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Fix faulty Afghan policy

Friday, November 6, 2009

(Updated 3:00 am)

Hillary Clinton is now saying things that should have been said 10 years ago.

Pakistan has been dragging its feet from the start. They have played the American taxpayer like a fiddle.

Afghanistan is no different. Where do you think all the heroin comes from that is being sold in this country to buy bullets and weapons to kill our soldiers? Our fight is here in this country, not in a poppy field a world away where you can trust no one.

Ken Sawyer
High Point

What do you think?

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J D R

November 6, 2009 - 6:29 am EST

"Since 9/11, the U.S. policy in Afghanistan relied entirely on the promised cooperation from the Pakistan Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence in hunting down Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It took nearly six years after 9/11 for the U.S. security establishment to convince itself that the Pakistan Army and the ISI were hunting with the hounds and running with the hare."

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/22/bush-pakistan-afghanistan-oped-cx_crm_0...

" .. $66 million have been allocated by the U.S. for educational reform; $1 billion have been given to ... General Musharraf for acquiring F-16 aircraft ... the point .. the [relationship] imbalance ... favors General Musharraf, the Pakistani military, and Pakistan's elite. Every year, 3 percent more Pakistanis are falling below the poverty line; already 33 percent of Pakistanis live below the poverty line .. while I'm in favor of economic growth ... Musharraf essentially is more like a Shah figure, in Iran before the revolution, where there's a large number of people down below who are unhappy and American policy is not taking that into consideration at all, while favoring the one person they think is bringing stability to the country."

Sawdust

November 6, 2009 - 8:49 am EST

I suspect that the main reason for our incoherent policy in Afghanistan is that Obama doesn't have a clue. No Chicago ploitical hack has a clue about national security. They can't even keep their schols safe, much less the whole world.

Obama lacks in many areas, leadership being near the top. If he grants the requested 40,000 additional troops, the nutjobs on the left will go ballistic. If he retreats, he will be seen as a weak leader, which of course he is, but the moonstream media will do its best to conceal that fact. So he dithers, while our soldiers die for lack of support, and the Afghan civilians are deciding which side to take. Right now our side looks to be the loser.

Look for another Vietnam, where Obama puts forth a half-heartd effort, not enough to win, just enough to get a lot of our soldiers killed.

J D R

November 6, 2009 - 9:11 pm EST

"I suspect that the main reason for our incoherent policy in Afghanistan is that Obama doesn't have a clue."

Sawdust .. check out those links .. the policy in Afghanistan may be incoherent .. and Obama may not have a clue ... but the incoherent Afghanistan policy was inherited by Obama. Please put your bias aside and study the details. Thanks in advance.

Sawdust

November 7, 2009 - 7:08 am EST

As of 1/20/2009, it became Obama's war. The incoherent policy of today is Obama's policy. He can change it any time he chooses. That, unlike reforming health care, is part of his job. That's what we hired him to do. But he, like all of his starry-eyed supporters, intends to blame someone else for all troubles until the end of time. It's called lack of leadership.