3 Top Obama Advisers Favor Adding Troops in Afghanistan

[IndianaGreen]

3 Top Obama Advisers Favor Adding Troops in Afghanistan

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 10, 2009

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, but President Obama remains unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan would help execute a new strategy, administration officials said Tuesday.

Mr. Obama is to consider four final options in a meeting with his national security team on Wednesday, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters. The options outline different troop levels, other officials said, but they also assume different goals — including how much of Afghanistan the troops would seek to control — and different time frames and expectations for the training of Afghan security forces.

Three of the options call for specific levels of additional troops. The low-end option would add 20,000 to 25,000 troops, a middle option calls for about 30,000, and another embraces Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for roughly 40,000 more troops. Administration officials said that a fourth option was added only in the past few days. They declined to identify any troop level attached to it.

Mr. Gates, a Republican who served as President George W. Bush’s last defense secretary, and who commands considerable respect from the president, is expected to be pivotal in Mr. Obama’s decision. But administration officials cautioned that Mr. Obama had not yet made up his mind, and that other top advisers, among them Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, remained skeptical of the value of a buildup.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/asia/11policy.html?_r=3&ref=politics

[ShortnFiery]

1. Good! When are these lauded advisors going to sacrifice their children for all the ...

future KILLING and DYING?

And really --- FOR WHAT PURPOSES? :grr:

[Diane R]

2. I'm very glad you said this. It was true during Vietnam, and it's true now.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Biden is reported by NYT to be the most dovish, and he is the one with a son in military

There is a connection...

[blm]

7. and Biden USED to be a dependable hawk. He came around for real in late 2006.

Others in the cabinet....not at all.

[blm]

4. Exactly...there are far too many hawks...and some HAVEN'T changed their feathers, despite the hype

fluff pieces done on them in the corpmedia in recent months.

I never wanted Lieberman for Sec of State.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

5. Clinton showed her hawk stripes in the campaign

When she was named SOS I knew that was a really bad sign on Obama's future plans for Afghanistan, and dont even mention keeping Gates on.

[blm]

6. she had those hawk stripes for many years - why anyone thinks she should be the top diplomat

is beyond me. That role puts her in the position of being able to undermine the WH behind closed doors if it preferred diplomatic measures. Putting a warhawk in charge of diplomacy is one of Obama's biggest mstakes so far.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

8. agreed n/t

[IndianaGreen]

9. The problem is that Obama has surrounded himself with hawks

there isn't a single bona fide dove among them.

[bertman]

10. Hawks, banksters, very few vets, Rahm. Makes me want to cry.

[blm]

11. BREAKING: Ambassador to Afghanistan siding AGAINST escalation.

just posted by Handpuppet:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6994302