Afghanistan has an Islamic constitution. Since the problem is Islam and those in power can't or won't admit it, failure is inevitable .
Posted on 06/20/2010 7:49:12 PM PDT by jazusamo
Key Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) on Sunday said "failure is not an option" in Afghanistan.
Asked to respond to the growing defiance on the part of the Taliban in the war-torn country, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman told CNN host Candy Crowley "failure is not an option. ... Either the Taliban becomes a force for good, participates in government -- we're not there yet -- or it has to be defeated. And I think there are consequential steps that have been made. We very carefully track the taking down of leadership and I think that's moving along."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on "Fox News Sunday" that the Afghan army "will be ready to assume primary responsibility for security in certain areas of Afghanistan" by the July 2011 goal.
Gates called the Kandahar operation a "a tough pull, and we are suffering significant casualties. We expected that."
Gates stressed that progress was being made despite the mounting casualties.
The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar (Ind.), noted that the U.S. hasn't defined success in Afghanistan, thus making a withdrawal deadline a tricky decision.
"That's a part of our problem, that we're going to have to, as a government, whether it be the president or the Congress, define success in a way in which the American people find this to be satisfying. Otherwise, we'll continue to argue about the date of withdrawal or how fast or how -- whether we surge more or less -- without ever having defined exactly what it is we hope from Afghanistan," Lugar told Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning.
Further, Lugar said, "we have a lot of troops still there after July 1."
Failure’s not an option, it’s a requirement.
No failure in that hell hole is inevitable.
In another thread, Rahm said the witrhdrawal date is “certain.” If that’s the case, failure is indeed not an option, it is a CERTAINTY.
These people are idiots.
If failure is certain if we withdraw troops, it is more proof that the Bush/Obama nation building effort was doomed to failure from the beginning. If the our corrupt friend Karzai can’t cut the mustard after all these years (and an almost entirely absent Al Qaeda), he was not worth the bet in the first place.
Quite.
I guess she has not spoken to Emanuel.
Exactly...None of the Rats know what the others are saying.
Giant liberal Democrats suddenly sound like hawks.
Welcome to Obamaland....
There, I feel better now.
“Either the Taliban becomes a force for good...”
What parallel universe do these people live on again?
Afghanistan has an Islamic constitution. Since the problem is Islam and those in power can't or won't admit it, failure is inevitable .
They don’t have to endure from Republicans the daily carping, the “all is lost” wailing, the straight-out defeatism that THEY dished-out on a daily basis for years.
If failure is certain if we withdraw troops, it is more proof that the Bush/Obama nation building effort was doomed to failure from the beginning. If the our corrupt friend Karzai can’t cut the mustard after all these years (and an almost entirely absent Al Qaeda), he was not worth the bet in the first place.
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Karzai has always been optional, in my view. We put him in, we can take him out. Al Queda, however, has NEVER been “almost entirely absent,” unless you count the times they launch attacks and then retreat to the relative safety and sanctuary of Pakistan’s frontier, or Iran, which we won’t dare touch, and maybe even north into the Chinese and Russian frontier as well.
Afghanistan was allowed to get out of control — because our enemies are allowed to retreat to off limits refuges where we can’t touch them — sort of like Cambodia during the Vietnam War. That’s one of the inherent problems of fighting in Afghanistan.
So, want to win in Afghanistan? Here’s a SIMPLE plan: (1) use OVERWHELMING numerical and violent FORCE; (2) serve notice to Afghanistan’s neighbors that if they knowingly give refuge to Taliban or Al Queda fighters we will (a) send our forces into their nation to capture or kill them, and (b) regard their forces as enemy combatants; (3) be willing to use ANY and ALL weapons at our disposal, up to and including tactical hukes, to destroy Al Queda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. If they are in a cave under a half mile of mountains, nuke the cave; (4) STOP trying to fight a war by rules of engagement that our enemy will NEVER observe. It puts us at a grave disadvantage and gives them the decided edge. It’s a WAR. Bad things happen. Trying to make war MORE palatable helps NO ONE. War ought to be as godawful as possible so NO sane person wants it to happen ever again.... (5) STOP setting arbitrary deadlines. That gives our enemies HOPE that they can outwait us. NO! The Islamofascists think in terms of Centuries, we in the West tend to think in terms of no more than seconds, minutes or perhaps hours or days. In a war, that means they win by attrition. NO! We have to STOP that.We must be willing to at least appear to fight indefinitely — and then we must be willing to use enough deadly and overwhelming force to win reasonably quickly — and terribly, so that no one will challenge us in the manner we saw on 9/11 ever again.
Those lessons are lost on Liberals, and the “head-in-the-sand” isolationist types like Ron Paul. But we can’t turn back the clock or make our enemies UNhate us. We can pretend they will stop, but we’re only lying to ourselves. We either win, or convert to Islam. That’s the ultimate choice we’ll be left with — or our kids will be. Believing anything else is the most blatant form of willful ignorance...
Babe, failure is not an option.....it’s the PLAN.
So that whole democracy thing was a sham and a fraud intended to fool the American sheeple eh? Thanks for admitting it. I wish that other Paul haters would be similarly honest.
So that whole democracy thing was a sham and a fraud intended to fool the American sheeple eh? Thanks for admitting it. I wish that other Paul haters would be similarly honest.
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Yeah — nice try. You are reading into my words something I DID NOT SAY. Our military made that ENTIRE “democracy thing” (as you so flippantly refer to it) POSSIBLE. That doesn’t mean they’ll get it RIGHT the first time — or the second or third.
Remember, the Palestinians in Gaza did the “Democracy thing” about 4 years ago now — and elected HAMAS. So, what should we have done about them?! We should have let Israel LEVEL Gaza — once and for all.
Afghanistan has a right to exist, and to do so freely — but not at the expense of other nations. Not with the desires and designs of victimizing other nations. The Taliban and their close cousins in Al Queda exist for that ONE reason — because they are Islamofascists, and they know no other creed or purpose.
If President Karzai wishes to STOP them, or to enrich himself and co-exist WITH them, then he is a liability to both Afghanistan and to the Free World, and he should be removed from power. Infant democracies sometimes have to be guided in the way they should go. If we simply abandon them to fate, or to those who would be their oppressors, shortly, in our lifetimes, those oppressors will be knocking on OUR front doors....History is NOT short on examples of this lesson....
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