Three cheers for rephrasing...

[Presley Cannady]

As it reviews its Afghanistan policy for the second time this year, the Obama administration has concluded that the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a political or military movement, regardless of how many combat forces are sent into battle...The goal, senior administration officials said Thursday, is to weaken the Taliban to the degree that it cannot challene the Afghan government or reestablish the haven it provided for al-Qaeda before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

The rest.

Question. Can someone tell me what war any serious contender has fought where this hasn't been at least the minimum objective?

[Bob's World]

The rest.

Question. Can someone tell me what war any serious contender has fought where this hasn't been at least the minimum objective?

The Task is: Defeat AQ

The Purpose is: Defend the Homeland


Afghanistan is merely where we went to make progress toward that objective, and at the start the Taliban were in the way, so we conducted a very successful UW operation to help the Northern Alliance remove the Taliban from leadership so that we could get at AQ.

Since then we have been conducting FID to try to help the Karzai Govt get it's act together, and CT ops against AQ. Everything else is mission creep. Tricky business getting involved in someone elses problems, even if it is to work on some of your own. But this has never been a US war against the Taliban.

[max161]

The Task is: Defeat AQ

The Purpose is: Defend the Homeland


Afghanistan is merely where we went to make progress toward that objective, and at the start the Taliban were in the way, so we conducted a very successful UW operation to help the Northern Alliance remove the Taliban from leadership so that we could get at AQ.

Since then we have been conducting FID to try to help the Karzai Govt get it's act together, and CT ops against AQ. Everything else is mission creep. Tricky business getting involved in someone elses problems, even if it is to work on some of your own. But this has never been a US war against the Taliban.

Bob: That is the best description of the war that I have seen written perhaps on par with Grant's order to Sherman and Donovan's memo to Roosevelt proposing the establishment of the OSS!! I know of no lawyer who could use so few words!!!

V/R

Dave

[jmm99]

So, "What happened? What the hell happened?!"

Mike