Gates makes sense: Turning Afghanistan into 'some kind of Central Asian Valhallah' a loser [View All]

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WASHINGTON (AFP) -- http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/41243.html

. . . in a question and answer session, Gates was more blunt about the difficulties of stabilizing the country and the chances for success of an extensive nation-building project.

"If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of a Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose," he warned. "Because nobody in the world has that much time, patience or money, to be honest."

"It seems to me we ought to keep our objectives realistic and limited in Afghanistan. Otherwise we will set ourselves up for failure," he said.


Gates also acknowledged that civilian casualties from US air strikes "are doing enormous harm to us in Afghanistan."

"We have got to do better in terms of avoiding civilian casualties," he said.

"We have to got to figure out better ways to do these things or have Afghans in the lead, because my fear is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem instead of part of the solution," he said.



more sensibility by Gates: http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN27452418

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday he would be very skeptical about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan beyond those already requested by the top commander there.

"I would be very skeptical of any additional American force levels beyond what General McKiernan has already asked for," Gates told a hearing of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee.

There are 36,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, split between the 55,000-strong NATO force and separate U.S. missions.

"The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them because if they think we are there for our own purposes then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan," Gates said.