Hillary Clinton says Afghanistan got 'short shrift'-Needed more troops, attention from start of war.

[SIMPLYB1980]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/10/16/2009-10-16_hillary_clinton_says_afghanistan_needed_more_troops_attention_from_start.html

"WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Clinton says the war in Afghanistan has gotten short shrift from the start, hinting in an interview Friday she may press for more troops as President Obama reassesses Afghan strategy.

"Afghanistan has been under-sourced from the beginning," she told CNN. "The attention was shifted to Iraq. We've never had the kind of military or civilian commitment that our mission had, you know, been needing."

Clinton also took a veiled shot at Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is viewed by many in the Obama administration as a corrupt and ineffective partner."

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. What I'd like to see from her is a clear statement of what our mission is,

and what are we doing to accomplish that mission.

If our mission is getting Bin Laden, why are we fighting the Taliban in parts of the country where we know Bin Laden in not? It was the pursuit of Bin Laden that was the mission supported by the UN. Is the rural/urban civil war part of that mission?

[SIMPLYB1980]

2. We will be getting that soon. Obama hasn't

been holding strategy meetings for nothing.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8702083

[damntexdem]

3. That is true. But the Bushistas DID blow it.

Now we should not throw more resources and troops at an effort that has been so totally screwed up.

[SIMPLYB1980]

4. Yep. Just like the Bailout.

Suck it up and deal with it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. I don't see Afghanistan changing for the better

I hope that country comes to value democracy and justice, with equal rights for women. I hope they find a sense of nationhood instead of thinking of each other as a bunch of separate tribes. I hope they overthrow the warlords who control everything. I hope they come to value an education and cultivate an intellectual tradition instead of blindly following fundamentalist Islam. I hope they find other industries by which to prosper than the poppy fields.

I don't see these things changing much for several decades, if ever. Maybe they just don't want to be like us or value the same things. This morning on the news, I saw Afghans complaining about the fact that Karzai was persuaded to hold new elections. It's not that they like Karzai; it's that they don't want outsiders telling them what to do.

I never saw the point of this war and I don't see what more troops will do. But if more people have to die, Americans, Taliban, and Afghan civilians, I hope I'm wrong and that their deaths come to mean something.