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Secret Report Urges Obama to Shift Afghanistan Strategy
The Page by Mark Halperin —
... Politico: Top Pentagon officials suggest he focus on regional stability and eliminating Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan, instead of lasting democracy.
Obama expected to announce his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan soon. ...
Scratch Obama's Afghanistan Rhetoric
Riehl World View —
... Or not. Same as it ever was. Hopefully he has the sense to realize Afghanistan would make Iraq look like a cakewalk and his campaign rhetoric was "just words". ...
Duh du Jour
N/A —
... Fun place! Psst. There is a not so secret report out from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “In their report, the Chiefs concluded that the existing American goals in Afghanistan, established by the Bush administration, are overly broad and ambitious.” Duh. Hubris is a hydra. Long land wars in south Asia have a long history of success. For the locals. ...
Duh du Jour
Shakesville —
... Fun place! Psst. There is a not so secret report out from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "In their report, the Chiefs concluded that the existing American goals in Afghanistan, established by the Bush administration, are overly broad and ambitious." Duh. Hubris is a hydra. Long land wars in south Asia have a long history of success. For the locals.
New Troop Deployments to Afghanistan Will Only Feed Insurgency, Says Report
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo —
... and its NATO partners recognize that Afghanistan is slowly slipping away, back towards the chaos that gave birth to the Taliban and played host to Al Qaeda. The solution, most say, is to withdraw US troops from Iraq and redeploy combat units to Afghanistan, where they will establish the level of security required for political and social development to occur. (Though, it must be said, European governments are loathe to shoulder much of the burden.) Just this morning, Politico reports that Obama will soon request that at least another 10,000 troops deploy ...
Shhh: Al Qaeda leadership decimated, complete defeat foreseeable
Hot Air » Top Picks —
... reduction in al-Qaida senior leadership that we’ve seen in several years.”… “In the past, you could take out the No. 3 al-Qaida leader, and No. 4 just moved up to take his place,” says one official. “Well, if you take out No. 3, No. 4 and then 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult to revive the leadership cadre.” It ain’t all good news — 100 operatives who trained at the camps are thought to be on the loose and the Taliban keeps forcing the U.S. to lower expectations in Afghanistan — but it’s a big deal. See my update to Ed’s post ...
Joint Chiefs on Afghanistan: Lower Expectations
The Corner on National Review Online —
[image] [image] NRO BLOG ROW | THE CORNER | ARCHIVES SEARCH E-MAIL PRINT RSS [image] Tuesday, February 03, 2009 [image] Joint Chiefs on Afghanistan: Lower Expectations [NRO Staff] 02/03 02:07 PM [image] [image] [image] © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved. Home | Search | NR / Digital | Donate | Media Kit | Contact Us
Obama's Winning!
JustOneMinute —
... sensitivities surrounding the CIA campaign. They also insist it is too early to declare victory in the struggle against al-Qaida in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, and they caution that a number of the factors that explain the recent successes could yet be reversed. The truly paranoid will wonder about the motivation of the "senior US officials" offering this info. Maybe they are Obama-boosters trying to talk up the prospects of success in Afghanistan. Maybe it is tied to this report saying the Pentagon wants to switch the goal in Afghanistan from naion-building to ...
Aim Low, Goal In Sight
Jules Crittenden —
... al-Qaida leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior U.S. officials, that it is now possible to foresee a “complete al-Qaida defeat” in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan. The officials say the terrorist network’s leadership cadre has been “decimated,” with up to a dozen senior and midlevel operatives killed as a result of the strikes and the remaining leaders reeling from the repeated attacks. Politico : The Pentagon’s top military officers are recommending to President Barack Obama that ...
With No End Game in Sight, the Time Has Come to Rethink Afghanistan
Open Left - Front Page —
... Already, the Pentagon is backing away from the Bush administration's ludicrous goals of building a lasting democracy in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. They plan instead to shift focus to eliminating Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens and establishing regional stability between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And yet even this limited objective has the President requesting at least 10,000 more troops to the war-torn region--the first of several planned deployments. This escalation, according to a new report from the ...
