US close to meeting objective of Afghan war, says Obama

[unhappycamper]

http://dawn.com/2013/01/13/us-close-to-meeting-objective-of-afghan-war-says-obama/



US President Barack Obama (R) and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai leave after a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 11, 2013. At a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House on Friday, President Obama announced the acceleration of the US military transition in Afghanistan, and said the US military would play a supporting role in the nation by this spring.

US close to meeting objective of Afghan war, says Obama
From the Newspaper | Anwar Iqbal | 1 day ago

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that by the end of next year, America’s war in Afghanistan would be over. “After more than a decade of war, the nation we need to rebuild is our own,” said Mr Obama in his weekly radio address.

At a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House on Friday, President Obama announced the acceleration of the US military transition in Afghanistan, and said the US military would play a supporting role in the nation by this spring.

On Saturday, he said he wanted to update his nation “on how we will end this war, bring our troops home, and continue the work of rebuilding America”.

~snip~

“And our core objective, the reason we went to war in the first place, is now within reach: ensuring that Al Qaeda can never again use Afghanistan to launch attacks against America,” he said.



unhappycamper comment: I did not realize we had an official objective in Afghanistan, since the (objective) goal posts have been moving on a regular basis.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I never did see

that the Taliban harbouring what at the time remained a small group justified invading the country especailly given that small groups tend to be mobile.

And now we've the situation in northern Mali - a land mass even bigger than Afghanistan.