Soldiers just back from Iraq get new orders: Afghanistan

[Catherina]

Soldiers just back from Iraq get new orders: Afghanistan

By Chelsea J. Carter, CNN
December 21, 2011 -- Updated 1452 GMT (2252 HKT)

Atlanta (CNN) -- Soldiers who just returned from Iraq are among several thousand being ordered to Afghanistan in six months as part of a mission designed to beef up Afghan forces ahead of a planned 2014 U.S. military withdrawal, officials said.

News of the pending Afghanistan deployments came as families at bases across the country were celebrating the return in recent days of troops who turned off the lights at a number of U.S. bases ahead of an end-of-the-year deadline to leave Iraq.

...

Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, has said he would like to keep a U.S. "military presence" in Afghanistan beyond 2014 when NATO is scheduled to withdraw its forces. Allen suggested the presence could last as long as 2016 when the Afghan Air Force is completed.

...

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment. Messages left early Wednesday by CNN at public affairs offices at the 3rd Infantry Division, the 4th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division were not immediately returned.

...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/21/world/asia/afghanistan-us-troops/index.html

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Autumn]

2. Disgusting is the only word

that comes to my mind.

[Luciferous]

3. I second that.

[xiamiam]

4. why are we spending billions of dollars on a war in afghanistan?

killing, drones, maiming...for what?

[Catherina]

5. Iran, the grand prize

[xiamiam]

7. disgusting

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. Wow, that is a sobering and disgusting picture.

American "Empire" indeed.

[truedelphi]

12. How dare those damn Iranians threaten the security of the Middle East?

Who told them they can have their country in the middle of all our occupations and military bases?

[SixthSense]

11. Heroin production

I wish I were being sarcastic or kidding

But the US Army has been turned into a drug cartel, it protects the largest production center of opium and heroin in the world as a war objective.

Ever get the feeling that the country is really run by high-level drug kingpins? And that those may be (and probably are) among those most vocal about keeping up the "war on drugs", and their associates?

[truedelphi]

13. Yep, except that this has been the case since the middle years of the

Vietnam War.

The CIA is nothing but a drug cartel, and oil cartel protection operation. And even way back in 2000, they were trying to figure out how it was going to happen that they could manage to put a lid on protests here. They were wondering on their own official website, exactly how they could ever bring Americans to turn on Americans.

The PNAC objective that bought about the most terrifying event of the decade also enabled the CIA to have a war on Iraq. As that war was waged, they started figuring out that if you keep soldiers on tours of duty that last five or six or seven tours - their brains are fried, and they'd smash in their own grandmothers' doors, if told it was an order.

[kentauros]

14. Because of the trillions in potential mineral deposits.

A few billion to recover a few trillion in mineral deposits is "good business". According to Wikipedia (and I remember reading about this on DU a year or so ago):

Mining in Afghanistan

As of 2006, "the mineral resources of Afghanistan were relatively underexplored from a global perspective. The country has extensive deposits of barite, chromite, coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, natural gas, petroleum, precious and semiprecious stones, salt, sulfur, talc, and zinc. Precious and semiprecious stones include high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby.

~~~

Major findings, 2010

In 2010, a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists discovered about $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. According to other reports the total mineral riches of Afghanistan may be worth over $3 trillion US dollars. "The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world". Ghazni Province may hold the world's largest lithium reserves.

Of course, what will happen if they do manage to quell the violence long enough to get massive mining operations under way will be to strip-mine the country and leave them just as poor and destitute as they are now. We'll steal it all and give them a pittance in return for letting us take those minerals off their hands...

[Quantess]

6. I hate this!

Obama, we were counting on you to put an end to this!

[xiamiam]

8. who? our nobel peace prize winning president? not in the cards while he occupies the oval office.nt

[OnlinePoker]

15. Why?

He's the one who campaigned to expand the war into Pakistan if that's where the enemy were, saying "The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Obama's Speech at Woodrow Wilson Center August 1, 2007
http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/obamas-speech-woodrow-wilson-center/p13974

[joshcryer]

17. He said he was going to escalate!

So did Hillary. It was one of those convenient facts everyone forgets from that time period.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. Surprise!

Not.

[joshcryer]

16. Another Obama campaign promise kept.

What? You people thought Obama wasn't going to escalate in Afghanistan? He said he would. It was central to his foreign policy proposals.