Obama's troop surge stirs mixed reactions

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's Tuesday announcement to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan has stirred skepticism and limited support from home on Wednesday, and the question whether U.S. troops can come home as promised has created anxiety among the U.S. public.

U.S. President Barack Obama's Tuesday announcement  to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan has stirred  skepticism and limited support from home on Wednesday,  and the question whether U.S. troops can come home  as promised has created anxiety among the U.S. public.

Lorraine Burke, a Nevada resident, said she's not sure whether more troops will help to counter the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan. But she thought the administration didn't have much choice.

"At this point, it's important to try to see what can be done, and as soon as we can, come back to the USA," she said.

Obama's announcement drew wide attention from home. Burke said she watched almost all of it on Tuesday night, and Barrett Coch, aTexan, said he couldn't catch it live but managed to tape it.

Coch said he wasn't impressed with the new strategy, saying the same thing had happened before: "Everything seemed to go back to normal, then we left, and all of a sudden it's back to the same situation."

He said he would like to see the money spent domestically.

Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2007 announced a troop surge in Iraq, sending more than 20,000 soldiers to that country. According to government and military officials, the surge led to improvement in Iraqi security.

Christopher A. Preble, foreign policy studies director of the bipartisan think-tank Cato Institute, said Afghanistan is very different from Iraq, and it's not possible for the United States to concentrate its forces in one or two places, such as in Iraq's case.

He said Obama has "invested so much, (and) we have defined success with a set of very ambitious objectives," so anything less would be met with harsh criticism.