Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Response

if the presence of Al Qaida in the border areas is a threat to our national security now, then their presence in those areas in eighteen months, should they still be there, will STILL be a threat to our national security. If disrupting them [not killing them, note, or defeating them, or wiping them out, note] is an appropriate response to this threat to our national security now, then it will be an appropriate response for as long as they remain relatively well-organized and protected in those areas. How then can Obama possibly decide, now, to withdraw in eighteen months?

Fine words and an eloquent delivery cannot remove the contradiction at the heart of this new policy.

But the premise is flawed and the inference from the premise is inconsequent. Al Qaida is not a threat to our national security, at least as that term used to be used. Al Qaida is not capable of mounting an attack on the United States. It is capable, as it has shown, of carrying out terrorist attacks on U. S. soil, one of which, unpredictably, was hideously successful. I say unpredictably because the planners of that coordinated attack did not themselves expect that the twin towers would be totally destroyed. The death toll that day was 3,000. That is roughly a third of the number of people who die each day in America. The economic effect on America was small enough to make virtually no impact on national income statistics. Not to put too fine an edge on it, the damage done to America by Goldman Sachs and AIG was immeasurably greater. Each year, fifteen times as many people die in the United States because they are medically uninsured. The appropriate response to Al Qaida is steady, sophisticated, unrelenting anti-terrorism police work, both at home and abroad, of the sort that Great Britain for many years mounted against the IRA [never mind the rights and wrongs of that matter].

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Arch Enemy said:

I know that there is already a thread dealing with this issue, but that thread is attributed to a secondary source (a Ny Time article on the response). I create this thread to discuss the Taliban response to Obama's Speech (Westpoint)

Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding Obama?s New Strategy

I find it a bit pathetic that I agree more with the Taliban than PBO in the assessment of the surge, and the time-table applied. Apart the Taliban's aging rhetoric concerning the pragmatic elements of the Afghan population, I think the Taliban response was spot on with the implementation of the time-table, as a way to ensure Afghans that we will not be there long-term.

It's been estimated time, and time again that it will take a total of 600,000 troops in Afghanistan to successfully secure the region. Now with a ticker going on in the background, I cannot help to wonder how NATO and USAF might get carved like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Some Russians/Canadian researches believe that this is not much about National Security, or as I call it " Harvesting National Security", but a strategic move against China and Russia-- I dismiss this claim, along with the PBO claim.

What we are really going to be doing in Afghanistan is supporting a regime that will accept cooperation with the Taliban in managing Afghanistan . It seems that our platform in Afghanistan will be to contradict why we went there in the first place.

al-Qai'da, as retired Professor Robert Paul Wolff, stated on his blog:


True, Paul Wolff does take the opportunity to take a stab at the Health Care debate, particularly at poking holes in Health Insurance Companies. However, I do believe that he makes a good point that the A.Q. threat has been exaggerated; whether it be for good, or for bad is highly subjective and really depends on what ego you're protecting.

The Neo-Liberal masterminds that hi-jacked the Neo-Conservative movement (Bush Admin hijacking Christian/Neo-Con alliance) created a boogey man that is now much more haunting than it ever was. We can no longer discern ability from fantasy. The Taliban, on the other hand, through all of his premature conception of victory in Afghanistan consists to a very likely scenario because the short-falls of Obama's address have deteriorated to Afghanistan sized holes.

The Obama "Magic" as the Right declares, has no affect on the soldiers of the Taliban who are fighting in Afghanistan; the unfortunate truth is that WE ask OUR troops to believe in President Merlin.

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Red_Dave said:

I don't see how this could be a move against Russia and China.Russia had been supporting the Northern Alliance for years before the invasion and shared intelligence on the Taliban with the U.S during the invasion. It seams strange to make a strategic move against Russia by toppling one of their enemies with their assistance.

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