George Bush's words come back to haunt the Obama administration

[jimpeel]

Bush said that if we gave a drawdown date the enemy would simply hunker down and wait for us to leave. That appears to be exactly what is happening now that the Immaculated One has set the clock running.

SOURCE

Report: Taliban Unscathed by U.S. Campaign

Published October 27, 2010 | FoxNews.com

Despite a fierce U.S. military campaign aimed at paralyzing the Taliban in Afghanistan, insurgents have largely been able to absorb the attacks and are playing a waiting game until July, when the U.S. troop drawdown begins, military and intelligence officials reportedly say.

While stepped-up airstrikes and special operations raids have damaged local Taliban cells, the attacks have not had a meaningful impact on the terror organization and have failed to put pressure on the group to seek peace, the officials reportedly said.

"The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience," a senior Defense official involved in assessments of the war told The Washington Post. The Taliban have consistently shown an ability to "reestablish and rejuvenate" within days of being hit by U.S. forces, the official continued.

Assessments made by the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency found that Taliban commanders killed or captured are often replaced within a matter of days, and in territories such as Kandahar where insurgents have been forced to flee temporarily, the groups are simply waiting for the opportunity to return, the Post reported.

U.S. officials said Taliban agents are intentionally holding back efforts until the start of President Obama's troop drawdown in July of next year. "The end is near," they tell one another, attributing the words to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, the newspaper said.

The Obama administration plans a review of the war effort in December, which has triggered jockeying between U.S. military leaders looking to continue the troop surge and critics who argue the American role should be downsized.

Last week, top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus said progress against the insurgency was occurring "more rapidly than was anticipated," but acknowledged major hurdles lie ahead.

Meanwhile, Iran acknowledged Tuesday it has been sending funds to Afghanistan for years, but said the money was intended to aid reconstruction, not to buy influence in the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai said Monday he receives millions of dollars in cash from Iran, adding that Washington gives him "bags of money" too because his office lacks funds.

In Washington, President Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, denied that. "We're not in the big bags of cash business," he said Tuesday.

Earlier, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said some of the U.S. aid to Afghanistan is in cash.

U.S. officials asserted the money flowing from Tehran was proof that Iran is playing a double game in Afghanistan -- wooing the government while helping Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO forces. Iran denies that.

Iran publicly opposed the U.S.-led offensive that toppled the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, though its relations with the Taliban regime had been frosty.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[Winky]

What better way for Obimbo to top off his failed
Presidency than to get us into a war like:
Wilson
Roosevelt
Truman
JFK/LBJ
and by proxy Clinton for his eight years of plookin' fat interns
instead of stopping Bin Laden.

It's a demon-rat thing they are a buncha pussies so our enemies get uppity
and a Republican has to come in and quell the uprising.

But in point of fact we should relegate the graveyard of Empires to the
back burner, it was the correct set of strategies that Bush had just to
make Afghanistan a special ops safari land. We should just go kill some of them
now and again to keep the infestation down, that place is a hellhole
and always will be.

Let's see how Israel responds to a nuclearly armed Iran.

 

[2minkey]

george w. prophet for our times.

yeah, i wonder if the draw-down date will be nearly as destructive as languishing for YEARS without any real strategy in afghanistan?

gee, i wonder how it woulda turned out if we hadn't wasted our time in iraq, and had the resources and attention to do something more A #1 there.

oh, silly me. one should not wonder or speculate. just repeat the chants.