execute a balanced plan of incentives and disincentives, including, but not limited to, eradication of the fields of wealthy farmers."Lt.-Gen. Eikenberry did nothing to help. Now, by UN estimates, the Taliban raise up to $300-million a year from the drug trade, and use it to kill Americans and Canadians . . . "
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 05:52 on February 18th, 2009
Good coverage Rob, I did an Opinion piece on this, hope you don't mind?