NATO mulls Afghan troops, decision hinges on Obama

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 10/15/09 | David Brunnstrom

[NormsRevenge]

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO's top defense officials will examine proposals Saturday for a big troop surge to contain Afghanistan's escalating insurgency but any such move hinges on a decision by the U.S. president, NATO military officials said.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has recommended sending at least 40,000 additional troops and trainers as part of a beefed-up counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, something being considered by the administration of President Barack Obama.

Military representatives on NATO's Military Committee, who provide assessments for their political masters, met McChrystal on a three-day visit to Afghanistan that ended Thursday.

They said his detailed recommendations would be discussed in Brussels Saturday by NATO's chiefs of defense staff before an October 22-23 meeting of alliance defense ministers in Bratislava.

"Step by step we lead to the final decision, which belongs to the top political level -- Obama in the United States and Obama's equivalents in alliance countries," the committee's chairman, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, told Reuters.

Di Paola said there was a "very converged" opinion that McChrystal -- who has described the situation in Afghanistan as "serious" and warned of failure without a change in strategy -- had given "a quite fair depiction of the situation."

The Italian admiral said the alliance needed to follow McChrystal's call for a fundamental shift in approach to win hearts and minds by better protecting Afghan people.

He declined to speculate on troop surge, but said there was no talk about a reduction and alliance members were expected to boost efforts to train Afghan security forces, which they hope will eventually be able to take over from the NATO mission.

[NormsRevenge]

Soldiers from the U.S. Army's Alpha Company, 3rd brigade of 10th Mountain Division based in Fort Drum, New York, meet with Afghan Army commanders in front of their base in Pengram district, Logar province October 14, 2009. REUTERS/Nikola Solic

[NormsRevenge]

A taxi carrying goats on the roof makes its way to the weekly market in Balkh, Afghanistan. Between 10,000 and 15,000 more troops are needed to maintain security in restive southern Afghanistan, NATO's commander in the region told AFP in an interview Thursday. (AFP/DDP/Michael Kappeler)

[NormsRevenge]

Major General Mart de Kruif, NATO's commander for International Security Assistance Force for southern Afghanistan region is interviewed by AFP in his office in Kandahar military base in Kandahar city. Between 10,000 and 15,000 more troops are needed to maintain security in restive southern Afghanistan, NATO's commander in the region told AFP in an interview Thursday. (AFP/Romeo Gacad)

[johniegrad]

Obama is more interested in the UN than NATO.

[GloriaJane]

[samsmom]

Think we can count on the Poles and Czechs?

[rebapiper]

Please put a bag over his head, can't stand looking at him or listening to him. He is using obozocare just to divert attention away from Hitlary and her back stabbing deals with Russia. They did away with our missile defense before and Hitlary is back at it again. There needs to be a call for Hitlary to get our of Russia, stop her lies, stop her from taking away our missile defense. Stop funding the TERRORIST HITLARY CLINTON. It was the terrorist groups that funded her New York Senate seat. That beast needs to be in a cage. What she is up to could be mass murder, no missile defense and no secret weapons to defend ourselves. It was the Clintons that sold up out while they were in the White House and now we have a Clinton traveling around the world, she is a threat to all America, she is a danger to the world.

[rebapiper]

This yellow coward is AFRAID to anger his Muslim, Communist radicals that he is part of. He has SNUBBED his nose at our veterans and our troops, he can't make a decision because his terrorist buddies would go after him.
This bozo wants our troops to loose, he wants our veterans to die, a booklet that tells them how they can end their lives. We need to call for the end of the corruption in our government, they must remove Rangle,Dodd, Schumer,Waters,
frank and if they don't they MUST RESIGN, the constitution calls for it. Congress needs to bring Hitlary back to this country, get her the hell out of Russia before she has us in the middle of a nuclear war. Congress needs to deal with Afghanistan, obozo coward is nothing more than a mouth piece and a puppet for the communist left in this country.
Pres.Bush had it right, OUR ENEMIES OUR WITHIN. Our enemies our now in the wit house as well as in congress.

[Argus]

Obama’s pondering how to bug out of Afghanistan without appearing to.