Obama in Afghanistan
March 29th, 2010 at 9:53 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
President Barack Obama has told American forces during his surprise visit to Afghanistan that US lives would be at risk if the Taleban retake control of the country.
Not just US lives.
Karzai promised that his country “would move forward into the future” to eventually take over its own security, and he thanked Obama for the American intervention in his country.
He told Obama he has begun to establish more credible national institutions on corruption and made clear he intends to make ministerial appointments more representative of the multiple ethnic and geographic regions of the country, according to a US account of the meeting.
Obama’s trip was intended to emphasise US demands that Karzai deal with corruption and cut the flow of money from poppy production and drug trafficking that is sustaining the insurgency. The US also wants Karzai to create an effective, credible judicial system and to halt cronyism and rewards for warlords in government hiring.
I think Iraq is on track to be a relatively successful country by 2020. Afghanistan, I am not so sure about – but I agree with Obama this is no time to quit.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:20 am
It is indeed no time to quit.
However, this fraud of a President campaigned on ending the war/s, closing Gitmo and the evils of the patriot act.
We still have two wars (totally justifiable wars IMHO)
Gitmo is still open (and so it bloody should be)
The patriot act is still in use.
Where are the trendy lefties and Hollywood types now?, you could not shut them up when Bush was in power.
B Hussein Messiah Obama is a joke, the only consolation one can take is that Obamabi will definitely be a one term wonder.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 10:23 am
bruv – Matt Damon is upset Obama has done enough.
matt damon
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 10:41 am
“I feel safer already”.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 10:48 am
I wonder if he performed a proskynesis to karzai or just gave him a bow?
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 11:01 am
did he apologise on behalf of the US?
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 11:03 am
What a weasle the guy is.
The only “achievment” hes managed so far is to put the enxt five generations of Americans in debt and give them the miracle of waiting lists.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Campaign promise FAIL.
The douche has discovered that being elected President of the United States of America involves being on the same side as your armed forces. Maybe he will discover soon that acting in the best interests of America involves treating your allies with respect, and not shitting all over them, as he has done with the UK and Israel.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Murray: wasn’t Obama that put the next five generations of Americans in debt as we all should know. Importantly though, he hasn’t done shit to get the USA out of debt, and that’s my problem with him and the Democrats. Lots of pretty rhetoric, but a failure to keep the party in line and get things done: the healthcare reform being the sole significant exception and even there he couldn’t get it done particularly close to what he wanted (not saying it’s a good bill, just that it’s a significant piece of policy).
But lets not kid ourselves, neither Republicans nor Democrats, or their Presidential candidates, have the balls to make the significant and necessary changes, particularly with the partisanship that the system has encouraged and hysterical media coverage that would eventuate against both sides if they tried (see the health bill: it’s probably not a good bill, but the absolute hysteria and misinterpretation that went on was cynical and self-serving: death camps, crock of shit). Both parties have acted cynically and expanded the deficit. When the time comes that it’s absolutely necessary, they’ll blame each other.
As for Gitmo, he tried to close it, didn’t he?
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
One of the major differences between Iraq and Afghanistan is that Iraq actually has a tradition of being a centrally governed viable country. Admittedly the central government was pretty crappy in terms of being run by a despot who liked to start wars but in terms of providing a degree of stability Iraq is light years ahead. They should be even further ahead but for some of the incredibly stupid US tactics and Rumsfield et al’s insistence on doing war on the cheap. Winning the war was always going to be the easy part but the lack of troops for occupation and the blind ideology behind disbanding the army (probably the one function, if somewhat bloodied, body in Iraq post Mission Accomplished) was a major mistake. A five year mistake in Iraq and five wasted years in Afghanistan.
