Kerry on Iraq.
I heard Kerry say on NPR, "As long as it takes (Bush mantra) means Iraq can take as long as they want". While steering away from dates on immediate withdrawal, he made a strong statement that the Iraq government and security forces should be held to a date certain for training and preparation for self-governance. I agree.
From CNN, "To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks," he said. "At the first benchmark, the completion of December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays."
We'll see....
From CNN, "To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks," he said. "At the first benchmark, the completion of December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays."
We'll see....
3 Comments:
Hey Jeff. Yeah I'm also frustrated at the real lack of concrete direction with this war effort. A member of our church (Andrew Russoli) was killed last week and it's making me wonder yet again how many more young men and women we'll lose before this war is through.
We've got to stay long enough so the country won't fall apart and end up like Afghanistan with the Taliban (an earlier US foreign policy mistake), but the American public needs to have something to look to as a light at the end of the tunnel if folks want to see this thing through to it's conclusion. Here's hoping...
By
Anonymous, at 3:13 PM
Sorry to hear about the loss. I agree with you.
By
Jeff L. Thigpen, at 7:03 PM
Just reread my earlier posting. As a point of clarification the war in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban was definitely justified to remove an openly hostile government that had directly attacked us. The problem was the US allowed the Taliban to come into existence originally by not helping create a smooth transition of power once the Soviets left Afghanistan. There's some parallels to the current Iraq situation, since US policy allowed Saddam to come to power in the first place as he was an effective deterrent to Iran during the 1980s. Foreign politics sure is complicated, which is why the shoot first ask questions later philosophy to most problems doesn't work over the long run.
By
Anonymous, at 2:48 PM
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