[Peace-discuss] Obama on Bush: too much development, not enough war in Afghanistan

[unionyes]

This is even worse than the Bush gang !

This is going to cause even more hatred towards the U.S., not to mention the 
exponential increase in the loss of life and limb.

They are just digging a deeper hole.

David J.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To: "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:44 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Obama on Bush: too much development,not enough war 
in Afghanistan


> Aides Say Obama’s Afghan Aims Elevate War
> January 28, 2009 By HELENE COOPER and THOM SHANKER
>
> WASHINGTON — President Obama intends to adopt a tougher line toward Hamid 
> Karzai, the Afghan president, as part of a new American approach to 
> Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development, 
> senior administration officials said Tuesday.
>
> Mr. Karzai is now seen as a potential impediment to American goals in 
> Afghanistan, the officials said, because corruption has become rampant in 
> his government, contributing to a flourishing drug trade and the 
> resurgence of the Taliban.
>
> Among those pressing for Mr. Karzai to do more, the officials said, are 
> Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s 
> special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
>
> The officials portrayed the approach as a departure from that of President 
> Bush, who held videoconferences with Mr. Karzai every two weeks and sought 
> to emphasize the American role in rebuilding Afghanistan and its civil 
> institutions.
>
> They said that the Obama administration would work with provincial leaders 
> as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave 
> economic development and nation-building increasingly to European allies, 
> so that American forces could focus on the fight against insurgents.
>
> “If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian 
> Valhalla over there, we will lose,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who 
> served under Mr. Bush and is staying on under Mr. Obama, told Congress on 
> Tuesday. He said there was not enough “time, patience or money” to pursue 
> overly ambitious goals in Afghanistan, and he called the war there “our 
> greatest military challenge.”
>
> Mr. Gates said last week that previous American goals for Afghanistan had 
> been “too broad and too far into the future,” language that differed from 
> Mr. Bush’s policies.
>
> NATO has not met its pledges for combat troops, transport helicopters, 
> military trainers and other support personnel in Afghanistan, and Mr. 
> Gates has openly criticized the United States’ NATO allies for not 
> fulfilling their promises.
>
> Mr. Holbrooke is preparing to travel to the region, and administration 
> officials said he would ask more of Mr. Karzai, particularly on fighting 
> corruption, aides said, as part of what they described as a “more for 
>  more” approach.
>
> Mr. Karzai is facing re-election this year, and it is not clear whether 
> Mr. Obama and his aides intend to support his candidacy. The 
> administration will be watching, aides said, to see if Mr. Karzai responds 
> to demands from the United States and its NATO allies that he arrest 
> associates, including his half-brother, whom Western officials have 
> accused of smuggling drugs in Kandahar.
>
> Shortly before taking office as vice president last week, Mr. Biden 
> traveled to Afghanistan in his role as the departing chairman of the 
> Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He met with Mr. Karzai and warned him 
> that the Obama administration would expect more of him than Mr. Bush did, 
> administration officials said. He told Mr. Karzai that Mr. Obama would be 
> discontinuing the video calls that Mr. Karzai enjoyed with Mr. Bush, said 
> a senior official, who added that Mr. Obama expected Mr. Karzai to do more 
> to crack down on corruption.
>
> After his return from Afghanistan, Mr. Biden, who has had a contentious 
> relationship with Mr. Karzai, described the situation there as “a real 
> mess.”
>
> An election is scheduled to be held no later than the fall, under 
> Afghanistan’s Constitution. Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American who is a 
> former United States ambassador to the United Nations and is viewed as a 
> possible challenger to Mr. Karzai, warned that the Obama administration 
> must tread carefully as it recalibrated its Afghanistan policy.
>
> “If it looks like we’re abandoning the central government and focusing 
> just on the local areas, we will run afoul of Afghan politics,” Mr. 
> Khalilzad said. “Some will regard it as an effort to break up the Afghan 
> state, which would be regarded as hostile policy.”
>
> Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in 
> Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from 
> about 34,000 now. But Mr. Gates indicated Tuesday that the administration 
> would move slowly, at least for now. He outlined plans for an increase of 
> about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more 
> troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for 
> barracks and other infrastructure.
>
> With the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda mounting more aggressive 
> operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan, administration officials 
> said they saw little option but to focus on the military campaign. They 
> said Europeans would be asked to pick up more of the work on 
> reconstruction, police training and cooperation with the Afghan 
> government. They also said much of the international effort might shift to 
> helping local governments and institutions, and away from the government 
> in Kabul.
>
> “It’s not about dumping reconstruction at all,” said a senior 
> administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because 
> of the diplomatic delicacy of the subject. “What we’re trying to do is to 
> focus on the Al Qaeda problem. That has to be our first priority.”
>
> Mr. Gates said Tuesday that under the redefined Afghan strategy, it would 
> be vital for NATO allies to “provide more civilian support.” In 
> particular, he said, the allies should be more responsible for building 
> civil society institutions in Afghanistan, a task that had been falling to 
> American forces. He also demanded that allies “step up to the plate” and 
> defray costs of expanding the Afghan Army, an emerging power center, whose 
> leaders could emerge as rivals to Mr. Karzai.
>
> Mr. Gates added that the United States should focus on limited goals. “My 
> own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from 
> being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United 
> States and our allies, and whatever else we need to do flows from that 
> objective,” he said.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/politics/28policy.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=shanker&st=cse
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