Surging Toward Escalation

From Antiwar.com:

CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus says he has already made recommendations for a major troop surge in Afghanistan, modeled after the 2007 surge he oversaw in Iraq. The recommendations were based on requests from top commander General David McKiernan, who in an interview earlier this week said he has requested “more than 20,000 soldiers” added to those currently in Afghanistan.

Gen. Petraeus and many other US officials have credited the Iraq surge for the decline in violence in that nation. This claim continues in spite of reports which have shown that sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods, not the surge, was responsible for the drop in violence.

The wheels are already turning:

(CNN)  — The U.S. military plans to move three more combat brigades to Afghanistan by summer, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Gates landed Thursday in the Afghan city of Kandahar, where he was met by Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces battling a resurgent Taliban and its al Qaeda allies. Gates said the deployment will include one brigade that was scheduled to be sent to the 7-year-old conflict in January and two more that have yet to be named.