2012: Barack Obama declares: “Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat.” He also said.
“I ended the war in Iraq, as I promised. We are transitioning out of Afghanistan. We have gone after the terrorists who actually attacked us 9/11 and decimated al Qaeda.”
“We said that we would go after al Qaeda, and they are on the run and bin Laden is dead.”
“That’s why, working with Joe Biden and our national security team, we’ve been able to decimate al Qaeda.”
“Thanks to sacrifice and service of our brave men and women in uniform, the war in Iraq is over, the war in Afghanistan is winding down, al Qaeda has been decimated, Osama bin Laden is dead.”
“Today, al Qaeda is on its heels and Osama bin Laden is no more.”
2014: Al Qaeda controls more territory than ever in Middle East.
But, by all means, mainstream media, keep obsessing over that bridge thing.
One of his most basic and successful strategies: If you say it enough, your friends(MFM) will say it too, if you’re all saying it together…enough… BAM! It’s TRUE! See how we can all arrive at the {cough} Truth, if we just all work together!?
Ahem!!!
Please note that al Qaeda, the authentic one, is Kaput!!! Dead!!!! Vanquished!!! Destroyed by The Won with his light saber drones.
What we are seeing now, I tells ya, are al Qaeda-LIKE operations which are precisely the same as authentic al Qaeda, but different.
Apparently, conservatives don’t nuance very well. It must be a Neanderthal thing that comes from too much knuckle dragging.
Furthermore, al Qaeda in the mid-East is not the al-Qaeda of bin Laden because Obama killed bin Laden and so how the heck can bin Laden’s al Qaeda still be around and whatsamattahwitchyou?
heliotrope, can you refresh for us the history of the Western way of thinking when any representative of that way of thinking puts boots on the ground in Afghanistan? OK, go ahead and tell us how the Russian Empire did if you know.
Michael, I am a tad confused in my attempt to parse your request. But, I will attempt to follow your request as I understand it.
Kipling, 1889 – The Ballad of East and West:
Translation: While the East and West are radically different, the Asian and the Westerner are equals.
That said the Russians, who are closer to the Asian “difference” than we are, got their clocks cleaned in Afghanistan in no small part because we armed the fledgling Al Qaeda with weapons to shoot down planes and other specialized weaponry.
The Russians lost way too many sons and lost its heart for the fight.
The fighters of Afghanistan use their familiar terrain to fight a guerrilla type of war while wearing garb that makes them indistinguishable from the local non-combatants.
Obama inherited the war in Afghanistan on January 20, 2009. As Commander-in-Chief he ordered a surge in that war with the assumption that it would drive a wedge through a stand-still and help bring an end to the war. US troop deaths in Afghanistan during the Bush Presidency = 57; US troop deaths in Afghanistan as of December 13, 2013 in the Obama Presidency = 1620.
Obama’s military has been stymied by the Taliban – al Qaeda moving back and forth into Pakistan in a way reminiscent of the Viet Cong using Cambodia and Laos.
Obama announced the end date of the US presence in Afghanistan would be in December 2014 at the same time he authorized the surge. This was a tacit signal to the Taliban – al Qaeda that they had already won. That has lead to a vast consolidation of Taliban – al Qaeda power across the country as the people assess the staying power if the Karzai government.
Now we are stuck in a great stalemate. The President has decided the end date as he fiddles with Karzai and waits out the clock. Our troops are taking the beating while trying hard to train and build an Afghan army that is supposed to be sufficiently trained and equipped to take over the fight.
People of my stripe believe that if our troops are not given the clearance to win, then yank them out ASAP and slam the door. This wishy-washy diddling around is murdering and maiming our troops for no apparent good reason.
In my book, Obama has blood up to his ears in this. He has the power, but lacks the will to cut and run and save as many of our troops as possible as they flee.
Leftists claim Obama ended two wars. The more accurate assessment is that he lost two wars.
heliotrope, a “win” in battle requires an opponent with a power to concede. Criminal elements aka Taliban aka al Queda do not have a power to concede. Not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan. That means that the idea of a “war” in the very first American concept of it and its pre-emptive beginning had no chance of a “win”. Not a single dollar of our expenditures have been against a nation that attacked the US.
I believe that you know full and well that no Western nation has ever won a war in the areas where now Americans have bled and died. And that allows the idea that Russia is Western in some ways.
And yet, Obama has sent tens of thousands of young men to fight in a war he never had any intention of winning. Some Nobel Prize winner.
VtheK, the men and women elected to make and control budgets have weighed in on the side you express above, right? You do remember that the military adventure was in progress before 2008, right? Long term memory is not always a blessing, but most miss it when it is gone or only present now and then.
I recall that the USA was winning prior to 2008, and the president… flawed though he was… was committed to supporting the troops he sent to fight it.