Update: USAToday poll shows Americans support reinforcing the troops; Memo to Obama: The Taliban ARE our enemy. The Taliban are terrorists. The Taliban are enemies of the Afghani people.
Update, Ace HQ:
From Goldfarb’s Tweet: A USA Today poll says Joe Biden’s brilliant strategy of leaving our troops to twist without reinforcement or plan of victory commands 7% support.
Pull out? 38%.
Give them the reinforcements and resources they need? 48%….
warning video content is disturbing and violent
(…)Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…
Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary, the official said.
In other words, rather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists rather than invest another 40,000 troops, he’s going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.”
What happened in Basra when American troops withdrew? What happened to the women we promised to protect?
(…)This is dangerous and cynical. They don’t want to be seen as bugging out, so they’re going to leave our troops in the meat-grinder without any actual intention to resource and reinforce them and give them a chance at actually accomplishing anything besides defending the Democratic Party’s interests.
Moderate in the Middle 