OBAMA IS VIRTUALLY SURRENDERING AFGHANISTAN

We are a war weary country of that there is no doubt. Recent polls show that the majority of Americans favor ending the Afghan war and bringing our troops home after the long struggle.  But in our war fatigue are we as a Nation sitting back and accepting a virtual surrender in Afghanistan which is the direction the policy of Barack Obama seems to be taking us? A policy that seeks to hasten our withdrawal to satisfy a political goal while surrendering all that has been accomplished in the process.

We were warned by President Bush when this all began in the aftermath of 911 that it would be a long process to combat Islamic terrorism and end its influence in the world with Afghanistan being only the first stepping stone in the war.  Now more than ten years later a great deal of progress has been made by the greatest fighting force the world has ever known and best men and women in uniform in the world, but in wanting to end this decades long conflict are we allowing Obama to surrender it in order to stop it?

His rules of engagement even after sending in more troops had already severely tied the hands of our soldiers and hampered their ability to fight to win, a goal I might ad that has never been on the Obama agenda.  In fact he has sought and stated openly that winning would never be a goal and as such even with the troop surge Afghanistan has been troublesome at best. Almost as if Obama's actual goal was to hamper the war in order to turn public opinion against it to be able to push his withdrawal agenda.

Now after a surprise visit Obama announces that his administration has been negotiating with the Taliban in order to include the enemy in a new Afghan government and almost nothing has been said against this negotiation with the very people who are killing our troops at every turn. We are also finding out that in order to appease this enemy and hasten the negotiations Taliban fighters are being released in larger numbers with their promise that they will not return to the fight while having absolutely NO recourse to prevent them from doing so other than to actually engage them in battle or hunt them down to recapture them.

This is not a strategy for winning or a move of success in Afghanistan but a complete surrender by the Obama administration in order to meet a timeline set in advance and told to the enemy along with the rest of the world. The bottom line is that once this is over and Obama brings the troops home in time for the 2012 election which is obviously his goal, the enemy will once again step forward giving Al Qaeda a free hand in Afghanistan as they did before and all of the sacrifice of our best and bravest will have been in vain. But what should that matter since Barack Obama will have his talking points that HE ended the war no matter what he has to surrender and he will get his media kudos in time for the election.

Ken Taylor