Obama's West Point speech offers hope but no surprises

Yesterday's night, President Barack Obama traveled to the oldest military academy in the United States to reveal his highly-touted strategy to fetch security to Afghanistan and eliminate terrorist safe havens that intimidate the region and the world.



Emphasizing the need to concern the strategy and resources he said had been lacking since the United States went into Afghanistan, Obama claimed his war plan will concern what's needed to succeed and bring the U.S. mission there to an final.

Obama conceded that his strategy will have a profound impact on its most firsthand audience: thousands of Army officers in training at the U.S. Military Academy who will be called on to carry it out.

According to President Obama's plan, the distribution of additional troops would factor in the current U.S. footprint in Afghanistan, which comprises about 68,000 troops -- a mixture of combat forces and trainers -- spread throughout, but with the east and south serving as focal points. Troops under NATO’s command add a addition of 42,000 troops.

The strategy also demands much from Afghanistan, calling on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to help grow Afghan sureness forces rapidly, concern better governance at the local and popular levels. Deployment lengths for U.S. service members will remain about the same -- seven months for Marines, and 12 months for soldiers. With the planned reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq to 50,000 by August 2010

In that way, Obama stated that only 30,000 more troops would be deployed, far fewer than the 60,000 originally requested by General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, or the 40,000 many anticipated as a compromise.

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