Petraeus: Afghanistan progress will take time

[unhappycamper]

Petraeus: Afghanistan progress will take time
By Anne Flaherty - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Aug 16, 2010 17:54:53 EDT

WASHINGTON — Progress in the Afghanistan war is occurring gradually, despite rising U.S. casualties, Army Gen. David Petraeus says in comments aimed at shoring up support among an increasingly skeptical American public.

Arguing for patience, Petraeus said that it was only in the last few weeks that the war plan had been fine-tuned and given the resources that it required. "For the first time," he said, "we will have what we have been working to put in place for the last year and a half."

Petraeus spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday and in interviews with The Washington Post and The New York Times. On the job as war commander for only a few weeks, he is trying to reassure Americans that the 9-year-old war is worth fighting, and to argue that President Barack Obama's redrawn strategy is only beginning to take root.

"It's a gradual effort. It's a deliberate effort," Petraeus said. "There's no hill to take and flag to plant and proclamation of victory. Rather, it's just hard work."

Petraeus took the job from cashiered Gen. Stanley McChrystal with the understanding that some U.S. forces will come home next summer, as Obama has promised.

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. The Longest War in US history so far

but you need patience America so your Grand kids have
a chance to fight there too.

I predict Gen Betraus will not last long in his role, maybe a year
or a year and half at the most.

[Botany]

2. It has only been 9 years so far.

bush/Cheney blew any chance of a good outcome by not getting Osama @ Tora Bora and then finishing off
the pro-al Qaeda taliban forces and then leaving by 2002 ..... but no Rummy ordered a stand down from getting
bin Laden and the we went into Iraq.


One of them was Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000 marines who had arrived in the Afghan theater by now. Mattis, along with
another officer with whom I spoke, was convinced that with these numbers he could have surrounded and sealed off bin Laden's lair, as well as deployed
troops to the most sensitive portions of the largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan. He argued strongly that he should be permitted to proceed to the
Tora Bora caves. The general was turned down. An American intelligence official told me that the Bush administration later concluded that the refusal
of Centcom to dispatch the marines - along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to Afghanistan generally - was the gravest error of the war.


http://www.wehaitians.com/how%20osama%20bin%20laden%20slipped%20away%20at%20tora%20bora.html

[sendero]

3. You've had time..

.. MacNamara

[spanone]

4. hey davey boy, nine fucking years on......