Obama: Afghan war will worsen before it improves

. Initially Obama promised to pull the American troops out - - now this rhetoric ! Looks like he is pulling a 'George Bush" and planning a loooooooooooooooog deployment ! Color me surprised!!!

um....he never ever promised to pull the troops out of Afghanistan. He did promise to pull the troops out of Iraq and has actively begun to do so. What is not surprising to me is how conservatives like to make up things so that their non-stop criticism of Obama makes sense.

But the Democrats already blew the money for this war on all the bailouts...

This war would have been over years ago if bush actually had a strategy to win. Pity the conservatives didn't demand a plan. Watching conservatives trying to blame a Democrat president for the abject failings of the Republican president who started the war is pathetic at worst, funny at best. But Americans never expected much more than perpetual failure from GOP leadership anyway.

Sarge conveniently forgot that Bush started the bailouts by giving away $680 billion with no strings attached. He also forgot it took a Democrat president to demand bailout money is repaid.

The money was never there for both wars thanks to the lavish spending policies of bush, the guy Sarge voted for. Twice.

JJansen:

What is not surprising to me is how conservatives like to make up things so that their non-stop criticism of Obama makes sense I am not a "CONSERVATIVE" . . or what ever you Americans call the right wing . . LOL . . . OBAMA IS CONTROLLED BY THE WAR INDUSTRY IN THE USA as wmuch as George BUSH II was . . . . . . . Afghanistan was on he table for reduction of troop deployment - - - -but Obama instead INCREASED troops there....................:(

“After all it’s the Afghan people we are working to protect from the Taliban,” Obama said.

True, but misleading. Having waded into deep water, it's the image of American power we are working to protect. The Afghan people are incidental.

Ya think? People like myself have been saying this for ages. I guess 'leaders' have to say this kind of obvious thing so that when it DOES get worse they can cover their butts to an extent.

SushiSake: bang on on all counts.

It keeps getting worse and worse. When is it going to get better? About the only thing that has been proven is that you can't trust any politician. Maybe we should just move the government to Afghanistan and see how well they do.

Obama talks peace but needs war. He fooled a lot of gullible, sentimental people.

I voted for Nader. He would have done a better job.

Yessir - must be real cold comfort to Afghan refugees - from before the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in 2001 - to come to online discussions like this and see not a single 'peace warrior' or self-described pacifist denouncing homicidal, foreign, imperialist, Arab - funded fanatics and totalitarians who held public beheadings and forbade you from educating your daughters.

Take a national vote for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the people vote to get out then get out. That`s Democracy. Get better or worse would be irrelevant.

I would welcome one citation to an article that has Obama, while campaigning for president, stating that he is going to pull troops from Afghanistan. Just one will do.

They guy said multiple times that Iraq was a mistake but he never said that he would pull troops from Afghanistan.

pointofview at 11:06 AM JST - 13th May

Take a national vote for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the people vote to get out then get out. That`s Democracy. Get better or worse would be irrelevant.

==

which country is a democracy again?

Ah, isn´t Obamas war going splendidly! Remember, this is the "right" war that he campaigned about.

In the event, the first part of his statement is correct, the second is wrong. It will get worse, and then even more worse.

You know for a community organizer, Barack Obama is doing a hell of a job. He's doing what he said he'd do. Start pulling troops out of Iraq as promised. He put more troops into Afghanistan. He said it would get tougher before it would get better.

This is why I voted in Obama. < :-)

Of course this war is going to get worse before it gets better. That just goes with the territory, because at the end of the day, bombing people from a distance will only do so much. What is needed to break the will of the Taliban (in a specifically military sense) are large numbers of infantry soldiers who can close with the enemy and kill them. Unfortunately, however, one of the downsides of such a strategy is having to send a certain number of people home to their NOK in coffins.

Conservatives are - as always - justtoo weak to admit fault and too quick to blame The Other Guy for their ever-growing litany of screw-ups. Obama's doing what he can with the mess bush left behind in not 1 but 2 wars. I continue to hold out hope that conservatives will one day be man enough to own up to and own the disasters they created.

