nodoginnafight
No Party Affiliation
An exit strategy should have been part of the first deployment plan. Don't know what's so hard to understand about that.
Ideally, you go in with a specific plan of what you hope to achieve in quantifiable objectives, a plan and a timetable of how to achieve the goals, and a plan for bringing people back home when the objectives are met.
But we should be bringing everyone home ASAP - not sending more imho.
I think the goal part is the problem. I'm not sure Obama or anyone else gets what the goal needs to be to 'win' this. What does he think the goal is? End Al Queda? Won't happen. I don't think you'll ever accomplish that. Al Quaida is just another group of muslim extremists. Defeating that and making sure it isn't a threat to our country requires a goal on the order of nation building. It would require us to somehow fundamentally change the culture of an entire region of the country. Because up to this point those that don't count themselves among the extremists don't seem too gung ho about wantng to take responsibility for combating it.
We need to rethink the war on terror. I would agree with bring the bulk of the troops home at this point. I think trying to change the culture is useless. I think it should be handled more covertly with the use of S.E.A.L's, Spec Ops and the like.
I think Al Qaeda has been dealt a death blow - but what remains to be accomplished is in Pakistan - not Afghanistan imho. That goes for the goal of capturing or confirming the death of Bin Laden too. If he is still alive - he's almost certainly in Pakistan.
But I agree with you in part in that I think Afghanistan has never had a strong, centralized government that can exert significant control throughout the nation. And I don't think were are likely to succeed in trying to install one now.
I think we should be satisfied to 1) eradicate Al Qaeda 2) make life hell for those who offered aid to Al Qaeda so they will think long and hard about sheltering terrorists again and 3) Capture or confirm the death of Bin Laden.
In the wake of 9/11, I consider those to be reasonable, achievable goals. Today, I think we've met two of those three objectives. I'm not sure how likely we are to achieve the third and I'm not convinced that the odds are good enough to spend a lot more money and a lot more lives chasing it.
I gather Obama thinks there is significant work left to be done on #2. But if his objective is to create a world in which terrorism cannot exist, I think it is unacheiveable.
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