Posted on 07/02/2010 8:00:45 PM PDT by SmartInsight
We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support. We did not reaffirm our basic values, or secure our homeland.
And so, a little more than a year after that bright September day, I was in the streets of Chicago again, this time speaking at a rally in opposition to war in Iraq. I did not oppose all wars, I said. I was a strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan. But I said I could not support "a dumb war, a rash war" in Iraq. I worried about a " U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences" in the heart of the Muslim world. I pleaded that we "finish the fight with bin Ladin and al Qaeda."
When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.
The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at barackobama.com ...
All Hussein is doing is getting a bunch of kids killed for nothing, as he intends to cut and run next July anyway.
Well that's pretty much nonsense. You might want to read some history....just a thought.
Shoot. I could raise money for anyone NOT a democrat at this point. Was it Steele, or was it the hate for the grand zero and administration in office?
“Fist, Afghanistan is not a cohesive country.”
But if it is true that there is great wealth underground in mineral resources, then the warlords may join forces to bring the country into the 21st century.
“We are incapable with our rules and our war ethics, of doing what is required to tame this country.”
Not killing those who want to raise a family makes sense to me. The Taliban killed those who would bring cohesiveness to the nation. The Petraeus plan of progress would work in Somalia!
“The third thing ... (was) outside help in the form of the nasty bastards called Alqueda in Iraq. If AQ had not pissed of the locals to the point of them making a alliance with the U.S. to defeat the AQ insurgency, we would still be fighting them all.”
Well, the people in the towns don’t like being blown up or shot. The Taliban, as stated before, are the enemy, and if the people see that we are willing to bring them a stable society, with education being utmost, what parent wouldn’t want that for their kids? Especially if it is not based on heroin production that destroys families.
The future of Afghanistan lies in its national natural resources. I have often wondered why Africa has not been given this same opportunity. America was blessed with hard workers and the resources to create. Now with a world economy, the world market can use every asset.
Have some hope there, Jack. We are not skinning cats, we are building a free nation.
Forgive me for responding to your reasonable and detailed post this way, but it is the only response it deserves:
Another reader of Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book of War is heard from!
Your basic points are the exact same points—I repeat, THE EXACT SAME POINTS—that we heard in 2006 that “proved” the surge would never work.
The only thing with will made Afghanistan a peaceful country is 5 well placed nukes. It will be depopulated and quite peaceful.
Just because the naive smack-talking poser obama politicized the war to use in his campaign, does not make it “obama’s war”
Afghanistan is America’s war
and we did not choose it- the islamofascists chose it when the taliban ignored President Bush’s demand and deadline to sever ties with and turn over Bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders after 9-11
Steele made (an)other idiot comment. He should resign or be put on minimum wage until he does
Curious..why do they hate him?
I haven’t been keeping up with Steele lately.
All this invisible mineral wealth just came out of the blue during the past few weeks. It's inaccessible! I don't know that it even exists! Do you believe the administration? The UN.????
Does it matter to you that if there is a large mineral base that it will take 20 years just to build roads to it. Much less build a government and a society that tolerates free capitalism. How long does that take, and who will pay for it?
The Taliban was accepted over a time frame of months, yet we have been there fighting over the same ground, over and over again for seven years.
What's wrong with this picture?
The only place in this rock pile that exhibits any sign of modernity is Kabul and it's been that way for decades and never changes.
It won't and it can't because Afghanistan will never be a country in the foreseeable future..
This area has been a mess since dirt was invented and the British Empire fouled it up even more. The UN finished it off with borders that cannot work....not ever.
I say let it reform it's borders and it's economies on it's own via warfare, and by way of that warfare and reformation, they will once again leave us alone while we watch and contain. Better they kill each other then us. We are wasting our resources , our blood and our time.
Iraq was always the key to a reform effort. Afghanistan was and is a territorial issue that affects the stability of Pakistan, and by extension India because of the Nuke capabilities of both.
