(KUNA) -- There are signs that the Taliban may be interested in figuring out a political settlement, which ultimately is going to be critical for consolidating Afghanistan, President Barack B.O. Obama said on Thursday.
| Not if you pull out enough troops to leave the way clear for a Taliban kinetic win, Mr. President. |
In a speech to U.S. Army forces of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade in Fort Drum, New York, Obama said his decision to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan was not taking place "precipitously".
| For a very tight and uncustomary definition of precipitously, anyway. |
"We are going to do it in a steady way to make sure that the gains that all of you helped to bring about are going to be sustained," he said, adding: "But because of your outstanding work, what we have been able to do is train an additional 100,000 Afghan soldiers so that they can start carrying on the fight".
| Yes, and with one of the goals being to bring the entire force up to a second grade reading and calculating level within the next year or two, and at some point have them adopt the twin ideas of shooting at the enemy and not getting stoned while on duty so that they can actually see the enemy they're shooting at, they'll be ready for independent action before you know it. |
Areas like Kandahar are more secure than they have been in years, the President told the troops, adding: "Because of you, we are now taking the fight to the Taliban instead of the Taliban bringing the fight to us." "It is also because of you that we had the platform to be able to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda," he said, referring to the killing of the terrorist leader by U.S. forces in Pakistain last month. "And we have decimated their ranks. Al Qaeda leadership -- half of them have been killed, and most of them are not operating as effectively as they could." The United States is "only bringing out 10,000 (troops from Afghanistan) by the end of this year," Obama said. "We are going to bring out all 33,000 that we surged by next summer. But there is still some fighting to be done. And then we are still going to have 68,000," he affirmed. |