From NPR 2009: Richard Holbrooke-’Strong Support For Afghanistan’

[bigtree]

Amb. HOLBROOKE: . . . what I say is we have a common enemy, a common challenge and a common task. The terrorists who attacked New York and Washington, in London and Madrid, in Bali and Casablanca, and Mumbai and, yes indeed, attacked Islamabad itself, are centered on the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By their own admission, they pose a threat to all of the countries that we've mentioned today, and we have to deal with it . . .

BLOCK: Ambassador Holbrooke, you started your Foreign Service career in Vietnam in the 1960s, and obviously there are lots of questions now about whether Afghanistan is or is not following along that same path.What parallels do you see? What differences do you see between then and now, and the fear of a war that cannot be won?

Amb. HOLBROOKE: I get asked this question a lot.

BLOCK: Mm-hmm.

Amb. HOLBROOKE: And there are some structural areas of similarity. Above all, the most important similarity is the fact that in both cases, the enemy had a safe sanctuary in a neighboring country.

Now, having said that, Melissa, I want to stress the core difference. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese never posed a direct threat to the United States homeland and its population. But in Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaida, who are integrally related, do pose a direct threat to the U.S. That's the fundamental difference right there.

BLOCK: And the lessons in terms of how you counteract that threat, how you win this war?

Amb. HOLBROOKE: In order to win the war, we have to deal with three or four major issues which are quite important. The first and biggest issue to deal with in my view is the sanctuary issue in Pakistan. The second issue is governance and capability of the Afghan government to deliver services to the people and a promise of a better life. Corruption is a big problem, so these are things we have to watch for.

In the past, there was no real follow-up or oversight on these things, and we just have to hope there's going to be now. Not hope, that's not fair. We can't just hope. It's our job and we would do a better job than our predecessors; of that I'm sure.


full interview: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121063946

[asdjrocky]

1. This is almost to the point that you're spaming.

Tell me, why do you so feel this need?

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bigtree]

3. the ambassador's views have been misrepresented on several posts here

I don't believe that many of the folks making criticisms on his behalf have any idea how he felt about the mission the President tasked him with in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or have any idea how he regarded our military involvement there (of which I've consistently opposed his view and the administration's).

I actually took some heart in his comments as reported earlier because he was clearly a strong supporter of the President's Afghanistan policy.

It's funny to have you accuse me of 'spamming', as if my few posts were more than a drop in the cesspool of infactual, uninformed criticism that passes here for a 'progressive' argument against this administration.

[bigtree]

4. kick

[lamp_shade]

5. Kick.

[TexasObserver]

6. He wasn't on his death bed then, was he?

Don't you think it's a little desperate to drag out old quotes made while he was clearly carrying water for his boss?