Wait just a minute. It wasn't all that long ago I was being told by every Obama supporter on this board and the media too, that his Cairo speech "reset" relations with the arab world and various non-governmental arab organizations.

And wasn't it Obama who kept endlessly claiming Afghanistan was a "war of neccessity" during his magical mystery tour run to the white house.I don't know ... why not post some sort of link?
And wasn't it president Obama in March who announced, a "comprehensive new strategy" ...... "We've consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations" and "with members of Congress. " All to end "long years of drift" (said last Monday) in Afghanistan.

1. You hurt one member of the family and you get the whole family get up in arms to hurt you back. They take matters in their own hands and don't call 911 or report it to the government.

2. Religiously speaking, they are allowed to defend themselves, their families and the country if they are attacked and what the US government and other countries do is show the might of their power with tanks, helicopters and military equipment and this gives them the sense of getting occupied, which they have fought against throughout history.

3. What the US military and the rest of the military gang from other countries do is bombard places, villages, cities and kill innocent children and destroy families and that encourages male members of different tribe and groups to band together for the following reasons:

A. They want to revenge the death of their entire family that the US military carpet bombed.

B. Some join different groups because they have large families and they don't have money to support them financially, so joining different groups helps them earn some money to support their family. All of this is because of poor economy and war that we have created in there.

4. Taliban are not just an "organized group" as the US military and the rest of the world considers them to be. People band together just like I mentioned above in different parts and form groups and form resistance against foreign troops for the above-mentioned reasons and the US government labels them as "Taliban".

5. There are groups that might be out there that don't belong to these two categories and are running operations, but it is all a mixed group of different people.

- The only way to bring solution to Afghan crisis is to stop showing off the military power and instead get the people engaged by finding their potentials and teaching them how to earn a living whether it is farming, carpentry, manufacturing etc. That way, the majority of men will be able to support their families and will not arm here and there to form resistance.

Point is ... the Cairo speech certainly didn't make things right with the perceived enemies over there in the Middle East.

so we agree then. the obama world apology tour was a bust.

Afghanistan is not an Arab state (nor even close). Afghans aren't Arabs. Pakistanis aren't Arabs. The Talilban isn't an Arab organization (bin Laden is, but he's neither Afghan nor Taliban). And while Obama HAS changed the tone when it comes to our dealings with the Muslim world, it's not as if he can push a magical button and make all the bad feelings developed over years just disappear. Things just don't work that way. ... which is why it's so disastrous to cowboy our way across the world (and then cry because people don't realize just how fabulous we are). We are actually an occupying force in Afghanistan....and however inadvertently, we've killed civilians there (apart from the problems at Gitmo, etc.). Why should Afghans be moved by Obama's Cairo speech (which most of them probably have never heard). The Cairo speech wasn't directed at Afghans, but at the parts of the larger Islamic community radicalized by what they have perceived to be our anti-Muslim agenda.

Is it Time to Bring the Troops Home?

so we agree then. the obama world apology tour was a bust.

I don't know anymore ... post a link.

These apology tours of Obama's probably have a bit to do with the renewed fighting in the two war zones, and probably were not good for all our soldiers' morale.

While not setting a timetable or exit strategy, the president said there will be clear benchmarks to measure progress, and a requirement that the Afghan government deal with corruption.

"Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable," he said. "We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan Security Forces, and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals."

Obama also asked for more help from NATO and the rest of the international community.

"None of the steps that I have outlined will be easy, and none should be taken by America alone. The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or Al Qaeda operates unchecked," he said. "We have a shared responsibility to act – not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends upon it. And what’s at stake now is not just our own security – it is the very idea that free nations can come together on behalf of our common security."

If we are not going to support our soldiers properly, then we should bring them home.
I heard plenty of Obamas apologists make up all kinds of excuses, but taking months to make a decision on troop levels is reprehensible.

Obama's delays are in the long run downing the morale of the troops over there trying to do the job they were send to do.

How long will it take to Deploy 40.000?

How long should we leave 110,000 in Afghanistan?

I wonder who tied them before OBAMA took command?

... the generals want to do the job but their hands are tied.

If we are not going to support our soldiers properly, then we should bring them home.

I heard plenty of Obamas apologists make up all kinds of excuses, but taking months to make a decision on troop levels is reprehensible.

Did McKiernan’s Troop Requests Just Sit on Bush White House Desks?

October 22, 2009 7:50 PM

Responding to Vice President Cheney’s accusation that President Obama is “dithering” by taking time to assess a new strategy in Afghanistan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs earlier today said “the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March.”

Is that accurate?

It’s a bit more nuanced than that.

The troop requests to which Gibbs referred were made by then-Gen. David McKiernan. McKiernan started off making individual requests for brigades, and that list kept growing.

Officials from that time say that demands in Iraq prevented the Bush administration from fulfilling the requests until just before Bush left office. (Prioritizing troops to Iraq over those to Afghanistan is, of course, a choice.)