Nonetheless the situation is as it is and needs to be dealt with. Ironically Obama has been able to do a surge with little criticism simply because he is not George Bush (isn’t democratic politics wonderful?). Afghanistan is vital in my opinion as it denies bad guys a geographical base. It is also on the boarder with nuclear and unstable Pakistan – the pressure on bad guys has to be maintained on both sides of the border. Will Afghanistan become a viable and functioning democracy in the short to medium term? Probably not. But an Afghanistan were al-quaeda cannot roam at will and the worst excesses of the Taliban are dead and the rest bought off or just melted back into the population is probably a win.
Packing up and going home because it is all too hard will just see Afghanistan return to some sort of pre 2001 state of upheavel and threat to the West.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Well JiveKitty, I guess you’re referring to Bush putting up with the first three-quarter trillion or so bucks of….American monopoly money. Or should the blame really be laid at the feet of Clinton & his Dem congressional cronies & their, to a large degree, left-to-fester sub-prime mess. Nevertheless hisself/Obama has stumped up even more & then dumped a massive (un)health(y) bureaucracy on top of that!
Of course, since he’s been privy to the situation (doh!), he can only see fit to continue the Bush strategy of, by and large (as GPT1 has outlined), keeping the troublemakers ducking for cover.
Obama was a good campaigner though….sighs.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
You could “hope” he’ll “change” Dazzman.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
@Dazzaman: I know Bush expanded spending significantly, but I think the roots of the problem go further than him. For many years now, there’s been a lot of profligacy in the US government. I think Clinton did try to do something about it, but again, he and his party didn’t have the balls to go far enough with what they did do, or the balls to go into certain areas. Reagan had his targets but he didn’t approach things in a way that minimised the harm to the people – huge shocks are not good to the economy either – and there were a lot of things wrong with his approach (savings and loans, for example). And one can even go back to LBJ and the huge costs his Great Society program imposed upon the future: it can be argued some were necessary and good, but the huge expansion was without much forethought for the future funding.
I guess it’s always been a lot easier to expand spending than contract it. And spending more than income in the present is a fairly attractive option to a President and party, as by the time spending has to be cut, there’s a good likelihood the President and party won’t be in power. There were even suggestions that at some stage, I don’t remember when, part of Republican policy was to increase spending in their term, so that Democrats wouldn’t be able to increase it in their term. It must’ve been when they had a weak candidate coming up for the next presidential campaign.
@GPT1: “ironically Obama has been able to do a surge with little criticism simply because he is not George Bush”
I think it’s because Bush was perceived as a warmonger who got into unnecessary conflicts and sought a state of perpetual war almost (he shouldn’t have gone into Iraq until Afghanistan had been sorted; fighting wars on multiple fronts is not a good idea if one can avoid it, and Saddam was not exactly a friend of Al Queda and was unlikely to do anything to harm the USA in the short or even medium terms, probably not in the long term to be honest: it wouldn’t have been worth it), whereas Obama has a stated desire to end these conflicts (Bush had a stated desire, I think, but it was not perceived as credible by Democrats). The criticism will likely come if he remains stuck in these wars for an extended period, i.e. should he get a second term and the military presence remains significant after about halfway through, there’ll probably be a lot of flak flying his way.
@Murray: “You could “hope” he’ll “change” Dazzman.”
Your comment amuses me.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
cut the flow of money from poppy production and drug trafficking that is sustaining the insurgency.
The only practical way to do that is to legalise heroin, etc., and thereby pull the financial rug out from under the insurgents’ feet.
End the War on Drugs = Win the War in Afghanistan.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
The only practical way to do that is to legalise heroin, etc., and thereby pull the financial rug out from under the insurgents’ feet.
Of course this had to come from a libertarian…. Worse than fucken Socialists.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Drugs, not Rugs.
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
You can’t legalise heroin. The CIA needs it’s alternative funding source.
America controls most of Afghanistan but heroin still flows out, how?
Vote:March 29th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Of course this had to come from a libertarian…. Worse than fucken Socialists.
and nationalist are the same as socialists.
That’s why both hate libertarians. because freedom is their enemy.
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