[Peace-discuss] Obama favours U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan

[E. Wayne Johnson]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081022.wcampaign_speech23/BNStory/Afghanistan/

WASHINGTON --- Sounding presidential, Senator Barack Obama said 
Wednesday he would order a surge of U.S. troops -- perhaps 15,000 or 
more -- to Afghanistan as soon as he reached the White House.

"We're confronting an urgent crisis in Afghanistan," Mr. Obama, the 
Democratic contender and now clear front-runner to replace George W. 
Bush, said Wednesday.

"It's time to heed the call ... for more troops. That's why I'd send at 
least two or three additional brigades to Afghanistan," he said in his 
most hawkish promise to date.

A U.S. army brigade includes about 5,000 soldiers along with tanks, 
armoured personnel carriers and helicopter gunships.

Seeking to deflect attacks that he is dangerously inexperienced in 
foreign policy, Mr. Obama huddled with a high-profile panel of experts 
before a news conference aimed at showcasing his command of global affairs.

"The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large and 
plotting," he said, echoing Mr. Bush's oft-repeated refrain.

But he was quick to blame Mr. Bush for miring the United States in a 
pointless war and wrecking its reputation abroad.

"We must be vigilant in preventing future attacks, he said. "We're 
fighting two wars abroad [and] we're facing a range of 21st-century 
threats from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to our dependence on 
foreign oil, which have grown more daunting because of the failed 
policies of the last eight years."

Mr. Obama, speaking in Virginia, a once-solidly Republican state that 
now could swing Democratic, warned that his rival, John McCain, a 
decorated former naval officer and combat pilot who endured years of 
torture as a prisoner of war, would lead America into more danger if he 
becomes president.

"Senator McCain has supported the key decisions and core approaches of 
President Bush. As president, he would continue the policies that have 
put our economy into crisis and, I believe, endangered our national 
security."

As the deepening economic crisis has all but eclipsed other issues in 
the final few weeks of the campaign, Mr. McCain has repeatedly tried to 
shift the debate and portray Mr. Obama as unready to cope with foreign 
challenges.

Earlier this week Joe Biden, the Democrat vice-presidential candidate, 
predicted that unspecified foreign adversaries would attempt to 
challenge an inexperienced young president, just as the Cuban Missile 
Crisis tested president John F. Kennedy in 1962, but claimed Mr. Obama 
would rise to the occasion.

That assurance prompted a new jibe from Mr. McCain: "I know how close we 
came to a nuclear war and I will not be a president that needs to be 
tested. I have been tested, Senator Obama has not."

Mr. Obama, at 47, is nearly a quarter-century younger than Mr. McCain 
and was a toddler in Hawaii during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

While Republicans paint Mr. Obama as dangerously naive, the first-term 
senator from Illinois has shot back by saying Mr. McCain is just 
wrong-headed

"We can't afford another president who ignores the fundamentals of our 
economy while running up record deficits to fight a war without end in 
Iraq," Mr. Obama said Wednesday.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20081024/5a66547d/attachment.htm