Support Troops Swelling U.S. Force in Afghanistan- Additional Deployments Not Announced

[masuki bance]

Support Troops Swelling U.S. Force in Afghanistan
Additional Deployments Not Announced and Rarely Noted

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 13, 2009


President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.

The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Their deployment has received little mention by officials at the Pentagon and the White House, who have spoken more publicly about the combat troops who have been sent to Afghanistan.

The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq "surge" that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said

....


Obama announced in a March 27 speech that he was approving 21,000 troops, and a White House spokesman said that the president did not approve any other increases before or after. Asked for more details on the troop authorizations, spokesman Tommy Vietor said the Pentagon was better suited to provide such "technical information."
Defense officials, however, acknowledge that the request for 21,000 troops has led to the authorization of more forces.

...

"Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000," said another defense official familiar with the troop-approval process.


...This summer, Gates ordered another temporary increase of 22,000 soldiers to fill out gaps in Army units created by the growing number of wounded and other "non-deployable" troops.

Gates last month ordered to Afghanistan up to 3,000 support troops, and he could seek approval to send more to meet urgent needs. "I'm prepared to ask for the flexibility to send more enablers if we need to before the president makes a decision on -- on whether or not to send significant additional combat troops," he said, using the term "enablers" to refer to support troops as opposed to combat units.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101203142.html?hpid=topnews#

It's time to end the occupations.

[Skittles]

1. all kind of shit going down that rathole

[mkultra]

2. I hope they send 30k more

until they kill Osama and al queda. I don't believe leaving them alone will stop the conflict.

[FrenchieCat]

3. The support Troops are supposed to aid training of the Afghanistani army......

From what I understand.

Were we supposed to not do that either?

I was discussing this war with my former accross the street neighbor who is from Afghanistan.

Her father and mother who just passed away (her dad just 2 short months after her Mom...and her Mom was only 1 year older than me, although she looked much older than that) used to go back to Afghanistan regularily because they own a house there. Her name is Freshta. She and her family were my neighbors from 1994 till just a few months ago. My hubby and I went to the dual wedding of her brothers shortly after they moved into the neighborhood. She lived there with her parents, and her two brothers and their wives. She came by to see me to ask for a favor, because she is now renting her parents' house out.

We started talking politics...about the war. She loves Barack Obama, Number 1. She believes that he can make the difference, but she feels like he has to maintain a delicate balance, because she said that Americans always want the reverse of whatever they get...so that if he wanted to pull out, Americans would damn him for it. She believes that Americans have always had their hand in a lot more of Afghanistan's history then they will admit, but she said that for the first time, she feels like Pres. Obama wants to do the right thing. She did concede that Al Qeada are not all that loved by many folks in her country anymore, and she opined that this may be why they are pushing more and more into Pakistan. She thinks that for the Taliban, money is everything, and when I mentioned reading about Obama's approach of paying off some Taliban leaders to be on our side, she felt that this was a good move. We talked about replacing the poppy crop with Saffron (something I read about), and she liked that idea a lot.

She's an awfully nice woman, and she was very even handed in the discussion that we had, probably because we have had conversations about this before. When I had a conversation with her about 2 years after the war started, she was not so "reasonable" then. She hated George Bush with a passion (which I joined her), and held him responsible for the killing of many innocents. She even cried at the time, something I will always remember. She may feel that way about Obama secretly, but that is not what she articulated.

Anyways....since this happened today, I thought that I would share this.

[masuki bance]

4. It's true that when b*sh was in office people cried and wailed

against the war. Bring Our Troops Home!

Now? It's Obama so it's all good.

[FrenchieCat]

5. I think reasonable people.....people who are directly affected by this

want to give him a chance....because they have so much more to lose if it isn't done right.

Perhaps those who have the least to lose run their mouth the loudest. Could be.

[masuki bance]

6. We are all directly affected by this. The coffins continue to arrive.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Unfortunately, the facts are that some are more affected than others.....

if you want to make us all equal in the despair, be my guest.....but in your heart, you know it isn't true, no matter how many pictures you find to post....because looking at pictures is not quite the same as living through it.

So again, I'm of the opinion that it maybe those who care the most who are willing to give Obama a reasonable chance to do what is right.....while there are others who aren't willing to give him that chance, because in the end, they really don't give a fuck; even if they are good a pretending that they do. I find that very possible.

[masuki bance]

9. Funny, your tune was a little different just about a month ago

where you were attacking people who warned of troop increases and calling them "morans"-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6443354&mesg_id=6443377

I want to ask you, before Obama makes an announcement so you can align yourself with it, are you for the McChrystal plan, the Biden plan or some sort of middle ground?

