With Afghan drawdown looming, U.S. scales back ambitions

Source: Wash. Post

The war in Afghanistan began as the good war. Today it is the good-enough war.

In Kabul and Washington, the push is on to wind down a fight that on Friday will mark its 10th anniversary. U.S. officials, who are facing a future of fewer troops and less money for reconstruction, are narrowing their goals for the country. The constrained ambitions come amid pressure from the Obama administration to scale back the U.S. commitment at a time of flagging public support.

In southern Afghanistan, American commanders are focused on holding territory taken from the Taliban over the past two fighting seasons. In the Afghan capital, U.S. officials are working to restart peace and reconciliation talks that appear to be going nowhere. And in the east, where violence is up slightly over last year and plans for U.S. reinforcements were scuttled this spring, military commanders are pressing new offensives before troop levels begin to fall. That is where American commanders face their most daunting challenge.

“Our sense of urgency is driven by time and a recognition that we will never have more forces on the ground than we do right now,” said Maj. Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, the U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-afghan-drawdown-looming-us-scales-back-ambitions/2011/10/05/gIQA9P8DRL_singlePage.html

And that was back in March...

bin forgotten is out
time to end this waste
bring the boys 'n girls back home
now

and resource explotation venues.

Remind me how bombing Afghan farmers was supposed to have been justified by Bin Ladin's attacking the World Trade Center.

But, I remember it was okay because we bombed by day and dropped peanut butter by night. Or was it peanut butter by day and bombs by night? I forget. (At that time, as religious woman actually said to me "What a witness!")

The Afghans had no idea what peanut butter was, but I am sure they thought that it made up for the deaths in their families and neighborhoods caused by the United States.