Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Slo-Joe Biden Weighs In On Afghanistan


Hooo boy.

Vice President Biden has joined the parade of Obamanistas calling the war in Afghanistan a losing proposition:



U.S. Vice President Joe Biden urged NATO members Tuesday to jointly confront al-Qaida and other extremist groups in Afghanistan where he said instability threatens all of the alliance's members equally.

Biden told the allies the United States was open to talks with Taliban moderates as part of a new approach, echoing comments made by President Barack Obama over the weekend.

"It is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state," Biden said.


Biden solicited ideas from European allies during a one-day round of talks at NATO and EU headquarters on amending a troubled military strategy in Afghanistan and bringing more allies on board to fight the Taliban-led insurgency.

Biden told NATO's top decision-making body that the situation in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan was worsening, adding, "The deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat from our respect not just to the United States, but to every single nation around this table."

"It was from that remote area of the world that al-Qaida plotted 9/11 and subsequent attacks" in Europe and elsewhere.



I especially liked the EU's answer to Slo-Joe's pronouncement that the US would consider a terrorist attack on its NATO buddies as an attack on America.

Their response? They agreed to provide more police trainers, judges and other judicial experts to Afghanistan! Yeah, lawyers...they can sue the Taliban and Lakshmi al Taiba to death!


You can't make this stuff up.

OK, sarcasm aside, Slo-Joe has it right in the broad sense - Pakistan and Afghanistan are part of the same problem. But talking with the 'moderate' Taliban? To the extent they exist, they're not same guys who are waging war against our troops and sheltering al-Qaeda. And when you have both whatever remains of the Pakistani government caving in to them left and right and both Obama and Biden saying that we're losing the war and things are deteriorating, just why would they have anything to gain from 'talks' unless it gave them exactly what they wanted - us out of Afghanistan and a free hand to take over again? And why would any of the Taliban feel obligated to keep any deal made with ferenghis and infidels?

Slo-Joe is like his master...not real swift on the uptake when it comes to foreign policy. And I would question the wisdom of publicly yakking about how bad things are while our troops are still in the field. Aside from encouraging our enemies to even greater efforts and more intransigence, it has a certain effect on any Afghans thinking of betting on our side.You would think you could expect a bit more from a commander in chief and his vice president, even if they are Democrats.

For that matter, the Obama Administration made another little noticed signal that we may be pulling out of Afghanistan sooner than later ( h/t Bookworm).

The linked article mentions that we're pulling 17,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan...except it looks like maybe that was just more Obama razzle dazzle for the media.

As milblogger Greyhawk notes, it looks like we're not actually pulling any troops out of Iraq at all..and there's no certainty that we're actually sending more boots on the ground to Afghanistan.

My guess is that Obama is looking for a graceful way out.




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