The actual “war/fighting” in Afghanistan has not been headline worthy news these last few months because of the healthcare reform debate and the drama over President’s decision whether to send more troops to Afghanistan or not saturated the news. But as the weather gets better in AF, the fighting will be intensifing and the estimate is many American soldiers will be dying.
We talk about the new approach in AF being less fighting and more winning the hearts of the people in AF but this report out yesterday can’t help…
The head of a presidential delegation investigating the deaths of 10 people in eastern Afghanistan concluded Wednesday that civilians – including schoolchildren – were killed in an attack involving foreign troops, but NATO officials disputed that.
This story out yesterday is also bad news for the President’s struggle to keep the US public engaged and in support of the war in Afghanistan.
KABUL – The Taliban claimed responsibility Thursday for two separate bomb attacks in Afghanistan that killed eight Americans, five Canadians and an Afghan in a surge of violence in the war-battered country.
A U.S. congressional official said CIA employees were believed to be among the victims of a suicide blast at an American base in the volatile east.
The difficult part is the support at the beginning of 2010 is already low so further bad news in Afghanistan will mean even worse news from an already unsupportive American populace (and voters)…
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of U.S. voters now think the situation in Afghanistan will get better over the next six months. That’s down 13 points from the survey immediately following the president’s speech.
I supported President Obama’s decision to increase our troop levels in Afghanistan by sending 30-35,000 more US soldiers. However, with the botched airplane security fiasco from last week, I am starting to think it really is a “terrorist” whack-a-mole problem and securing Afghanistan may mean Yemen, Somalia or some other location will become home for our enemies.
Maybe what is needed is a “master plan” to fight global terrorism. I’m sure they will say we have one, but I’m not impressed so far. Maybe what is needed is an complete intricate plan involving a bolstering of our CIA (and other intelligence agencies) with additional freedoms (more hit squads) instead of trying to put the people who protect us in prison for doing their jobs. I would prefer to let nations police their own countries and control subversive activities however if they fail to do this (like Afghanistan and Pakistan), then we will have to protect ourselves. But this cannot be done with troop invasions and considering the scope of Al Queda in these countries (tens and maybe low hundreds of terrorists), maybe our own CIA can handle it.
hrs-kevin says
As long as Bin Laden is lurking somewhere in the region, I would really like to see us maintain an aggressive physical and diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan.
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p>Let’s fulfill George Bush’s vow to catch Bin Laden first. As long as he is free, he is a shining example that America is not committed to making terrorists pay for their crimes.
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p>You are right that Somalia, Yemen, etc. are also regions of concern as sources for terrorism, but that was just as true eight years ago. For some reason, Bush decided that invading Iraq under the utterly false pretense that it was involved in 9/11 was more important than actually fighting terrorism where it actually existed.
johnd says
IT does seem staggering with all the assets we have in that area of the world and the “cooperation” of Afghanistan and Pakistan governments that we don’t have BL or even a clue as to where he is.
jconway says
I wouldn’t put it past AQ to bury the fact that OBL is dead so that a)we still waste time trying to capture him and b)their spiritual leader can be used to die a martyrs death later as opposed to the really emasculating death of not having insulin.