Aside from being a war-monger, Senator Lindsey Graham has poor eyesight. No matter how much he squints, he has never seen fault in U.S. foreign policy (unless, of course, it hasn’t been sufficiently interventionist for him). But somehow circumstances have developed so that Graham can see the futility of the war in Afghanistan while managing to blame others, instead of the U.S.
“If the president of the country can’t understand how irrational it is to expect us to turn over prisoners and if he doesn’t understand that the night raids have been the biggest blow to the Taliban … then there is no hope of winning. None,” Graham said in the hallways of the Capitol Building just before entering the GOP caucus lunch.
“So if he insists that all the prisoners have to be turned over by March 9 and that we have to stop night raids, that means we will fail in Afghanistan and that means Lindsey Graham pulls the plug. It means that I no longer believe we can win and we might as well get out of there sooner rather than later.”
Whenever someone loses hope for war in Afghanistan, an angel gets his wings. Still, Graham’s words are probably just talk.
The background for his comments are the negotiations taking place between the U.S. and Afghan President Hamid Karzai right now. The Obama administration has been working on an agreement for what the U.S. role in Afghanistan will be once the U.S. withdraws the bulk of its occupation forces sometime in the next two years (ahem, it will be substantial). Karzai has demanded Afghan control of jails and an end to night raids on Afghan homes. The U.S. has consistently demanded they retain control of Afghanistan’s prisons and that they continue to perform night raids with Special Operations forces, who are supposed to take a leading role in terrorizing Afghanistan after the drawdown.
I’m in no position to guess the result of the impasse, but America’s untamed, occupied underlings have stood up against the imperialist agenda before. Note the precedent of Iraq. Back in 2007 Bush administration had drafted the first Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which detailed a prolonged and continued U.S. troop presence in Iraq with no specified limits and called for “facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments” and for US forces to work indefinitely to “deter foreign aggression against Iraq.” There were reports at the time about the impasse that had been reached due to the Iraqi government’s objections to the SOFA. They started demanding a firm withdrawal date of all U.S. forces and rejecting “long-term US military bases on its soil.” The Obama administration picked up the torch from the Bush administration and began again to push for a new agreement that would allow the continuation of the occupation beyond 2011. They eventually failed. And while U.S. dominion over Iraq is not gone, it is considerably reduced from what it might have been had the Iraqis simply accepted U.S. commands.
That is possible, even if unlikely, with Afghanistan as well. But I’m sure Lindsey Graham will have found fault with the American retreat by then.
He was already a "hopeless" basket case.
Lindsey Graham is a religious extremist.
Senator Lindsey Graham…isn't this the same idiot who criticized Obama for the Libya debacle–not for the US's involvement in Libya in the first place; rather, Mr. Graham shunned Obama for: "leading from behind"? So…Lindsey's extremely 'concerned' about keeping the pressure on the "Taliban". Ironically, some of the 'Libyan Freedom Fighters' Lindsey now self-congratulates for 'liberating' (in spite of the blumbering 'behind-lead' of Mr. Obama) fought side by side with the Taliban against the US in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. But none of that's important right now…what's important, now, is that we stick it to Iran–which is probably synonymous with "the Taliban" in Lindsey's confused mind… Keep up the good work Senator Graham!!! On to Syria…
drones are the answer.
Build rods from god too.
force everyone who supports Khomeni or the Taliban to give up their war
You "drone it", you own it! And we have been paying and paying and paying — for all the broken things with our treasure and lives. And have a huge debt, that will need repaying and repaying and repaying. There OUGHT to be a better way. I recommend that politicians that want war (with whoever, and for whatever reason — not that it really matters), need to step up and line up in the front lines of the battle. No "leading from behind". And that population will be asked to sign up for each war by paying a defined fee each. We need to put our bodies and money where the mouth is.
no giving in to Khomeni or Al Qaeda.
don't do the stuff that they want never ever.
Al Qaeda fights for the Caliphate
South Carolina last in education and first in poverty and Sen. Graham is concerned about Kabul. There must be other more qualified to lead than this neocon with a twang.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump….
"… and that's all I have to say about Afghanistan."
They sure are going to have fun blowing up those hydroelectirc plants the US spent billions to build over there.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "terrorist is what terrorist does". Supporting them in Libya and demanding to arm them in Syria is a true Forrest Gump moment.
"Whenever someone loses hope for war in Afghanistan, an angel gets his wings. "
LOVE it!!!
Every man when they are born are innocent creatures, Senator Lindsey Graham, MacCain, Lieberman, Kerry and others not the one. Just yesterday an american solders fires on sleeping people in their home killing 16 man women and children while they are sleep, perhaps Senator Lindsey Graham and his friends wish that they were there hopping to see more of the same scenario. After all it is them who thinks that these people deserve to die because they look different, after all it is them who makes money out of any wars and by creating wars they contribute to human insanities, sending american poorest and uneducated man and women to war making sure that rock and roll demonic words are bombarded into their brains so they can perform better in killing people. As US militarism regime were doing the drug thing in Vietnam making sure that killing of Vietnamese are made easier, so these people are modernized version and learned their lessen, now they are using Rock and Roll bands and their killing messages so it stays in their brain after when they come home and circle of killings continues. That is how these senators contributing in democratizing their version of democracy, this is how the vulture capitalism and its militarism regimes works.
That men like Steve Jobs get cancer and are taken from us, and sociopaths like Lindsay Graham go on living, is proof that there's no God
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Good
But none of that's important right now…what's important, now, is that we stick it to Iran–which is probably synonymous with "the Taliban" in Lindsey's confused mind… Keep up the good work Senator Graham!!!