Obama: Taliban Killers Can Be Part of Afghanistan’s Government

Though aides stress that the president’s final decision on any changes is still at least two weeks away, the emerging thinking suggests that he would be very unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal…

Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…

Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary, the official said.

And perhaps they will swear on the Koran when they denounce their violence. No matter, Obama will take them at their word. Meanwhile perhaps we can get some tigers to renounce their stripes. This idiot can’t listen to his Generals and instead wants to wuss out and actually cede over parts of the country to murdering cavemen! It has become all about Obama’s ego now!

Ed Morrissey:

In other words, rather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists rather than invest another 40,000 troops, he’s going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.” Much like how he was focused during the campaign on “the good war” in Afghanistan rather than “the bad war” in Iraq. I wonder how long it’ll be before he decides that not everyone who’s in Al Qaeda is an enemy either — or, better yet, that AQ’s been “substantially defeated” or something, which has been the unstated thrust of all those WH-leaked pieces in the press lately about how weak Bin Laden’s gang has become. Why, I’ll bet in a year or so we’ll be told that they’re so weak that we can start pulling out of Afghanistan altogether. Things sure have improved over there since Bush was president, huh?

Ace:

If Obama wants to lose the war that must be won, as he used to declare hourly — which he plainly does — he should do our troops the courtesy of removing them from harm’s way completely, rather that letting them twist in the wind in a war he’s already decided to lose.

This Aint Hell:

For six years we got to hear the Left complain that Iraq wasn’t complicit in world-wide terrorism. Now we get to hear them eliminate yet another group of enemies with their pathetic, intellectually shallow excuses. Besides, the Taliban says that they’re not a threat to us. they’ve never lied before, right?

What’s next? Are they going to tell us that Osama bin Laden didn’t know about the 9-11 attacks? How could he? He was all the way in Afghanistan.

JMF:

At the same time. evidence is coming to light that Iran may indeed be supplying the Taliban with weapons and supplies with which to wage war against our forces, just like they did in Iraq.

If this does indeed become the course of inaction that the administration chooses, I do not know what to say to all those service members and the families of those left behind, that would justify this.

And what to say to all of the Afghanis who will no doubt be massacred just like what happened in the aftermath of Vietnam and in Cambodia.

The mother of all expiration dates:

Then-candidate Barack Obama, July 15, 2008:

Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That’s what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that’s why, as President, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.

And then in August, before the VFW:

This is the central front in the war on terrorism. This is where the Taliban is gaining strength and launching new attacks, including one that just took the life of ten French soldiers. This is where Osama bin Laden and the same terrorists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans on our own soil are hiding and plotting seven years after 9/11. This is a war that we have to win.

And then in his convention address:

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And then on October 22:

Abroad, we need a new direction that ends the war in Iraq, focuses on the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, and restores strong alliances and tough American diplomacy.
The New York Times, today:

President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

Good coverage at Atlas Shrugs too.

Remember folks! The Taliban is not the enemy. This Taliban?

What a sad, pathetic, weak man we have in the White House. Obama Takes Yesterday’s Taliban Talking Points, Makes Them Today’s WH Spin God, help us!

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