In his first interview after being fired by Defense Secretary Gates over the summer, McKiernan told the Washington Post about his appointment to command ISAF troops in Afghanistan in June 2008: "There was a saying when I got there: If you're in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it. If you're in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it."

In retrospect McKiernan’s troop requests ultimately added up to roughly 30,000 more troops, a combination of combat units and support troops.

Throughout most of 2008, the Bush administration tried to get NATO countries to fill that gap, though they had to have known that would be a challenge. By the late summer, 2008 Bush administration officials realized NATO wasn’t going to come through.

In September 2008 that led the Pentagon to order 2,000 Marines to replace Marines sent to Afghanistan in January as a one-time deployment. At the same time, it also ordered in the first of the additional four combat brigades that McKiernan had requested. This unit of 3,700 soldiers would arrive in January, 2009 and had been originally scheduled to deploy to Iraq.

In December 2008, President Bush sent 2,800 troops to Afghanistan from an aviation brigade that McKiernan had also requested.

So as McKiernan’s outstanding requests for more forces accumulated throughout 2008 to roughly 30,000 soldiers, President Bush sent at least 6,800 troops – ***months and months after the requests had come in***.

By March, President Obama had ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan – which can be seen as roughly the outstanding balance of McKiernan’s original request.

We need to re-read the Monroe Doctrine. We should just say that any nation who harbors terrorists will be viewed as aggressors against the U.S. Then we should call them to task.

Believe me, I am a conservative not a republican. I don't think our past president was sterling in this area. We need to let the generals fight the war without putting a bunch of restrictions on them

We are back to the Bush did it so why can't Obama do it agrument again.

General McCrystal should be removed from command he violated the chain of command by going to the public.

Always start with the premise that the General is lying.

General McCrystal should be removed from command he violated the chain of command by going to the public.

Little attention has been paid to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's back-story and his rise to the height of military command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Before becoming the voice of gravity and a champion of higher troop levels in the eight-year long war, McChrystal's resume was sullied by a controversy in that same theater: the misclassified death of Pat Tillman.
McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan during Army Ranger (and former football star) Pat Tillman's death. McChrystal was the one who approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that he had died in fratricide and not, as originally determined, enemy fire.
This was once a big embarrassment for the army and, to a lesser extent, McChrystal himself (though he has copped to making an innocent mistake). But when the general was elevated to top spot in Afghanistan this past spring, relatively few publications revisited the affair.
That may change. On Sunday, journalist Jon Krakauer joined the Meet the Press panel to discuss his new book on Tillman's death called Where Men Win Glory. Krakauer offered a harsh assessment of McChrystal's conduct during that period and even stressed that the General's explanations upon reflection were "preposterous" and "unbelievable."
MR. KRAKAUER: After Tillman died, the most important thing to know is that within--instantly, within 24 hours certainly, everybody on the ground, everyone intimately involved knew it was friendly fire. There's never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told within 24 hours it was friendly fire. Also, immediately they started this paperwork to give Tillman a Silver Star. And the Silver Star ended up being at the center of the cover-up. So McChrystal--Tillman faced this devastating fire from his own guys, and he tried to protect a young private by exposing himself to this, this fire. That's why he was killed and the private wasn't. Without friendly fire there's no valor, there's no Silver Star. There was no enemy fire, yet McChrystal authored, he closely supervised over a number of days this fraudulent medal recommendation that talked about devastating enemy fire.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/01/jon-krakauer-mcchrystals_n_341545.html

GREGORY: And that's the important piece of it. And, and he actually testified earlier this year before the Senate, and this is what he said about it.

(Videotape, June 2, 2009)

LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Now, what happens, in retrospect, is--and I would do this differently if I had the chance again--in retrospect they look contradictory, because we sent a Silver Star that was not well-written. And although I went through the process, I will tell you now I didn't review the citation well enough to capture--or I didn't catch that if you read it you could imply that it was not friendly fire.

(End videotape)

GREGORY: Even those who were critical of him and the Army say they don't think he willfully deceived anyone.

MR. KRAKAUER: That's correct. He, he just said now he didn't read this hugely important document about the most famous soldier in the military. He didn't read it carefully enough to notice that it talked about enemy fire instead of friendly fire? That's preposterous. That, that's not believable.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/01/jon-krakauer-mcchrystals_n_341545.html

General McCrystal should be removed from command he violated the chain of command by going to the public. By doing so he has exposed those in his command to unneeded escualation of the taliban, they will see the differences in opinion in try to use them to their advantage.

Obama can remove him, that is his right as commander and chief. Whether or not McCrystal is in charge, the issues remain the same.

In this engagement im sure not all are religous extremists, some are simply defending their home.

We need to decide whether we are going to fight bare knuckles or to keep on the gloves. If we want to keep on the gloves, we will fail to achieve victory.