http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/731403--embracing-the-talibanWASHINGTON–
...Monday, in what promises to be the foreign policy speech of his young presidency, Obama will take ownership of the faltering war in Afghanistan. And barely a week later, in a moment of impending irony too close for comfort, he will fly to Oslo and take ownership of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Between these two unlikely events, Congress will return belly-full from Thanksgiving turkey to chew on Obama's agonizing decision – (another) troop surge, (another) retooled strategy, this time designed around the counterintuitive ideal that America will go big in Afghanistan in order to go home – and decide whether to pay for it.
With the war already bleeding the U.S. Treasury more than $3.6 billion a month, the extra 30,000 soldiers in this ante-upping plan are expected to drive the cost to $6 billion.
Soured by eight unbroken years of overseas fighting and an economic tailspin of unemployment, Americans will brace for the bitter taste of hard-sell as the White House lines up not just Obama but its entire Afghanistan war council to make the case that more is less. That in ramping up, the U.S. will simultaneously locate the road home for the troops....
...White House and U.S. military sources have signalled for weeks that
part of the way forward will be a redefinition of the Taliban as perhaps not so bad after all. Or not so very much worse, at least, than the corruption-plagued regime that has metastasized beneath Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"We believe our strategic problem with the Taliban begins and ends with their support for al Qaeda and their aggression against the United States and our allies," a U.S. official in Kabul told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "If the Taliban made clear that they have broken with al Qaeda and that their own objectives were nonviolent and political – however abhorrent to us – we wouldn't be keeping 68,000-plus troops here."...
...And quietly, in an echo of what turned the tide in Iraq, the U.S. appears to be readying a push toward winning Afghanistan valley by valley with offers of cash for local Afghan militia leaders willing to come onside the renewed U.S. effort. The program, reportedly led by U.S. Special Forces, could see as much as $1.3 billion made available to bring Afghan militias into a stand against anti-government guerrillas.
No money for infrastructure or health care, but we have a spare $1.3 billion to bribe Afghan militia leaders. How many times will the U.S. pull this kind of crap before it learns that it just comes back to bite us in the ass?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
