From Gateway:
...neither the American nor the British people have the slightest idea what the objective is with Obama’s Afghan war policy. Is it to defeat al Qaeda? Is it to defeat the Taliban? Is there any intentions to defeat anything, win the war, or make Afghanistan safe for average Afghanis? What are Obama’s goals in Afghanistan?...
Gee, Karl. Somehow, the GWB "objective" in Afghanistan are not real clear in my memory either--except the "get OBL" and "KO the Taliban" parts.
Rumsfeld made certain that OBL did not get taken out, according to the History Channel's documentary on the war.
So what are you yapping about, Karl? Did GWB intend to leave a nice planned community like Levittown over there?
And furthermore, On December 1, 2009 the President explicitly defined the administration's goals in Afghanistan thusly:
ReplyDelete"We must deny al-Qaida a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
Yah, well.
ReplyDeleteNONE of those are objectively measurable goals.
So I'm not sold.
Unlike "spreading democracy throughout the Middle East" and "fighting them there so we won't have to fight them here" you mean?
ReplyDeleteI think we are in agreement, though, about the central point of your post which is, I think, that KR has no standing in decrying Obama's perceived lack of a "clear" goal in the Middle East.
The best measurable goal I can think of, and I think you can measure it objectively, is "zero American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."