Obama dithers and projects weakness. That is why it has gotten worse and will get worse.

timorborder, how about proposing that every conservative who supports this war suit up and go help fight it? No, sorry, that's a silly idea. That would only highlight the fact that all conservative warmongers are nothing more than misguided individuals mouthing empty words.

Egalityranny - lol!! The reality-based reason things have gotton worse is because Karzai - the guy your man bush annointed - isn't trusted by his own government and doesn't control anything outside Kabul. Nice try at re-writing reality, though! :-)

smith: "SushiSake: Bang on on all counts"

Really? SushiSake: "the abject failings of the Republican president who started the war"

Um, Sushi, Bush didn't start this war, Al Qaida did, and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was sheltering Al Qaida.

SushiSake: "the lavish spending policies of bush"

The lavish spending policies of Obama make Bush look like a miser.

JHansen,

The US. Well it`s not a true democracy but the people have said time and time again they are not in favour of it.

It's pretty clear from the disappointment, blame-shifting, and lashing out that Obama supporters feel duped. I would too. The Monday morning quarterbacking is funny to read. Obama fooled a lot of people, but most of them want to be fooled, in my experience. Ironically, it is his foreign fan base that are most crushed. Politics is entertaining, if nothing else.

Don't ya love the media double standard. When Bush was winning in Afghanistan all you heard was how it was another Vietnam and how Bush should pull out the troops ASAP. Things are 10x worse now and Obama gets softball questions from the White House press corps. and favorable coverage by the mainstream (liberal) media!

Egalityranny Ps-s-s-st. I said Obama is doing what I voted for him to do.

Before he was even elected he said it would get tougher, etc... But it's like this is all new to you.

Probably is, too. < :-)

He put more troops into Afghanistan. He said it would get tougher before it would get better.

Haven't more troops been sent already under the Obama watch? Maybe he should just go all the way mimic Lyndon Johnson and just keep sending troops there. Unlike me, no one at this site is old enough to remember living (and fighting in combat in that country) during that period of American history.

More troops in Afghanistan just means more lawyers to try and tell our brave soldiers how the liberal elites in DC imagine "overseas contingency operations" for fighting "man-caused disasters" should go.

Obama: Afghan war will worsen before it improves

With Obama running the show it sure will worsen.

Couple of quick comments: Based on what I have heard from friends who are currently serving in the Afghanistan (both US and Australian), the situation is actually getting better. This is because the current administration has tried to actually deploy more combat troops and take a more aggressive attitude vis-a-vis CRW strategy, etc. There has also been a downplaying of micro-management of the conflict for the purposes of political point scoring. At the same time, however, on a political front things have deteriorated with Karzai as the US has begun to wise up about some of the shenanigans that used to occur when GW was still in the White House.

Moreover, I must say that my attitude to the conflict in Afghanistan has not changed. While I was strongly against the US invading Iraq with no real aims to achieve a victory of the peace in addition to the war (remember folks, Eric was right!), I am still very much in favor of the aggressive prosecution of the conflict in Afghanistan. Indeed, as recent developments have shown (this US bombing attempt, etc), both the Taliban and Uncle Osama are far from a beaten force. As such, the further they (and their supporters) can be blasted into oblivion, the better.

Finally, being a former a soldier, I am largely apolitical when it comes to topics such as this. At the same time, it has to be realized that war continues to be a dirty business, it involving the bringing of enemies to close proximity and slugging it out with them as necessary. Indeed, one of the issues that has annoyed me about both Afghanistan and Iraq is the amount of bitching that has happened just because some folks are going home in a pinewood box. For god sake, what do people expect? For all the high tech equipment that the military uses, at the end of the day there still has to be the willingness to get your enemy at arm's length and beat the XXXX out of him. As such, the continuing prosecution of this conflict is going to get a lot of people killed. Then again, if you cannot stand the heat, you should not be playing with fire.

