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Quotes on Afghanistan
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"If the government's (Afghanistan) a criminal syndicate a year from now, how will troops make a difference?"
Vice President Joe Biden "It smells like a gamble. You shouldn't base this on sort
of unexpected windfall of luck." General Douglas Lute on sending 30,000 more troops to Afhganistan "I
don't know if they can ever pull this off. How do you leave." Antony Blinken said after visiting the war zone
in Afghanistan in 2009 "I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting...
This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives." Gen. Petraeus
on the war in Afghanistan "It can't work." Richard Holbrooke on the 30,000
US troop increase in Afghanistan Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary said that the July 2011
pullout date for US forces in Afghanistan was etched in stone because he had the chisel to prove it. "We
should have a plan that says 18 to 24 months. We will begin reducing our forces, thinning them out. " Robert
Gates, Secretary of Defense
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Source: www.newsweek.com 7/19/10: Richard Haass discusses his NEWSWEEK cover story, "Rethinking Afghanistan: We're
Not Winning. It's Not Worth It."
Source: www.politico.com Political
news coverage from POLITICO.com on Congress and Capitol Hill. Blog postings in Politico Live from John Bresnahan, Patrick
O'Connor, Josephine Hearn, Daniel W. Reilly, and Josh Kraushaar. Complete ... Source: www.npr.org The nation's
top military officer says more U.S. troops will likely be needed to win the war in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen's comments
before the Senate Armed Services committee came as Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan underscored his opposition to
additional forces, and Sen. John McCain, the committee's ranking Republican, shot back that any delay in sending troop
reinforcements would have catastrophic consequences. Source: www.nytimes.com Prosecutors
charge Blackwater guards repeatedly shot into the streets of Baghdad without regard for civilians. It’s
not every day that retired generals denounce a Vice President. But two distinguished military leaders felt compelled to speak
out against Mr. Cheney’s support of torture, in an op-ed in today’s Miami Herald. (full article below) Help
us fight back against Mr... General Charles C. Krulak and General Joseph P. Hoar have this to say:
In the fear that followed
9/11, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to “take off the gloves.” As a former Commandant
of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster.
But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a Vice President of the United States, a man who
has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick
Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas – and his scare tactics.
It’s Time for a New Course in Afghanistan/ Senator Feingold's petition: | |
Eight years after the war in Afghanistan began, I agree with Senator Feingold and believe that
the time has come for a flexible timetable to withdraw our brave troops from that country. Continuing to send more troops
into Afghanistan, with no end in sight, is not a well-thought out strategy. The time has come to plot a new course one that
helps us to succeed in Afghanistan and strengthens our own national security. |
Source: www.govtrack.us A bill
in the U.S. Congress: To require the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress outlining the United States exit
strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan participating in Operation Enduring Freedom.
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Time to Get Out of Afghanistan Tuesday, September 1, 2009
"Yesterday,"
reads the e-mail from Allen, a Marine in Afghanistan, "I gave blood because a Marine, while
out on patrol, stepped on a [mine's] pressure plate and lost both legs." Then "another
Marine with a bullet wound to the head was brought in. Both Marines died this morning." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102912.html
Source:
www.nytimes.com Demonstrations,
lobbying, teach-ins and memorials in October are to publicize the casualty count and cost of
the war and pressure Congress to demand an exit strategy.
Politico - Oct 18, 2009
By POLITICO STAFF | 10/18/09 9:01 AM EDT In an interview taped during his
trip to Afghanistan this week, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass. ... Why America Should Withdraw from Afghanistan | Newsweek Issues 2009: Rules for a New World Victory there won't look like you think. Time to get out and give up on nation building. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston
University, and the author, most recently, of “The Limits of Power: The End of American
Exceptionalism.” http://www.newsweek.com/id/177374/page/1 Conservative columnist Diana West comes out against the war in Afghanistan in two editorials Conservative
columnist slams McChrystal's reporthttp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/McChrystal_s-strategy-won_t-win-Afghanistan-8294967-61455827.html "Fire the General" (McChrystal) Oct 3, 2009 ... Today's column is for all hawkish
Americans currently wrestling with looming doubts about the pointlessness of the US mission in
Afghanistan ... ...not by basing, supplying and supporting a military
colossus in Islamic, landlocked Central Asia. It is time, as retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul
Vallely first told me last April, to "let Afghanistan go." It is not in our interests
to civilize it.
Urge Your Reps to Support a Timetable for Withdrawal from Afghanistanhttp://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1439/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3035
This month, we have a rare opportunity to fundamentally change the course of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan:
Senator Russ Feingold, Representative Jim McGovern, and Representative Walter Jones have introduced legislation -- H.R. 5015 in the House and S. 3197 in the Senate -- that would require President Obama to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces.
If this legislation attracts enough support, it could reach the House floor as an amendment, allowing Congress a fundamental
-- and widely reported -- vote on the direction of U.S. policy. The key idea of the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill
is straightforward. By January 1 - or within 3 months of the enactment of the bill, if that is earlier - the President
is required to submit to Congress a plan for the redeployment of the U.S. military from Afghanistan, with a timetable for
doing so. After submitting the plan, the President has to update Congress every 90 days on how the implementation of the
plan is going. Would you help build support for this important legislation by asking your Representative and Senators
to co-sponsor the Feingold-McGovern-Jones bill? Email
your Representative
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washingtonexaminer.com — Howell explains that seven years of military and civilian aid have neither destroyed Al
Qaeda in Afghanistan nor the Taliban. "There can be no guarantee," Howells writes, "that
the next seven years will bring significantly greater success and, even if they do, it is salutary
to remember that Afghanistan has never been the sole location of terroris Source: www.huffingtonpost.com I
am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without
becoming a one-term president. I think that may be true.
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The
war drags on...www.politicsdaily.com Afghan President
Karzai's meetings in Washington this week ended with no sign of a badly needed joint political
strategy to buttress the U.S.-led 5/12/10 at 5:00 AM By David Corn If someone were to tell you they wanted to spend $100 billion a year on a project but
couldn't fully describe its goal, you'd probably think twice before saying, go for it.
But that's what President Barack Obama is doing with the war in Afghanistan -- according
to an Obama-friendly think tank. This week, as Obama meets in Washington with Afghanistan's
president, Hamid Karzai, the Center for American Progress released a study that contained a stunning
conclusion. Obama administration officials, it declares, "need greater clarity of purpose in defining their
end-state goals" in Afghanistan. ...
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