Afghans worry bin Laden’s death could weaken U.S. resolve

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

President Hamid Karzai, who praised American troops for killing bin Laden, used the opportunity to reiterate his message that the locus of terrorism remains beyond Afghan borders. “For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses,” he said. “Stop bombarding Afghan villages and searching Afghan people.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top U.S. officials sought to dispel the notion that the U.S. would lose any resolve in Afghanistan. “Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today, it may have even greater resonance,” Clinton said at the State Department. “You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us. But you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process.”

President Obama has already marked July of this year as the time when U.S. troops will begin to leave, starting to slowly reduce the 30,000 additional troops he sent to Afghanistan 18 months before. Even though the vast majority of the U.S. troops have been fighting the Taliban, their presence has been justified in large part by al-Qaeda’s continued survival.

“With July 2011 around corner it now easier to argue that the fight against al-Qaeda and whatever is left of it should focus on Pakistan, and it is time to end the war in Afghanistan,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Fletcher School of Tufts University and until recently a senior adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan for the State Department. “With Bin Laden’s death...there is no strong argument for continuing with a full-fledged military operation in Afghanistan.”


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/osama-bin-ladens-death-could-put-pressure-on-pakistan-or-spark-retaliatory-violence/2011/05/02/AF9rHPXF_story.html?hpid=z2

[msongs]

1. don't worry there Karzai, our government will keep using drones to kill women and kids. nt

[ixion]

5. my response as well...

I'm sad to say. :(

[Historic NY]

2. Well Hamid maybe you better step up to the plate.

[avaistheone1]

3. Perhaps they had better worry about their own resolve,

and we can get the hell out.

[Hissyspit]

4. Correction: "Corrupt Afghan Leaders Worry..."

Most Afghans could care less, probably. Many don't know who bin Laden was.

[clixtox]

6. there is no strong argument for continuing with a full-fledged military operation in Afghanistan.”

And there never really was a strong argument other than creating an environment where a pipeline could be constructed through Afghanistan & Pakistan to move our "misplaced" oil to the Arabian Sea from the landlocked "Stans" to the north, and away from China.

We will never leave Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan as long as we are ruled by the greedy, brutal corporation's suborned(for a relative pittance) politicians, you can take that to the bank!

We will sacrifice our soldiers, our health care, our young people's education, our infrastructure, our social security, our medicare, our very future, our (supposed) democracy and our souls for what?

Duh...

[Hubert Flottz]

7. What about the two 48" pipelines from the Caspian Basin?

Hamid Karzai the oil man needs us to guard his plunder.

[OwnedByFerrets]

8. Clintons response is sickening. I dont think Ive ever said

anything negative about her, but that response was right out of a right wing playbook. Sheesh. May as well have said, Bring it On.

[AlbertCat]

9. Well hell! Why don't we just make Afghanistan the 51st state?

[OwnedByFerrets]

10. It would probably cost us less