As promised, the president will have his up-to-date review of how things are going in Afghanistan…….i have said that they are NOT going well at all, but I am in the minority….or at least I thought I was….
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds a record 60% of Americans “say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, a grim assessment — and a politically hazardous one — in advance of the Obama administration’s one-year review of its revised strategy.”
With that said the review that will be given to the president today will say…..
THE OVERVIEW
“Specific components of our strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan are working well and there are notable operational gains.
“Most important, al-Qa’ida’s senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001. In Pakistan, we are laying the foundation for a strategic partnership based on mutual respect and trust, through increased dialogue, improved cooperation, and enhanced exchange and assistance programs. And in Afghanistan, the momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible.
“While the strategy is showing progress across all three assessed areas of al-Qa’ida, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the challenge remains to make our gains durable and sustainable.”
(Thanx to Reuters for the overview)
First of all, what would you think it was going to say? Did you really thin it was going to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
The troops will start home next July….good sign? Nope…..it is to make it appear that part of the campaign promises are being upheld…….they rumor is we will reevaluate our mission (what ever that is) in 2014….what happens then? Another 10 years…maybe?
We Americans, the people as the politicians like to refer to us as, are dead set against this war and 60% are, if that was the Senate it would be the “super-majority” that we are always hearing about, why are we still there fighting a war that CANNOT be won? If we leave it to the generals, we will be there when my granddaughter turns 18 and we we there when she was born….I would say that is long enough….cut your loses and let the a/holes go back to the 12th century…….
I agree with you on that, but (there it is) the fact is that the US went in, in the first place, when it should not have done (which also applies to the UK).
However, if you leave now, few will be surprised, since America is fast creating an impression that this is what it always does – talks big, goes in guns blazing in cowboy style, finds out it is not quite as powerful as it thought it was and a few Taliban/Viet Cong/Shiite radicals, or whatever can make life pretty tough – so the US turns tail and runs whilst claiming victory and leaving the poor bastards that trusted the promises made that they’d to stay and fight on their behalf, behind to face the music. I guess the UK tends on average to be marginally better in that respect, but not much.
Oh so true…cowboy diplomacy is what got us in this fix in the first place….
Did you see where the Red Cross says the country is worse off than it has been in 30 years?
I caught a snatch of it – doesn’t surprise me. I don’t imagine it surprises you either.
Gotta love the propaganda that is fed to us, huh?
Oh yes. If there was honesty – like if the initial reasons given had been, “these guys are assholes and we’re gonna stuff ’em ‘cos they represent a danger,” then few would baulk at that, but the shit we get at present catches them out at every turn of events – largely because our governments want to be bad guys, but keep on pretending to be good guys.
Stupid, or what, eh?
Because this has lasted so long is because it effects a very small percentage of the population….and if you have noticed, the American media is doing its part to keep it going also….