Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Inikah Obama yang dulu kita ucapkan tahniah?

Jelas Obama adalah kafir harbi hukman wa fi'lan, sama seperti Presiden-Presiden US sebelumnya. Saya cukup kecewa apabila di kalangan pemimpin ummat Islam terutama ulama' yang mengucapkan tahniah atas kemenangan Obama. Hari ini sama-sama kita telan kepahitan ucapan tahniah tersebut. Nyata, US akan terus menyerang dan menyerang ummat Islam dan mengekalkan status sekutu kuat Israel.

Dengan pendedahan demi pendedahan ini diharapkan ummat akam memiliki pemikiran politik Islam yang lebih tajam. InsyaAllah...




Obama to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan


WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer in the first major military move of his presidency, White House officials said on Tuesday.

The increase would come on top of 36,000 American troops already there, making for an increase of nearly 50 percent. In issuing the order, Obama is choosing a middle ground, addressing urgent requests from commanders who have been pressing for reinforcements while postponing a more difficult judgment on a much larger increase in personnel that the commanders have been seeking.

In a written statement issued by the White House on Tuesday evening, Obama said that deteriorating security in Afghanistan demands "urgent attention and swift action" to address a problem that has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires."

White House officials said that 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will deploy in the next few weeks, aiming to be on the ground in Afghanistan by late spring, while an army brigade from Fort Lewis, Washington, composed of 4,000 soldiers, will deploy in the summer.

An additional 5,000 army support troops and so-called "enablers" will also be deploying in the summer, administration officials said, which will bring the number of troops deployed as part of this presidential order to 17,000. The decision does carries some political risks for Obama, whose election was interpreted by many Americans as a mandate to bring troops home from Iraq. But Obama has now announced additional American troops are headed to Afghanistan before he has withdrawn any troops from Iraq.

But White House officials said both of the units being sent to Afghanistan were originally supposed to be going to Iraq.

"We have the ability to do this because we will be drawing down in Iraq," a senior White House official said.

Obama is under pressure from his military commanders in Afghanistan, who have been pressing for reinforcements of about 30,000 soldiers, almost twice as many as the president has so far decided to send. The commanders hope to have additional forces in place by late spring or early summer as part to help counter growing violence and chaos in the country, particularly in advance of the upcoming presidential elections, which are expected to take place in August.

Obama will still have to make a decision on the additional troops that are part of General David McKiernan's standing request. Defense officials say that Obama cannot satisfy the full request from General McKiernan, the top American commander in Afghanistan, without withdrawing a substantial number of forces from Iraq.

Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, who is on his way home from his first trip to the region, is helping to conduct the administration's review of policy in Afghanistan. Administration officials say the review needs to be completed before Obama makes his first overseas trip as president, when he attends the NATO summit in France and Germany in April.

Obama is expected to press America's European allies at the summit for additional troops for Afghanistan, along with more development help.

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