Thread: Who's killing who?

Obama Afghanistan Plan Breaks Old Ground - TIME

I don't have any major qualms with what Obama outlined at the end of the week....

Did George Bush leave one of his old speeches in the Resolute Desk? As President Obama unveiled his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy Friday, it was hard to miss the echoes of his predecessor's "surge" strategy in Iraq. Indeed, says James Dobbins, the State Department veteran who served as President Bush's first envoy to Afghanistan, Obama's plan is "largely an extension of where the Bush Administration, in its last years, was heading,with some refinements and additions."

....except this one...

And finally, although Obama earlier this week insisted that any Afghanistan plan had to have an exit strategy, he notably avoided articulating one today — not unlike his predecessor on Iraq.

This seems to be more, and more, a classic Obama move. Say, one thing, nearly insist that is must or will happen. Then once the administration really digs into the issue, backtrack and miraculously what before was a necessity is no longer a necessity.

He is now doing the same thing on the Afghanistan issue he did on the Iraq issue. One of the core issues he campaigned on was getting out of Iraq in 16 months. Now the plan will have troops in Iraq not only beyond the 16 month he campaigned on, but troops will be there for years - not months longer.

Now, I'm not saying we need to have an exit strategy per say, but I was not telling folks before that we would have one either.


And some more on the exit srategy or lack there of:
The Washington Independent » The Exit Strategy: Afghan Security Forces. What?

On CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday, President Obama said “There’s got to be an exit strategy” for Afghanistan, but today he … didn't give one. What’s the story with that?

The chairpeople of the administration strategy review –former CIA official Bruce Riedel, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy — addressed that question in a press briefing today. They placed a U.S. exit in the context of Afghan security force capacity:

AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: The only exit strategy that Bruce and Michelle and I and the people we work for and with can see is pretty basic. We can leave as the Afghans can deal with their own security problems. That’s why the President today put emphasis on training the National Army, training and improving the National Police. And he said — and I would draw your attention to this — that there will be an increase in their numbers, although he did not give a precise figure. I’ve seen some in articles, particularly one in The New York Times the other day — those figures were figures kicking around in the planning process, but they weren’t sufficiently scrubbed down; they weren’t sufficiently costed out. So the President felt that he ought to just talk about the increase now and we’re going to keep working on it.

Seems to me that leaving when "the Afghans can deal with their own security problems" is not only not an exit strategy, but more of a goal that needs to be reached before we will exit. Not only is it not an exit strategy it is the same kind of open ended statement that Obama took Bush to task for as it relates to Iraq. In addition it might be a goal that might be unobtainable in Afghanistan.

For my two bits in Afghanistan we should throw everything we have at it until we capture or kill Osama. Then we should start to pull back in phases staying just long enough in mass to make sure the central government has been stabilized. Offering continued assistance to said central government at their request in specifc targeted campaigns/ development projects.

I find the combination of the first link above "Time" and this last link "BBC" kind of funny - the first one is harping on about how the Obama plans seems to be more of what Bush had been doing - taking the Bush surge plan in Iraq and implimenting it in Afganistan. While the last link is going on about how big of a change there is between what Obama just announced and what Bush had done in Afghanistan.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama breaks with Bush Afghan policy

The tone differed significantly when discussing the threat from militants and the rationale behind continuing America's involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
There was no "you're either with us or against us", no cowboy-like "we'll smoke them out of their holes", just a simple, stern message to al-Qaeda that "we will defeat you".

He signalled that Washington was in it together with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that the extremists the US was fighting were as much a threat to America as they were to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the US, our friends and our allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists," said Mr Obama. "The safety of people around the world is at stake," he added.

The upcoming NATO summit should be interesting.