Pondering A 'Plan B' In Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

U.S. soldiers return fire upon a sudden attack by Taliban on Combat Outpost Badel in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, Dec. 25.


Pondering A 'Plan B' In Afghanistan
by Rachel Martin
December 27, 2010

The new year will mark a new chapter in the war in Afghanistan. President Obama has said that starting in July he wants to start drawing down U.S. troop levels. How many troops leave will depend in large part on what kind of progress is made in the next six months.

If that progress is underwhelming, there may be calls to change the strategy altogether. And some alternatives are already in the making.

Things could go well in Afghanistan in the next six months: The Karzai government could get in line, the Pakistanis could do more to pressure the Taliban, and the overall violence level in Afghanistan could drop.

But if that doesn't happen, there are several people beginning to plot out alternatives.

Richard Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of state in the last Bush administration, is one of them. "I think Afghanistan is quite important to us, but it's not of overriding importance to our national interests," he says.

[w8liftinglady]

1. a little more ifo about Armitage.He's gotten his war profit

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_L._Armitage

Armitage, considered to be a conservative "neo con" (neo-conservative), is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.<1> He is one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century PNAC letter to President William Jefferson Clinton.<2> He is also a former board member for CACI International, the private military contractor, which "is being investigated by no less than 5 US agencies for possible contract violations" and "employed four interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison" in Iraq, one of whom was singled out by General Taguba in his report on abuses of Iraqi detainees at the prison.<3>

[WinkyDink]

3. There will be a report. Period. BFD.

[WinkyDink]

2. Nobody cares that China is still Communist. Remember when they were the enemy?

[Robb]

4. OT: that photographer is Rafiq Maqbool.

This is just a lucky shot, but Google his name if you want to see the best conflict photographer working today. :thumbsup: