President Obama will announce his latest greatest war plan at West Point on Tuesday night. The man who spoke of having the courage to tell auto makers to reform their ways in Detroit will make his troop escalation speech in front of a crowd professionally obligated to support the decision’s of their Commander in Chief.
Obama assured the press, “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive.”
I wholeheartedly agree- if Obama can somehow explain these basic premises for the first time, I’ll be sold too.
British PM Gordon Brown has promised that Obama will not being going it alone- pledging that NATO allies will add 5,000 troops, in addition to the 500 new British soldiers. Of course, Brown isn’t sure where these troops will be coming from, though he posits there may be some troops from Slovakia, Georgia and maybe South Korea.
Either way, NATO spokesman James Appathurai cautioned, “Nobody should expect that the day after President Obama makes his announcement that there will be a total troop figure added up … by the other allies.”
Appathurai said a more realistic appraisal would be forthcoming after a January conference of NATO allies.
The Associated Press’s Kathy Gannon paints a bleak picture of life and death in Kandahar. At 800,000 residents, it is Afghanistan’s second largest city, and fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban for the city is fierce, with the local population often caught in the cross fire. There is an expectation that some of Obama’s new troops will be sent there.
