It is true the words "we're not going to win this war" were said -- and I bet General Carleton-Smith wishes he could have a "do-over" but when you read the comment in context you see he is being perfectly sensible. All he says is that the Taliban cannot be eliminated, only controlled, and in saying that he says nothing more than all my friends who have served with the Forces in Afghanistan have been saying since Canada went there.
British general: 'We're not going to win this war'
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, suggested that NATO troops may well leave the country before an insurgency is entirely defeated.
"We're not going to win this war," he told the newspaper. "It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army."
British forces are stationed mainly in Helmand province. Canadian troops are based in Kandahar province, where there are similar problems with the Taliban.
Carleton-Smith said the NATO role is to contain the insurgency to the extent that it can be dealt with by the Afghan National Army after foreign troops leave.
Full story here:
http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/Home/ContentPosting?newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20081005%2ftaliban_negotations_081005&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
3 comments:
How about this one from the new McCain Ad in the US election:
Actual Quote:
"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."
The quote was from Obama a year ago during a town hall at a time when the number of civilians being killed in Afghanistan was outnumbering the number of militants being killed.
As included in the new McCain Ad released today:
"Who is Barack Obama? He says our troops in Afghanistan are ‘just air-raiding villages and killing civilians'. How dishonorable.
Of course, that is one of many examples of John McCain - a man I used to respect - just spewing any crap he can in order to win the White House.
McCain quoting out of context two.
Two biggies in one day, and I haven't even bothered to listen to his entire speech:
McCain attacked Obama Monday over the subprime mortgage mess, accusing the Illinois senator of being “silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” adding that “his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in.”
“As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, ‘a good idea.’
ACTUAL QUOTE OF THE "a good idea" reference:
In his September 2007 speech, Obama said that “subprime lending started off as a good idea – helping Americans buy homes who couldn't previously afford to…
“But as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made, they began to lower their standards. … Most everyone knew that some of these deals were just too good to be true, but all that money flowing in made it tempting to look the other way and ignore the unscrupulous practice of some bad actors.”
___________________
So apparently the McCain campaign is now using word search to find words like "If" and "Suppose" or "At one time" to find any descriptive subjective statement, then cut out a phrase that sound damning, regurgitating them out of context and labeling Obama as advocating something diabolically opposed to his actual position.
And we wonder why McCain can't really define the word "honor."
What's up mates, pleasant post and nice arguments commented at this place, I am truly enjoying by these.
Review my blog post ... caroleelanglitzdiary.blogspot.com
Post a Comment