WASHINGTON (AP)"I feel confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive," he said.
"It is in our strategic interests, in our national security interest to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas," Obama said. "We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks."
"It is my intention to finish the job," he said of the war in Afghanistan that has been going on for eight years—since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Those words, "It is my intention to finish the job", may someday come back to haunt President Obama, but right now they are soothing sounds to my ears.
So many of us Americans are extremely tired of losing our young treasured American lives over there and seemingly spending billions of dollars to only hear that things are getting worse instead of better - that we never really did have a victory there as the Bush/Cheney administration and the Republican leadership claimed.
Let's travel back in time a bit shall we and look to see exactly what the job in Afghanistan initially was and let's see whether or not Former President Bush ever declared victory there.
Former President George W Bush said on October 1, 2001 the following,
"On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
"These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. ..
"More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps. Hand over leaders of the Al Qaeda network. And return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in their country.
"None of these demands was met. And now, the Taliban will pay a price.
"By destroying camps and disrupting communications, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans.
In January of 2002, President Bush said,
We last met in an hour of shock and suffering. In four short months, our nation has comforted the victims -- begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon -- rallied a great coalition -- captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists -- destroyed Afghanistan's terrorist training camps - - saved a people from starvation -- and freed a country from brutal oppression.
The American flag flies again over our embassy in Kabul. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay. And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacrifice their lives are running for their own.
In May of 2003, President Bush said,
In the Battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force, led by the 82nd Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists, and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun.
In June of 2004, President Bush said,
"Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the world its first victory in the war on terror," the president said. "Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world."
On November 24, 2009, former Vice President Dick Cheney said,
On Monday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said that Obama has put troops in danger by dragging out the decision on whether to send more troops, first through more than 20 hours of meetings leading up to a ninth and final session on Monday night, and then by putting off announcing the decision until after Thanksgiving.
"The delay is not cost-free," Cheney told a conservative radio talk show host. "Every day that goes by raises doubts in the minds of our friends in the region what you're going to do, raises doubts in the minds of the troops."
This coming from a man with 5 deferments during the Vietnam War and as the Vice President of United States from 2001 through January 2009, did absolutely nothing about Afghanistan from at least 2004 up and through several months after being asked by the then General in charge of Afghanistan for more troops; leaving the decision instead up to the new man in charge, President Barack Obama.
In April 2008, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Kabul said,
In April 2008, two months before he assumed command in Kabul, McKiernan traveled to Afghanistan for a get-acquainted visit. Within days, he concluded that there were not enough troops to contend with the intensifying Taliban insurgency...
Even more worrisome was a lack of other resources needed to win a war: helicopters, transport aircraft, surveillance drones, interpreters, intelligence analysts. Troops in Afghanistan had a fraction of what they required.
"There was a saying when I got there: If you're in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it," McKiernan said in his first interview since being fired. "If you're in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it."
By late last summer (2008), he decided to tell George W. Bush's White House what he knew it did not want to hear: He needed 30,000 more troops. He wanted to send some to the country's east to bolster other U.S. forces, and some to the south to assist overwhelmed British and Canadian units in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
The Bush administration opted not to act on McKiernan's request and instead set out to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops.
A full 10 months after receiving the request from the commander in the field, and full 3 years after declaring victory in Afghanistan, and a full 8 years since the start of the war in Afghanistan - President Bush and Vice President Cheney decided to refuse the request for more troops.
Dick Cheney, the torture king, leaker of CIA agent's names, who lets his best friend take the fall for him, has some nerve condemning President Obama and his administration for starting from scratch (after being left with the mess) and coming up with an actual exit strategy for the war in Afghanistan...the war they started and left behind.
I don't know yet what this new exit strategy is of President Obama's; but as I've previously written, I'm willing to give the man and his administration a chance to 'get things right' over there.
I'll be anxiously waiting to hear what 'he' thinks our goal should be.