Dear President Peace Prize, apart from a series of oil pipelines, how do you define "success" in this war? When you win, what will it look like? And would you please explain that to the countless families of killed and wounded on both sides? I'll bet you a JPY37 US$1 that they'd rather have their loved ones back anyday before you use them as drone fodder for oil.

Hmmm.....President Obama makes similar statements about all the other issues facing us. He's very cautious by nature and avoids tyring to raise our expectations for fear of failing. I trust he won't pull the plug on the other issues as he will with Iraq and Afghan.

I think the President is doing what the country as a whole wants.

I'm fairly sure that if we put it to a popular straight up and down vote-- Afghanistan, in or out--the popular vote would say "out". But we will never get a straight up and down vote on this issue. There are too many other issues--the potential waste of "blood and treasure" associated with a withdrawal without victory and the potential loss of face associated with such a withdrawal. No American president is going to undertake a withdrawal without overwhelming domestic sentiment for this action and Congress will not likely support it--not if the Congresspeople wish re-election.

We should be clear, though, that we did not go into either of our current conflicts to help the people of the countries where our troops are engaged. We initiated the conflict in Afghanistan to get payback and to prevent further incidents similar to 9/11. "Helping the people" was and is a rationalization for continued anti-terrorist operations. As witnessed by the Times Square incident and the proposed roll-back of Miranda rights, we are still currently operating in one of the many states of hysteria we are given to. Our goal may legitimately change, but Afghanistan has not yet transformed into a cohesive entity which is a demand for our help. It's easier for a great power to get into an assymetrical war than it is to get out of one.

Where in the article does Obama say the war will worsen? He says there'll be tough fighting and serious challenges, both of which should be obvious to anyone. The quotes actually infer that the situation is improving, and that they're mangaing to convince some peoples to accept US-backed security and reject the Taliban.

The headline seems out of place on this one given what's in the article.

A Republican government launched this idiot war. It'll take a Democratic one to extract America from the mess created by the GOP.

And I'm still waiting for conservatives to explain - considering 16 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, why did America invade Afghanistan and Iraq?

Wouldn't it have been better to invade Saudi??

Ooops, how stupid of me, Saudi supplies the U.S. with a bunch of oil....

SushiSake3 said: It'll take a Democratic one to extract America from the mess created by the GOP.

Its going to be a long wait. Obama means to continue. He says it will get worse before it improves? Yeah. Then it will get worse again, like it has for 8 years now. You have heard of the ship of fools. This is the roller coaster ride of fools. There will be no ultimate victory in Afghanistan, and those who ever said "we were winning" like to count their chickens before they have hatched.

If I were in charge it would get a heck of a lot better real fast, because I would leave Afghanistan to become the wild sandbox it was and always will be anyway. Slapping the Taliban silly was fine for a while but sticking around to build a country was stupid.

sushi, call me crazy but I think that the 9/11 angle had some crazy notion about the alleged mastermind hiding there, and the foul creatures running Afghanistan complicit in giving shelter to the afore-mentioned. I didn't have a problem with that.

Iraq is different.

When Hilary and Obama were slugging out I always thought people would be crazy to want to pick up the fragments left by the 8 year Bush train-wreck. Afghanistan will never be won, history has shown us that. Even the Yes Man Bush Co installed is as bent as a 9 dollar note.

Sarge: Correction Um, Sushi, Bush didn't start this war, Al Qaida did, and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was sheltering Al Qaida.

Al Qaida provoked it by sticking its tough out then Bush started it & then chased it to absolutely nowhere leaving behind nothing but a huge fat mess with nothing to show for it.

Oh wait he did leave somthin after all. A hell of lot of coffins with red,white & blue draped over them.

silver79: "Al Qaida provoked it ( the Afghan war ) by sticking its tough out..."

Sticking its tough out?

"... then Bush started it & then chased it to absolutely nowhere"

Um, the Taliban were kicked out of power. Now that Obama is running the show, things are getting worse.

