By John W. Lillpop
President Obama is slip-sliding further into the quagmire that is Afghanistan by sending an additional 22,000 troops into harms way.
The Obama "surge" was reported, in part, at Google.com:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jcla0ZoFykwTGo9rfk8399BRPKtw
"WASHINGTON — The US Army is to boost its ranks temporarily by up to 22,000 troops to ease the strain of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday.
"Much has changed over the last two years, causing us to reassess whether we are properly sized to support current operational needs," Gates said, adding that the army would swell to 569,000 soldiers, up from the current 547,000.
"The persistent pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last several years has steadily increased the number of troops not available for deployment in the army."
"The military, with President Barack Obama's "strong support," decided that continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as political turmoil in Pakistan, meant its ability to fill troop vacancies was "at risk," Gates said.
"According to current deployment estimates, he added, the challenge was a "temporary" one that would peak in the coming year and abate over the next three years.
"Obama has ramped up the US effort in Afghanistan, dispatching 21,000 more troops to fight a mounting Taliban-led insurgency just as the United States draws down in Iraq as part of a bilateral agreement signed last year."
Missing from the account was any expert military analysis by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warning the president and the American people that the war is "lost."
Perhaps Senator Reid is too busy working on Obama's health care reform, amnesty for illegal aliens, and climate change fiascoes to be bothered with the lives of 22,000 young Americans whom Obama is sending into harms way?
Still, Senator Reid, why not demand a timeline for withdrawal of all troops from that hostile part of the world?
Silence is also deafening from the US House side of the Congress where Shrieker Nancy Pelosi is too busy trying to put the CIA out of business to get her wrinkled old hands sullied with worry over those 22,000 kids, most of whom are probably red-neck Republicans anyway.
Still, Speaker Pelosi, why not demand that Obama announce a definitive plan to bring the troops home by Labor Day or face a cutoff of funding? Leave them stranded in the mountains of Afghanistan!
As the old axiom goes, war is hell. But not nearly as much as the partisan politics played by anti-war freaks running the US Congress.
