Tuesday - October 20, 2009

What a Turd

Gates: U.S. Cannot Wait for Afghan Election to Make Troop Decision

Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells reporters aboard his plane to Tokyo that the administration cannot “sit on our hands” with regard to troop levels in Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the Obama administration cannot wait for the Afghan election to be resolved before making a decision on troop levels, appearing to be at odds with White House officials who have tied a decision on U.S. strategy to the resolution of the election and political stability.

Gates suggested the election would not have an immediate impact on the overall situation in the country.

He told reporters aboard his plane to Tokyo that the administration cannot “sit on our hands.”

The comments come after Afghanistan’s election commission ordered a runoff Nov. 7, following an inquiry that found thousands of ballots were fraudulent. President Hamid Karzai accepted the decision.

But White House officials, as well as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., have suggested that U.S. strategy toward Afghanistan is contingent on political stability.

“Quite frankly, I think any credible person in this country would make a case that all the troops in the world will not solve a problem without a partner that is there ultimately to help,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. “None of this is going to work without credible partners.”

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said over the weekend that it would be “reckless” to make a decision on troop levels without doing a “thorough analysis” of whether the U.S. has a “true partner in governing.”

And Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bluntly said it would be “irresponsible” to commit more troops before the election is resolved.

These comments drew widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans in Congress Monday. They said a runoff is important, but that U.S. military strategy is not dependent on who’s leading the country.

If the Obama administration waits until Afghanistan settles its presidential election before deciding whether to send in more troops, it will be making a big mistake, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle said Monday.

After the White House and a top Democrat said over the weekend that it would be irresponsible to make a troop level decision before a credible government is in place, lawmakers argued that it would make no sense for the administration to wait before moving forward with its new strategy.

“It is immaterial to this process,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, saying it is “unbelievable” that the administration would wait for the dust to settle on Afghan politics.

“I don’t think we should delay one set of decisions because of another set of variables,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who sits on the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees.

If John Kerry says do it one way, then it’s almost a guarantee that the best course of action is the complete opposite. Beats me why Taxatwoshits keeps electing this traitor to office, but he has all the military expertize of a sand flea. But he’s the “soldier” that the White House listens to. So Obama dithers even more as Rome Afghanistan burns.

Pakistan’s army claimed Sunday to have killed 60 militants on the first day of an operation against an Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border that residents said was meeting stiff resistance from insurgents.  The army said six soldiers had also been killed in the opening salvoes of the push into South Waziristan.

The operation in South Waziristan follows repeated requests from the U.S. to take on the jihadists behind soaring terrorist attacks in the nuclear-armed nation, as well as Al Qaeda and other extremists believed to be plotting strikes in the West.

It involves mostly poorly equipped Pakistani soldiers trained to fight conventional wars, not counterinsurgency operations, who have failed in three other campaigns in the mountainous region since 2004. Much of the region is under total Taliban control.

Accounts from residents and those fleeing Sunday suggested that the 30,000 troops were in for a bloodier time than in the Swat Valley, another northwestern region that the army successfully wrested away from insurgents earlier this year.

“Militants are offering very tough resistance to any movement of troops,” Ehsan Mahsud, a resident of Makeen, a town in the region, told The Associated Press in the town of Mir Ali, close to the battle zone. He and a friend arrived there early Sunday after traveling through the night.

Mahsud said the army appeared to be mostly relying on air strikes and artillery against militants occupying high ground. He said the insurgents were firing heavy machine guns at helicopter gunships, forcing the air force to use higher-flying jets.

The army is up against about 10,000 local militants and about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them from Central Asia. They control roughly 1,275 square miles of territory, or about half of South Waziristan, in areas loyal to former militant chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August.

Officials have said they envisage the operation will last two months, when winter weather will make fighting difficult.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/20/2009 at 01:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Obama, The One • War On Terror •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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