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Obama: Afghan Mission Accomplished?
The President is hinting at a declare-victory-and-leave strategy, once proposed for Vietnam and more recently for Iraq, to end our decade-long war in Afghanistan.
In a TV interview, he says, “By killing Osama bin Laden, getting al Qaeda back on its heels, stabilizing much of the country in Afghanistan so that the Taliban can’t take it over…it’s now time for us to recognize that we’ve accomplished a big chunk of our mission and that it’s time for Afghans to take more responsibility.”
There will be no banners on aircraft carriers, but as Robert Gates leaves and Leon Panetta arrives as Secretary of Defense in the face of the troop drawdowns scheduled this summer when the “Surge” began at the end of 2009, the stars seem aligned for rethinking our mission there.
Add the pressures of public fatigue with the war, a temptation of huge budget savings and the shifting Middle East picture with Arab Spring uprisings, the original motives for waging the War on Terror in Afghanistan seem to have faded into some distant past.
Just as in Iraq, there is no just-get-up-and-go option, but a tipping point is clearly on the horizon.
MORE.
5 Responses to “Obama: Afghan Mission Accomplished?”
It’s about #$&* time.
Salvage whatever diplomacy you can with the tribal leaders (and maybe Karzai), and leave.
Right now, we’re simply delivering the Taliban’s victims to their door.
I was always a supporter of the surge. One last chance to get the country on the right path. We followed through and gave the Afghanistan government another shot at getting their crap together. I really don’t see much else we can do for the country at this point. They will have to fend for themselves eventually. We can’t stay there forever.
Pakistan and India are a mess, but I think we can still support the mission in Pakistan from other countries outside of Afgh or at least from small bases within the country.
It might be time to bring the troops home.
At this point I don’t care if we withdraw to preserve the world’s opium supply or whatever lame excuse. Just get out. There is no saving face, that went by the boards years ago when we took over the ineffective NATO effort and substituted our own ineffective effort.
The surge in Iraq was effective primarily because it was a withdrawal of American troops from 85% of the country. The surge in Afghanistan was doomed from the beginning because it spread us into the 70% of the country we hadn’t been in while increasing the troops by only 20%.
It’s time we concentrated our “nation building” here at home. We’ve wasted enough blood and treasure elsewhere.
Great we are all in agreement, lets get the hell outta there. Who do I contact?