Was Holbrook Right About Afghanistan War?..article

[xiamiam]

snip
According to White House insiders, Holbrooke was an outspoken critic of Obama’s Afghan strategy, as it was being developed in advance of last year’s West Point speech. The much-discussed policy of a troop surge followed by a hasty withdrawal seemed ill-considered to the veteran diplomat, who cut his foreign policy teeth on the catastrophe of Vietnam.

“It can’t work,” he is reported to have said of the White House plan. Holbrooke was opposed to an escalation of the war without a clear exit strategy, something that he said loudly and repeatedly.

According to “Obama’s Wars,” Bob Woodward’s detailed account of the debates surrounding Obama’s Afghanistan policy, this earned him the impatience and even the distrust of the White House incumbent.

“Holbrooke believed that had not acknowledged a central truth: The war — or the American role in the war — would not end in military victory,” wrote Woodward. Holbrooke, he added, believed in reconciliation — a genuine outreach to the other side.
snip
more at link
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/101214/richard-holbrooke-afghanistan-war-diplomacy

[xiamiam]

1. dont think the unrec'ers even had time to read the article..nt

[valerief]

2. I thought the war was about ongoing monetary victory, not military victory, anyway. nt