[FrenchieCat]

10. I'm not a war expert. Sorry.

I believe that we need to train the Afghan troops that should have been trained by now, but weren't....
and we should invest in paying off the Taliban folks that we can to help us locate those working with Al Qaeda.....
and we should be doing nation building on issues such as new crops, etc....
hiring Afghans to do some of the work that we might normally hire foreign country nationals that are then bussed in....
In addition, I think we should do counterinsurgency against Al Qeada (that kind of goes hand in hand with paying off some of the Taliban leaders and War Lords), and work with strengthening our ties with the people of Pakistan, more so than the Pakistani Army....
IN addition working with India to assure Pakistan that Indian doesn't want to attack them....
also work on an Indian/Pakistani peace deal in reference to Kasmir.
Meanwhile working with NATO to do more support troop work.....

[masuki bance]

11. Everything you wrote there was carefully calibrated to

fit whatever decision Obama ultimately makes. Looking back in the search function, I see you have a tendency to become a fanatic for "your" candidates. I saw blind devotion and vitriolic language used against other DUers who dared speak ill of Wes Clark.

I guess it's just your nature to "own" these politicians and take any criticism or contrary views as a personal insult.

Like Maher said- "He's Your President, Not Your Boyfriend."

[FrenchieCat]

12. What I wrote is what I think.....

If it is calibrated to fit with Obama's decision, then great.....guess great minds think alike, and all of that.

Yes, there is a difference between me and you.....see, you have a credibility problem here at DU, and if I were you, I'd work on that instead of making pronouncements about me that appear quite personal. I can't help it if folks don't even want to read your threads, because they know ahead of time that it will be in full attack mode and usually full of bias ass shit against this administration. Yes, for the most part, I support the person who is now POTUS, not matter that you don't fucking like it. And yes, during the last presidential election, I supported another candidate.
So Fucking sue me.

[masuki bance]

13. It's calibrated to fit whether 50k more troops get sent

or if we just attack civilians with predator drones.

As to credibility, I accept that many here are blinded by pure, unadulterated partisanship, those people will get upset at any thing that doesn't meet their level of cheerleading. The posts I contribute are from Wapo, Glenn Greenwald, Pam Spaulding, Jane Hamsher, NYT, Msnbc, KO, Big Ed, Rachel, NPR, BBC, Richard Cohen, Thomas Friedman, Jonathan Alter, OpenLeft, The Nation, Mother Jones, Joe Conason, David Corn, David Sirota, 538, The Hill, Roll Call, Cspan etc, etc, etc

Hardly right wing sources, I also source them as completely as possible with the author clearly placed and the media from where it's taken placed prominently. Most of the time I try to use the original headline as the OP title, if you look, there are DUers who lose it when that happens and demand that I change the authors own title, in some cases I even do if it truly seems to be misleading.(links of that actually happening provided at request} I rarely add any commentary other than one or two sentences, like this OP.

If people get so worked up about the fact that we are sending 21,000 more troops than we were led to believe or that we still practice rendition, or that someone may agree to a trigger, or whatever else happens to come up, that they are incapable of addressing the information so they choose to take their frustration out at me, I can't help that. I don't hit and run, I stay around and respond to questions and comments, and I also admit it if I have been wrong about something. Rarely is the post itself challenged it, usually the interactions devolve into juvenile name calling or questioning motives or baseless accusations. It doesn't bother or surprise me, that level of discourse here at DU is becoming more and more common as a whole.

Good day.

[JTFrog]

14. Your credibility has been beclowned.

Good day.

[masuki bance]

15. There it is. Nothing to add but personal attacks.

Perfect example.

[JTFrog]

17. Funny you should consider that a personal attack.

You own that word.

You're the only one that's used it here in the past.

[masuki bance]

19. That's it? You don't want to address the increase in troops?

If the topic is too difficult to wrap your head around, I wouldn't be surprised.


ribet.

[JTFrog]

22. Yet I'm not quite stupid enough

to try to hold a conversation with a zombie.

[masuki bance]

24. Nice talking with you. nt

[dionysus]

25. you'll fill a pamper no matter what obama does, so what's the point? you just want everyone to

agree with you and declare he sucks, but they won't.

[jefferson_dem]

18. +1

:hi:

[Clio the Leo]

23. MPs, medics and engineers......

.... you're right Frenchie. Reasonable people understand.

We're sending MPs, medics and engineers .... to support that combat troops who DO need to come home soon. To GET them home faster (and safer.) Anyone who has a problem with THIS deployment .... a deployment that will aid the combat troops who are already there ... is not sincere in their support for the troops.

Would they also complain about increased funding for body armor, food and medicine?

Some folks aren't even worth arguing with. There are times when there's a basic problem with reading comprehension.

[Cant trust em]

8. Bringing the troops home was more about the Iraq war for me during the Bush years.

To me, the problem was always in Afghanistan and now we're paying the price of that distraction.

[jeanpalmer]

16. That's interesting

because the published number always was 21,000. There was no mention of 34,000. That's a bit dishonest. Seems to me they should have said they were sending 34,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan.

[joeycola]

21. Any dishonesty/deception by this=or any administration breeds

discontent.

[jonnyblitz]

20. the war apologists on this thread are beyond VILE.

:puke:

[dionysus]

26. you like to call other DUers vile. what was said here that vexes you so?