Whack the Enemy or Build a Nation

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General Petraeus | Photo 02

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Now, the generals are telling us that subjugating the Taliban in Afghanistan could be as hard as restoring order to Iraq.( I believe it.) Then again, General Petraeus points out that the number dying in Iraq was higher than it is now in Afghanistan (Implying it is easier?). Yet, just a minute General; we’re only getting started in Afghanistan. Wait until the bullets really start flying, you know better than to say something like that.

Speed the surge, slow the progress

The President said he wanted to speed up the surge, get in and get out. Now, the Generals are telling us the truth, we can get in, but getting out of that place is going to take a long time if the end game is to build a nation.

Then, Senator Luger, no friend of the administration, pops off with the notion that we’re wasting resources on Afghanistan when we should be attacking al Qaeda in Pakistan. Of course, Luger misses the whole point about the significance of the Taliban. He also missed the point that the entire Iraq attack was a foolhardy economic sink hole.

I think that it would be perfectly acceptable for President Obama to call up his senior military staff and tell them that he will do the talking for them from now on. It is time for them to surge in, whack the Osama, and come home to Obama.

[q url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34345847/ns/politics”]

“Petraeus warns new surge progress will be slow

He says Afghanistan is no worse than Iraq was two years ago

WASHINGTON - Progress against the insurgency in Afghanistan probably will be slower than during the buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq two years ago, and the war will be "harder before it gets easier," a top U.S. general said Wednesday.

Gen. David Petraeus, who executed the Iraq surge in 2007, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he supports the upcoming escalation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"While certainly different and, in some ways tougher than Iraq, Afghanistan is no more hopeless than Iraq was when I took command there in February 2007," Petraeus said. Indeed, he said, the level of violence and number of violent civilian deaths in Iraq were vastly higher than what has been seen in Afghanistan.

"The risk is that we will expend tens of billions of dollars fighting in a strategically less important Afghanistan, while Taliban and al-Qaida leaders become increasingly secure in Pakistan," Lugar said.”

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