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As President Obama announced the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. campaign in the Central Asian country is off to a bloody start this year. After conducting a death count, the Associated Press has learned that two months into 2009, the number of U.S. troop fatalities has increased threefold compared to a year ago. With 38,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan, twenty-nine soldiers have lost their lives in January and February alone outpacing the current ratio in Iraq. The news agency has also reported that, thus far, U.S. and NATO forces have killed forty more civilians than Afghan militants have in the new year. President Obama, who last week requested $205 billion dollars through the end of the 2010 fiscal year to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has acknowledged that even more troop deaths may result as combat operations increase saying, “That is something we will have to monitor very carefully.” According to an ABC News\/ Washington Post poll, sixty-four percent of Americans support President Obama\u2019s call for additional forces. In contrast, a poll of Afghans by the Washington Post in mid-February showed that 44% of Afghans want the number of US troops to decline, compared to only 18% who want troops increased.<\/p>\n
GUEST: Khushal Arsala, contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, is a former Afghan diplomat and a student at the University of San Francisco<\/em><\/p>\n