Our Journey Through Home School
• Mar. 27, 2009 - Pray Request for Anthony, My Soldier
With this news of Obama sending troops to Afgan. This involves my son. Please pray for him now that he will always be protected in the name of the LORD. Now, more then ever have I been a Jabez... calling on God for those things I normally would not.. Shame on me... I do not know what is going to happen, Anthony could get a phone call and off he goes... He is to be in the Sahara for training in July, this may be sooner.. Please pray the Lords will be done and for his protection and safety and my peace of mind...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans to send thousands of troops to train Afghan forces as part of a new war strategy that will focus U.S. efforts on destroying al Qaeda safe havens and rolling back the Taliban insurgency.
A Taliban commander poured scorn on the new plan, which will be announced by the president at 9:25 a.m., saying an injection of 4,000 troops would make no difference on the ground.
Three senior U.S. administration officials said in a briefing before the announcement that Washington will reach out to Russia, China, India and even Iran in an "aggressive regional effort" that also recognizes Pakistan as part of the theater of war.
"For the first time, we are approaching this problem as two countries -- Afghanistan, Pakistan -- but one challenge and one theater for our diplomacy and our reconstruction efforts to work in. We see this as an integrated problem," said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The new strategy comes at a time when violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban from power. The Islamist militia has staged a strong comeback and sharply escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in tribal border regions of Pakistan.
Obama, who criticized his predecessor George W. Bush for becoming distracted by the Iraq war and allowing security to deteriorate in Afghanistan, ordered a review of U.S. policy as one of his first official acts after taking office on January 20.
"This is not a reversion to a narrow War on Terror focus," said Alex Thier, an Afghanistan expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.
He said that although the Obama administration was talking about going after al Qaeda, it was also committing to a broader effort to stabilize Afghanistan. "This is a comprehensive approach to dealing with a critical, unstable region," he said.
Under the plan, 4,000 military trainers will embed and partner with the Afghan military, while hundreds of U.S. government civilian personnel will boost under-resourced reconstruction and development programs.
The trainers are in addition to the 17,000 troops Obama has already ordered sent to Afghanistan to help stabilize the country ahead of a presidential election in August.
"We want to move as aggressively and as quickly as possible to build up an Afghan army that is capable of defending its country and defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda," an official said.
DISRUPT AND DESTROY
Taliban commander Mullah Hayat Khan scoffed at the plan.
"Sending more troops will have no impact on the activities of the Taliban," he said, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location. "Four thousand trainers for the Afghan army is not a solution to the problem."
The strategy will have a unified military goal -- to disrupt, dismantle and eventually destroy al Qaeda's sanctuaries in Pakistan and its support network, and prevent it from establishing safe havens in Afghanistan.
The officials said al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, were believed to be in an unknown location in Pakistan plotting fresh attacks on the United States and its allies. U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan after al Qaeda launched the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Initial descriptions of the strategy left many questions about Pakistan unanswered.
Many experts believe the nuclear-armed country's instability and its al Qaeda havens present a far greater threat to U.S. national security than Afghanistan.
U.S. drone attacks on suspected hideouts in tribal areas of the country began during the Bush administration and have continued under the new president, provoking anger in Pakistan.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani security and political analyst, said drone attacks would continue but a strain would stay in relations between the United States and Pakistan.
"The West considers Pakistan the main problem but the Pakistani government and non-official circles perceive themselves as innocent victims," he said. "There is such a wide gap in the interpretation of the situation by the two sides and that indicates that the problem and the strain will continue."
As part of a new diplomatic effort, the United States will engage India, Russia, China and Iran, and Obama's special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, will hold bilateral meetings with Afghanistan and Pakistan every six to eight weeks.
Washington plans to expand the size of the Afghan army from about 80,000 to 134,000 and the police force from 78,000 to about 82,000. The U.S. officials said further increases were possible.
"It is much cheaper in the long run to train Afghans to fight this war than it is to send Americans half way around the globe," one official said.
In the short-term, however, the current $2 billion a month cost of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan are projected to increase 60 percent, another official said.
|
Post A Comment! :: Send to a Friend!
|
|
|
|
|
• Mar. 27, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Blessings,
Karla Marie