{"id":15182,"date":"2009-10-22T12:22:38","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T17:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=15182"},"modified":"2009-10-22T12:22:38","modified_gmt":"2009-10-22T17:22:38","slug":"losing-political-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=15182","title":{"rendered":"Losing political will"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our troops are fighting their asses off in Afghanistan, but the politicians are emptying their bladders in their diapers. So much so, that the NATO chief had to remind the members of that organization<\/a> that victory in the war in Afghanistan is imperative;<\/p>\n

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said some critics are starting to say that the cost of engagement in the eight-year war is too high, but he countered that “the cost of inaction would be far higher.”<\/p>\n

“Leaving Afghanistan behind would once again turn the country into a training ground for al-Qaida. The pressure on nuclear-armed Pakistan would be tremendous. Instability would spread throughout central Asia and it would only be a matter of time until we here in Europe would feel the consequences of all of this,” Fogh Rasmussen said at a security conference in Bratislava ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the weak-kneed know that, but it doesn’t keep them from going wobbly at the sound of the word “commitment”. Meanwhile, the former top Canadian general warned that Afghanistan will end NATO<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Retired general and former Canadian chief of defense staff Rick Hillier wrote in his autobiography to be published next week: “Afghanistan has revealed that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse, decomposing” and in need of “lifesaving” or “the alliance will be done.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney told a conservative crowd that President Obama is scared to make a decision about our involvement in Afghanistan;<\/p>\n

“The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy. “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the USAToday editorial board<\/a> warns that the Obama Administration’s flirtations with the Taliban are ridiculous;<\/p>\n

Trying to treat al-Qaeda and the Taliban as separate threats is unrealistic and unworkable. It would certainly be easier, and more convenient, if al-Qaeda and the Taliban could be regarded as distinct entities. That would allow the U.S. to pursue a simpler “counterterrorism” strategy against the remnants of al-Qaeda instead of a far more complex “counterinsurgency” strategy against the Taliban. Unfortunately, however, the weight of the evidence is that al-Qaeda and significant elements of the Taliban have become so closely aligned as to be inseparable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If nothing else, the Obama Administration should take VoteVets’ endorsement of that strategy<\/a> as a warning.<\/p>\n

Dick Cheney’s warning to the President should resonate a bit more than the words of dicksmith and Jon Soltz;<\/p>\n

“Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced,” Cheney said in reference to Emanuel’s comments. “It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no substitute for American warriors and the more, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our troops are fighting their asses off in Afghanistan, but the politicians are emptying their bladders … Losing political will<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,9,84,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-foreign-policy","category-military-issues","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}