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Afghan Surge Reax
ByA round up. The left seems split over the idea. The right side of the blogiverse is mostly silent. Yglesias:
To remain effective in Afghanistan, we desperately need to reduce the civilian death toll. That means less airstrikes. Which probably means more boots on the ground. And hopefully more boots on the ground can also reduce civilian exposure to death-by-Taliban. That’d be how you get the job done.
The question here is why did he release this announcement right now in this way, just sort of this offhanded way? You have got several reviews happening, a White House review, a Petraeus review. You have Holbrooke out there reviewing it as well.
So why do you dribble out an announcement in the absence of a review? And I think it is because the news out of the area in the last week or so has been awful.
...the announcement of a very muscular increase demonstrates the kind of resolve that won't necessarily win the war, but will allow us to eventually withdraw at a time of our choosing, rather than under duress. That's not an insignificant gesture, since the security situation in Afghanistan has unraveled to something close to a tipping point in the past four months, which would have put any imminent drawdown in a very negative light.
Brandon Friedman, Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org:
Coupled with the earlier appointment of Ambassador Holbrooke as special envoy to the region, today’s announcement that we will be bolstering our forces in Afghanistan, through re-missioning, is most welcome. For those of us who served in Afghanistan, especially, it’s been extremely disappointing to see the situation deteriorate there, with previous gains lost. Our forces are much more needed in Afghanistan right now, than in Iraq.
Two decades and two days after the Soviet army withdrew from its disastrous occupation in Afghanistan, it saddens me that we're heading down a path that has ensnared the British empire and the former Soviet Union. What's especially troubling is that Obama, who wisely ordered a fundamental review of US options in that country, is sending troops without even waiting for the review process to conclude.
