Obama getting foreign support to help in Afghanistan

What ridiculous spin. The truth is that Obama was rebuked in grand fashion, failing miserably in his quest for troop support. I guess they weren't impressed with his teleprompter reading skills, like the intelligentsia in America?

Barack Obama fails to win Nato troops he wants for Afghanistan

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister.

Just two other allies made firm offers of troops. Belgium offered to send 35 military trainers and Spain offered 12. Mr Obama’s host, Nicolas Sarkozy, refused his request.

The derisory response threatened to tarnish Mr Obama’s European tour, which yesterday included a spellbinding performance in Strasbourg in which he offered the world a vision of a future free of nuclear weapons.

Mr Obama – who has pledged 21,000 more troops to combat the growing insurgency and is under pressure from generals to supply up to 10,000 more – used the eve of Nato’s 60th anniversary summit to declare bluntly that it was time for allies to do their share. “Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone,” he said. “This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort.”

He said that failing to support the US surge would leave Europe open to a fresh terrorist offensive. “It is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack on Europe than on the United States because of proximity,” he said.

The presidential charm offensive failed to move fellow Nato countries. President Sarkozy told Mr Obama that France would not be sending reinforcements to bolster its existing force northeast of Kabul.

Germany, Italy, Poland, Canada and Denmark said that they were considering their positions. After a meeting with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, Mr Obama tried to apply further moral pressure. “I am sure that Germany, as one of the most important leaders in Europe, will be stepping up to the plate and helping us to get the job done.”

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato Secretary-General, warned that new laws proposed by President Karzai in Afghanistan sanctioning child marriage and marital rape had made it harder to raise more soldiers.

“We are there to defend universal values and when I see, at the moment, a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women’s rights and human rights, that worries me,” he said.

“I have a problem to explain to a critical public audience in Europe, be it the UK or elsewhere, why I’m sending the guys to the Hindu Kush.”

The temporary British deployment falls short of the 2,000 soldiers that the Army had planned to deploy long-term to Afghanistan and appeared to catch defence chiefs by surprise.

Mr Brown announced the commitment as he flew into Strasbourg for the two-day summit, but hopes that it would spur other allies to follow suit were soon dashed. British officials said that the extra troops, expected to number between 500 and 700 – increasing Britain’s military strength there to about 9,000 – would be dispatched to southern Afghanistan for a four-month period leading up to and beyond the election, due to take place on August 20.

The plan is to withdraw them once the election is over. Mr Brown said that the extra troops were only supposed to provide a “temporary uplift”.

Military contingency plans remain on the table to send up to 2,000 more troops long-term, taking the total to 10,000, but that will depend on the political will to approve the deployment.

Although the Prime Minister discussed Afghanistan with President Obama when they held bilateral talks before the G20 summit in London, it is understood that no formal offer of extra troops was made.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6032342.ece

 

the parrot that is Traitor_Jorge regurgitating the words of his master Rush

 

Jorge still doesn't get it. Winning in Afghanistan (and the middle east) is more than just troops and killing people.

 

Oh, you are so right. Those 12 trainers that Spain is sending over will be INVALUABLE.

I love the contrast between what is reported in America, where the media is in the tank for Obama, compared to what is reported in London, where they are more objective. Notice how differently these two articles are presented? The sheeple are so gullible...

 

thank you

 

The European media, outside some fringe right wing rag or two, are being very positive about this. Especially the BBC, which may even be based in London.

 

Excellent work by Obama -- this has been an impressive world debut for our President.

 

my understanding is no one is sending anything except advisors and will not go anywhere near any hotzone.

I don't blame Obama, these are Euro pansys we are dealing with.


Obama sending more troops to afghanistan is a huge mistake anyways. That place is a craphole and capable of turning 10 times as bad as Iraq went. Just ask USSR.

 

Maybe those Euro pansies have some common sense. Afghanistan is a black hole for US funds. We might win a few battle here and there, but overall no progress will be made there.

 

werd.

that place sucks, is huge, and not really possible to help without massive commitment. I just don't see the point to send 20K people.

Seems like a show to fill a campaign promise or something.

 

Like kill the person responsible for 911?

 

pretty sure that OBL is in pakistan but I don't watch the news as much as you guys.


also I think you mean give a trial to, not kill.

 

They have had 8 years and billions of dollars.

 

Read the following:

source

[rquoter]

A good plan for Afghanistan...

And more importantly, for the United States.

I have been holding my breath to to see what the White House and CENTCOM strategy reviews would produce with regard to Afghanistan in particular. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I was consulted in a very small way on one of these. It was agreed at the time that I would not mention this until policy was announced.

There have been two basic possibilities for US policy in Afghanistan:

• One choice might have been to commit to a full blown, multi-decade nation building COIN war that would have "sucked up" trillions of dollars in money that we could ill afford to leave littering the heights of Central Asia. All the "old Afghanistan hands" whom I know insist that the country known as Afghanistan does have a seat in the UN and an embassy in Washington but that those two "data points" mark the closest approach to "nationhood" in the political science sense of the word that can be detected. The creation of "Afghanistan, the Country" would have been dear to neocon hearts (and the idea still is). That goal would have involved de-racination of Afghanistan to such a degree that it would become a very Westernized country. The costs would be enormous. The assumption in this (peddled by the neocons) is that a drained swamp does not breed alligators. The "swamp" in this case is the matrix of traditional lifeways. Those lifeways are despised and feared by the neocons. Why? Work it out.
  
  
• The other possibility in policy was that the US would spend a reasonable, but not excessive amount of money helping the Afghans in the development of physical and governmental infrastructure, would assist in enlarging Afghan security forces and improving their training in an effort scheduled to end in 2011 and most importantly would concentrate on energized and mobilizing native Afghan and Pakistani forces against their enemies and ours, the takfiri jihadis centered on the Al-Qa'ida group. The idea being to disrupt and disorganize our real enemies enough to keep them off balance and unable to plan significant attacks against the West and most importantly the United States. This intelligence and special operations task is small scale compared to neocon dreams and it is likely to be with us for a long time.

This latter option appears to be the one selected and if that is true, I support it. This is a rational plan, proportionate to the problem rather than some silly idea centered on the "end of civilization." pl

BTW. The cognoscenti point out to me a serious US problem in Pakistan/Afghanistan. That is a badly divided command structure. Something should be done about that.

[/rquoter]

 

What do 'we' the public stand to gain by 'investing' our tax dollars into 'winning' this war?

 

Kill who? No trial? Also hint: more than one person is responsible for 911, and it is still very much up for debate who those people are.