Official: Obama Rejects All Afghan War Options - AP

[Kasz216]

famousringo said:

Kasz216 said:

famousringo said:

I_Heart_Nintendo said:
it doesn't look like he is going too bad with his promises, for someone who has only been in office for 1 year.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

Cool link, but here are the Afghan-specific promises:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/afghanistan/

A couple of those 'in the works' promises are in danger of being broken, though for perfectly understandable reasons, IMO.

 

As for who bears responsibility for this war, I don't blame Bush for invading Afghanistan. It is an understandable and just war. I blame Bush for starting the unjust invasion of Iraq, which diverted attention and resources away from Afghanistan and, more importantly, undermined the West's reputation in the region.

With things looking more upbeat in Iraq right now (though still a long way from resolved), it's ironic, but the greatest casualty of the war in Iraq might actually be the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq made it so that the person incharge of Afghanistan is tied to the main criminal warlords?

Sure. Since NATO wouldn't commit the forces necessary to secure more than Kabul, negotiation with the warlords was necessary to exert any kind of control whatsoever outside of the capital. Karzai's ability to negotiate with the warlords was one of the key reasons he got NATO backing in the first place. A serious commitment of military and financial resources — like, say, the 250,000 soldier Iraq invasion force — could have secured far more territory, locked up the border with Pakistan, and launched economic development projects to undermine the warlords and the Taliban.

But none of that happened. Instead the small coalition forces ran around in circles picking off Taliban while civilian casualties and bad PR from Iraq drew more and more sympathizers across the Pakistani border. Not having the resources to secure anything, they just moved into an area, killed whatever Taliban forces didn't escape them, and moved on to the next area, allowing the Taliban to move back in behind them.

All the myriad problems in Afghanistan — warlords, drugs, education, economic development, womens rights, the porous Pakistani border, etc. — have gone unaddressed until now because the problems in Iraq took precedence. The cost of Iraq has been roughly three times the cost of Afghanistan in terms of dollars and soldiers. It's hard not to wonder what might have been accomplished in Afghanistan if the resources committed to it had been quadrupled.

We dealt with the warlods WAY before we went into Iraq. 

Quadruple the resources would of just meant a more stable Afghanistan for Karazi to rule like a dictator.