Obama’s Afghanistan Strategy To Include “Benchmarks” and “Off-Ramps” (+34,000 Troops)

[tekisui]

Source: ABC News

After a final two-hour meeting of his war council last night that an official described as "intense...everyone got to say their final peace," President Obama is expected to address the nation in prime time a week from today, Tuesday, December 1, to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said early Tuesday morning.

The president told aides he has a "pretty good idea of where I want to go,” a senior White House official told ABC News.

Though the president has yet to pull the final trigger, officials expect him to select a strategy of sending approximately 34,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, officials said. Troops would begin deploying early next year. NATO is also expected to kick in troops -- maybe 5,000 to 10,000. There is a NATO force conference in early December.

“This is not a nation-building strategy,” a senior White House official says.

Key to the president’s decision, this official underlined: the off-ramps the President pressed the Pentagon for a couple weeks ago.

The strategy will have benchmarks measuring Afghanistan’s political and military progress, and if those standards are not met, there are exit strategies for the withdrawal of US troops that can and will be enacted.

The last three war council meetings have “not been just about sending more troops in, they’ve been about getting them out,” the official says.

more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/with-offramps-and-benchmarks-president-obamas-afpak-strategy-announcement-to-come-next-week.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. My prediction is that nobody will be happy n/t

[tekisui]

2. Yep. This is the worse political choice, and

a bad economic and military choice. Lose/lose/lose.

Surge is Exit!

[tekisui]

3. Can someone educate me on the Double-Think? Surge=Exit?

We are putting more troops in so we can leave some years down the road? Is that about it?

If 'benchmarks' are met, we stay. If they aren't met we will take 'off-ramps'? Why not start merging onto the off ramp now? How will the metric change when our troop numbers increase and further destabilize?

[Bragi]

6. This belief is based on pro-war PR about the surge in Iraq

The Bushites and McCain successfully sold the (incorrrect) notion that the troops surge stabilized Iraq. It didn't.

However, this makes it easier for the war industry to pretend that a surge in Afghanistan will stabilize that country. It won't.

- B

[tekisui]

7. I don't understand how people accept this without having their

brains short circuit.

[Winterblues]

8. I think "benchmarks" is not a good description, maybe "strategic goals"

Once the specific goal is met we move on to another specific goal until our objective (whatever that may be) is met and our soldiers stop being killed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. CYA writ large by a president afraid of losing an already lost war. Pathetic.

[msongs]

9. yeah but he plays golf like bush: "now, watch this drive..." nt

[SIMPLYB1980]

5. Good. nt

[optimator]

10. reminds me of public option trigger

i.e. a load of crap.
punting.
spineless.
a waste.

[TwilightGardener]

11. "Everyone got to say their final PIECE", not "PEACE". Editor asleep on the job.

[tekisui]

12. I saw that. I'd be embarrassed if I were Tapper or ABC.

[Subdivisions]

13. Delete. n/t

[Individualist]

14. Where have we heard "This is not a nation building strategy" before?

Oh yeah, now I remember; it was the Chimp/Cheney administration.

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. Waited till after Thanksgiving to deliver this turkey.