Comments on: General’s Afghan report just PR?

By: admin

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:26:17 +0000

By “win it” I mean that we could reach an resolution that would be good for both the people of Afghanistan and the U.S. And I do think you have a point about the oil pipeline. The leaking of the report could be part of a plan with with more than just one result.

By: Michael Rosenfeld

Michael Rosenfeld — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:40:53 +0000

Win it? What does that mean?

I suspect the demand for oil being down, the funding is not there for the pipeline they want to build, so there’s no big need to win anything at the moment. Or maybe Karzai is bargaining for a larger piece of the pie and our not sending in more troops is a way of saying to him, “What pie?”

By: admin

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:50:02 +0000

That all makes sense to me,except the part about losing this one. We were badly damaged in many ways by invading Iraq on false charges, but I think we could win the struggle for the hearts and minds in Afghanistan by using the United Nations and our state department there instead of the Pentagon. Massive and carefully monitored aid to all regions of Afghanistan along with UN peacekeepers might just win it.

By: laura vecsey

laura vecsey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:49:49 +0000

This administration doesn’t leak, not without reason. The Obama camp won the election because of their discipline. So, then, let’s assume that Karzai is far more alarmingly adept at playing the U.S. and the U.S. alarmed at having to commit to such dysfunctional place? That could mean leakers want to take an informal poll of Americans to judge their will to send troops and nation build. Bob Casey came back from Afghanistan two weeks ago railing against Karzai but saying he would wait to see what McChrystal said about strategy. THey like that general, so it’s hard to see how they wont honor the report that says you have to send more troops to have a chance at keeping Taliban and terrorists from really ruling the rubble.

I think we lost this one the minute we invaded Iraq, for no reason. So we should get out. I almost agreed with Pat Buchanan, which is mind-boggling. We aren;t in Yemen or Somalia, other wastelands where terrorists operate. So what can we expect to accomplish in Afghanistan? We screwed that up when we stormed across Iraq.