Sushi: Wouldn't it have been smarter to waterboard them for information"

Sushi, are you recommending waterboarding?

Sarge, you're avoiding answering the hard questions.....

He is avoiding a heck of a lot more than that Sushi! 8 years of failure and now its suddenly going in the crapper since Obama took over. You could see and smell this denial from a mile away.

There is no "victory" in Afghanistan under the premises that this "war" is being fought.

It is correct that GWB started the Afghanistan involvement, but it is incorrect that GWB can still be blamed for it. If Obama was against being involved in Afghanistan and wanted get out of that mess, he could (and should) have said so.

But he consistently DEFENDED the Afghanistan involvement, and colled it the "right" war. And he continues to send troops and ressources into this mission impossible.

So it is HIS war now. It totally hypocritical to on one hand continue this waste and on the other hand blame Bush for it.

"He ( Bush ) didn't accomplish anything"

I could have sworn that the Taliban were ousted from power, girls are going back to school, and thousands of al Qaida and other terrorists have been captured or killed from 2001 to 2009.

"the real causes of this war"

Islamic extremism.

Ha ha, Sarge, you must have missed the memo saying the Taliban has been getting stronger.

"and thousands of al Qaida and other terrorists have been captured or killed from 2001 to 2009."

And a whole lot of totally innocent civilians have been killed for nothing, too.

Yessir - must be real cold comfort to Afghan refugees - from before the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in 2001 - to come to online discussions like this and see not a single 'peace warrior' or self-described pacifist denouncing homicidal, foreign, imperialist, Arab - funded fanatics and totalitarians who held public beheadings and forbade you from educating your daughters.

Well, in my own defense, I just started reading this article tonight but thank you very much eqalityranny for calling me a self-described pacifist, I am one. I have only been active on this board for a little over two weeks and if that's the way you see me, then I'm doing something right.

As far as Afghanistan is concerned, my brother has already done one tour and will probably be going back for another before Canada leaves the country. He was in Kandahar and I know for a fact that when he was there, they were trying to help the Afghan people get their country back together which was one of the three reasons Canada sent troops there in the first place. They had really strict firing orders. The goal was never to fight but rather to help. I agree with that. It sufficeth to say that I hope he doesn't come under fire, friendly or otherwise!

A decade of war is enough. That's what I think.

When the US kills more civilians than armed troops, it is wrong, no matter who is at the helm.

A story circulating, sorry don't have the link, is that a US helicopter was just shot down using a stinger missile. Serial number on fragments traced to CIA stingers given the Mujahadeen to oust the Soviets. When their birds started falling to stingers it was the beginning of the end. We live in hope. Could a withdrawal be in the cards? As nobody has the stomach for any more bodies coming home, except Cheney's Xe. Overtime pay is always welcome!

"Ha ha Sarge, you must have missed the memmo saying the Taliban has been getting stronger"

Ha ha SushiSake3, you must have missed the memo saying Barack Obama has been in charge of this war now for a year and almost 4 months.

PeaceWarrior said: When the US kills more civilians than armed troops, it is wrong, no matter who is at the helm.

I think you meant to say unidentified "suspected" militants? The new oxymoron to cover-up the true intent of the murder loving right along with wrapping themselves in the flag.

But isn't Obama using "diplomacy"? Why isn't it working??

unidentified "suspected" militants

Yep. The unidentified is the part I really have a problem with. The suspected should also be taken into consideration when giving the order to fire.

manfromamerica said: But isn't Obama using "diplomacy"? Why isn't it working??

Are you saying you would like to negotiate with the Taliban? Because I don't remember anyone saying that Obama would end the fighting that way. Maybe you have a link? I would love to read about it.

There is nothing to negotiate with the Taliban. All they have to do is wait out Obama. He already announced he will withdraw next June, so with every month the US presence becomes more ridiculous in Afghanistan.

New president - new rhetoric - new schedule. In another 4 years will we hear the same campaign speech...ad infinitum?