Afghanistan was never and will never be worth attempting nation building unless and until the social structure and it's feudal nature has been changed, and the only way that happens is not with money or good intentions, it happens when one group defeats militarily all the others by killing most of them, enslaving the rest or controlling them with a iron fist for decades.
If you look at the former Russian empire, you will see that it is putting it's self back together to a large degree because it was not ready to be broken up.
When we screw with this natural ebb and flow of reform with our version of what a society should be, it always blows up in our faces.
In the end, we realized this in Iraq and we are are letting them reform in their own image of themselves.
In Afghanistan, we realized that a surge or occupation was not going to work as it had in Iraq. The template was not there. The motivation was not there. The education level was not there!
Pakistan, on the other hand is Pashtun to a great degree and can, over time, develop Afghanistan, if we encourage this to happen. They need the farm land in the west and can develop the resources and infrastructure if the wealth is really there.
This lack of land a resources is what keeps them and India at eat others throats for that prime valley on their shared border. I think all this mess with India, Pakistan and other regional issues will be mitigated by just giving Afghanistan to the Paks or at least most of it, and some to the bordering nation states that have settled those areas with their people anyway.
Just break it up and put the UN and British mistakes in the past. Like I said, this is the GAZA of this area. It is not a country.
It took some time before he got his feet on the ground regarding the politics of the GOP and he says boneheaded things from time to time.
however, the day I let Bill Krystol, a liberal neocon hawk, start pulling my strings, I will dig a hole and crawl in it.
It seems this forum lacks the sophistication to understand the players in the party and differentiate them from the enemy....The Democrat spin machine.
Sorry for the typos.....fat fingers and the spell checker sucks at times.
Sorry for the typos.....fat fingers and the spell checker sucks at times.
Now the forum is slowing again..(causing doubles)..I gotta get out of here. You would think this thing would work better after all these years.
Curious..why do they hate him?
I haven’t been keeping up with Steele lately.
As to Steele, he is a true Reagan repub. People attacking him today are simply mistaken as to his politics. Reagan never would have mounted a surge in a worthless country. I don't think he would have gone into Iraq. he would have used B-52s! The policy of the GOP until 9/11 and since 1951 was "No Nation Building! Ever Again!"
You see we tried it twice since 51 and got our asses handed to us politically! This country may well have the good intentions and the good will but it does not have the political will to nation build in a foreign land while loosing blood and treasure for very long and we have far exceeded that time limitation. We are just not good at it and the GOP right up to the day of 9/11 had a policy of not doing it. We even made Bush pledge he would never attempt it on our watch. Both Bush's.
Now we have done a major investment in Iraq, one that I think may well be worth it in the long term, but do we have the political will to reengage in Iraq to protect that investment?
I think not...... and if not we lose it all again.....
So it follows, after two failed attempts in Korea and S. Vietnam, a third may well fail and a fourth is underway, that the Republicans like myself who have been around for a while would be just a little bit reluctant to continue what appears to be political madness and do our best to try to lay this fourth failure at a democrat's feet rather than accept the blame for it politically again for the fourth time! Not that it matters who began it because we always have to take the heat for ending it
But hey! That is exactly what I heard Carl Rove do this morning on FOX. Steele tried to lay it on Obama and Rove attacked Steele a layed it back on Bush and the Republican Party.
This is bizzaroville. You don't win elections this way. But hey, I said the same thing in 2006.
Got any names of people he helped win?
I know Sarah has helped a few Republicans win.
“the war in Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing.” “This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in,” Steele told the group.
That is what Steele said, and I can’t find any fact or logic in it. To hear Steele tell it, we didn’t invade Afghanistan until Jan 09.
Over the past several days and weeks, the rhetoric in DC has been that Obama made Afghanistan his own by attacking Bush for fighting the wrong war. He then did this surge and he owns this war! It's a irrefutable political fact, and any failure belong to him and not Bush.
But for some reason the headline comes out like he is being critical of the troops or some other crap spread by the DNC.
Even Carl Rove fell for it.
Like I said, Steele can't ever get his foot out of his mouth, but it's not all his fault. He has enemies galore and no friends.
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