McChrystal Meets With Obama to Make His Case

High long-term costs a big factor in debate

(NEWSER) - When President Obama rejected advisers' recommendations on Afghan troops and insisted they be retooled with exit strategies, he had the war's long-term financial costs in mind, an insider tells the New York Times . While military strategy gets the headlines, the financial constraints also are weighing heavily. Some specfics:

• Gen. McChyrstal's preferred option of adding 40,000 troops would cost $40 billion to $54 billion per year.

Said to be close to decision as Asia trip looms

(NEWSER) - President Obama is zeroing in on an Afghanistan strategy that likely includes sending in some 30,000 troops, reports Reuters —short of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's requested 40,000, but far greater than war-weary Democrats may support. An additional 4,000 trainers are likely to be sent, McClatchy reports, with the first troops hitting the ground in March. More»

President thanks service members during surprise Afghanistan trip

(NEWSER) - President Obama capped his surprise visit to Afghanistan by delivering words of encouragement to US troops at the Bagram base north of Kabul, Bloomberg reports. “You are protecting your country, you’re achieving your objectives, you will succeed in your mission,” Obama said. “We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum and that’s what you’re doing.” More»

Rolling Stone piece's impact helped by vulgar language

(NEWSER) - What does a journalist have to do to effect a major change in US foreign policy? In the case of Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the answer may be to use lots and lots of curse words. The piece uses "fuck" 18 times, from the vulgar dismissal of a French diplomat dreided as "fucking gay" to one soldier's bleak assessment that "we’re fucking losing this thing.” More»

Which means that the president may have gotten it right

(NEWSER) - President Obama has assembled parts of different Afghanistan strategies into a whole that looks certain to displease just about everybody when it is unveiled tonight, writes David Brooks. The administration appears to have pulled back from its earlier enthusiasm for a comprehensive counterinsurgency—COIN—plan in favor of COIN-lite, Brooks writes in the New York Times. More»