For my money, the best part of the speech was this part:
Neither can the Administration pretend that the war in Afghanistan is over or that the peace has been secured. On Thursday the president said we’re on the offensive against terrorists in Afghanistan, even as the American NATO commander on the ground showed the opposite is true by making an urgent plea for more troops.
The truth is -- the Bush-Cheney Administration has engaged in a policy of cut and run in that country. This Administration has cut and run while the Taliban-led insurgency is running amok across entire regions of the country. The Administration has cut and run while Osama bin Laden and his henchmen hide and plot in a lawless no-man’s land. They cut and run even as we learn from Pakistani intelligence that the mastermind of the most recent attempt to blow up American airliners was an al Qaeda leader operating from Afghanistan – yes, from Afghanistan. That’s right – the same killers who attacked us on 9/11 are still plotting attacks against America and they’re still holed up in Afghanistan.
To avoid repeating the terrible mistakes of the past, we need to send significant reinforcements to Afghanistan: Start with at least five thousand additional American troops –more elite Special Forces troops, the best counter-insurgency units in the world; more civil affairs forces; and more experienced intelligence units. More predator drones to find the enemy, more helicopters to allow rapid deployments to confront them, and more heavy combat equipment to make sure we can crush the terrorists. And more reconstruction money so that the elected government in Kabul, helped by the United States, not the Taliban, helped by al Qaeda, rebuilds the new Afghanistan.
That’s how you win the hearts and minds of the local population, that’s how you win a war on terror, that’s how you show the world the true face of America.
This is what the Democrats have to run on this fall. First of all it talks about the very real failures of this Administration in Afghanistan and how the very people who attacked us are still free to plot. The point about Afghanistan being the spot where the recent plot to blow up US bound planes out of London is huge. The Bush Administration has failed in the very thing they most seek to hype and use to tell voters that it alone can protect America and keep Americans safe. I really hope that Sen. Kerry talks about this all this week.
The Senate is going to take up a bill this week to re-open the CIA unit that was charged with finding Osama bin Laden. I certainly hope to see Kerry and other Dems bringing this point up repeatedly that Afghanistan is not safe, as Darth Cheney claimed it was on Meet the Press this morning, but is harboring real terrorists who are plotting violent actions against US citizens and citizens of other Western nations.
The paragraph about what the good Senator wants to do in Afghanistan is a really remarkable section. He lays out not only a real plan for what needs to be done to actually deal with the extremists in Afghanistan, but a real plan for how to use the military to engage in actions against terrorist cells This is so important going forward, and is a key to a much larger debate that Democrats need to have over what we want the military to do and how we equip them to do it.
I don't have all the answers on this, I think the actual drive to reduce terrorism exists on a lot of fronts and agree with Kerry that so much of it has to be dealt with diplomatically. But the military plays a role. Increasingly, that role is not with a large standing army but with lighter and quicker forces that are much more specialized and highly trained in specific areas. This concept is the doorway to a much larger debate on what weapon systems we currently research, develop and pay for and if they are useful against the types of foes we will likely face going forward. I have heard this debate, not from the 'doves' but from people with military backgrounds who worry that we aren't shaping a military, training personnel and forces and developing weaponry that will actually help us in the battles that are likely to arise.
Needless to say, I really loved this part of the speech and, after the election, look forward to hearing more about this. I know that Kerry favors more highly specialized 'special forces,' and wants an inteligence gathering system that actually has eyes and ears on the ground in the areas we need to track. It will be interesting to see if this midterm allows for a genuine discussion on these issues. It just might.
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