Karzai: Obama Plan "Better Than Expected"

(CBS)  Afghanistan's president said on Saturday that the new U.S. strategy for the worsening conflict in his country is "better than expected".

President Hamid Karzai praised plans to strengthen Afghanistan's civilian and security institutions that are part of the strategy announced on Friday by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Karzai said the new strategy will help the country fight extremism and improve stability.

He also welcomed Mr. Obama's focus on countering militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan.

"This is better than we were expecting as a matter of fact, and we back it, and we hope to go for it to a full implementation," Karzai told reporters in Kabul.

President Obama's plan seeks to disrupt and defeat al Qaeda and its allies who have made a comeback since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Many Taliban militants fled to Pakistan, where they have been launching cross-border attacks alongside al Qaeda.

Mr. Obama launched a fresh effort by sending in 4,000 more troops, hundreds of civilians and increased aid for a war that has lasted more than seven years and still has no end in sight.

The U.S. president also promised intensive diplomacy with Pakistan and Afghanistan and an unprecedented world outreach for help.

"I am in full agreement with the new strategy announced. It is exactly what the Afghan people were hoping for, and were seeking. Therefore, it has our full support and backing," Karzai said.

President Obama's strategy is built on an ambitious goal of boosting the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 troops by 2011, and greatly increasing training by U.S. troops accompanying them, so the Afghan military can defeat Taliban insurgents and take control of the war.

Karzai embraced the additional help his country will get to train its army and police force.

Much of the security build-up in Afghanistan this year is meant to provide security for fair, stable elections there in August.

Will the plan succeed in a country that has been called "the graveyard of empires"?

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., gave the plan a B-plus.

"First of all, it is a pretty good plan and focuses on protecting the Afghan population as a way to do counterterrorism, and that's the right way to think about this," O'Hanlon told Early Show anchor Erica Hill. "For too long we did not, so I'm generally happy.

"It probably doesn't do enough in that direction," he added. "The Afghan military and police are not going to be large enough. I think our thinking is, we'll do it incrementally bit-by-bit and make them bigger further down the road.

"It's better to be clear about the strategy up-front," O'Hanlon said. "The international development and economic effort is uncoordinated and there are 40 or so donor countries trying to do their thing, and the Afghan ministries they work with don't have the capacity to hear all that advice. You have to have a strong international coordinator, I believe, and we haven't seen that movement yet."

In terms of a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan, however, O'Hanlon said, "We're not going to be able to get out for three to five years at a minimum, in terms of the higher level of troops. We tried to shortcut under Mr. Rumsfeld and [it] didn't work. You have to protect the population and build up the Afghan institutions."

On the Pakistan front, O'Hanlon said he thought their military may need more help with counter-insurgency equipment and training in the northwest provinces where al Qaeda and Taliban threats are so great.

"So the plan's definitely moving in the right direction, but because the stakes are so high and it's going to be so hard to get this right, I prefer to focus on where I think it could be even better."


Hundreds Mourn N.Y. Marine Who Died In Afghanistan

An upstate New York community is mourning a Marine killed in Afghanistan two months before he was to get married.

Hundreds of people gathered Saturday in Rome to pay respects to U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Geary. The 22-year-old died last week when a bomb hit his Humvee.

(AP/N. L. Cvetnic, Observer-Dispatch)

(The casket of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Geary is carried from a military airplane during a ceremony at Griffiss International Airport, March 26, 2009 in Rome, New York, before family members (left to right) cousin Dawn Roux, father Michael Geary, and mother Aggie Geary.)

His flag-draped coffin was carried up the steps of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church as bells pealed. Geary is being buried with full military honors.

He joined the Marines after graduating from high school. He was on was his second tour of duty, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. His family says he wanted to sign on for a third tour. The first was in Iraq.

Geary planned to get married in May.

[Paulsaysso]

This is a terrible result. All the oil pipelines and copper mines in the world are not worth the life of this young man. It is time to start withdrawing from Afghanistan.

[McHineguy]

Our New President hasn't even been in office Three Months and all you in the Radical Right can do is LIE about him and his plans. LOL
Posted by skyk-2009 at 5:10 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Please do your own research. These arent lies and you can use only numbers from the left. How about just numbers from the Obama administration? They all say the same. Either accept it and deal with it or accept that you are in denial.

You plan to mortgage the country your children will inherit.

At last weeks press conference Obama was asked if it bothered him to pass such debt on to his daughters. HE DODGED THE QUESTION!!!

[McHineguy]

McHineguy,

How do you figure that Obama is spending more than Bush?

It was Bush who gave Obama TARP, the auto bailout, Iraq, Afghanistan, the "temporary" tax cut for the wealthy(cutting taxes increases our debt and the deficit the same as spending), and pre-TARP bailouts to the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman.

Obama's budget includes the cost of Iraq & Afghanistan that was not included in the Bush deficits but was being paid for with borrowed funds, the stimulus spending made necessary by the financial mismanagement of the previous administration, and efforts to improve our financial/educational/energy. & health initiatives that will create jobs and revenue streams in the future.

Obama has put forward the stimulus at $787 billion, and the mortgage modification program at $275 billion. That's $1.062 billion. The "temporary tax cut for the rich that Bush and the GOP Congress passed in its first few months totalled $1.4 billion. Let the "temporary" tax cut die and you've paid for Obama's spending so far. Let's not forget that Bush & the Republicans were inheriting a budget surplus needed for the baby boomer's retirement but gave it to those least in need instead and now have left the current President with this mess and a baby boomer retirement crisis on the horizon to deal with(not to mention troops coming home in need of jobs and healthcare).
Posted by yeswecan23 at 8:08 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Please check out the facts. PRETTY PLEASE!!! Dont go looking for excuses. Here are the facts.

1. The Obama administration has sent a proposed ten year budget to congress.
2. That ten year budget shows our country will owe between $10 Trillion and $15 Trillion by then if we adopt Obamas budget.
4. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says it will be near $15 Trillion. This has been the gold standard used for every financial plan in Washington.
5. The Obama administration insists it will be ONLY $10 Trillion.
6. Our country currently owes about $5 Trillion.
7. Take whichever estimate you want, our debt is going to double or triple under the Obama plan.

Even if you blame Bush for the entire TARP, and then the mortgage bailout, and then the entire Iraq war, his DEBT will be less than Obama. Check the facts, do the math.

Im not talking about who pays taxes, thats a smokescreen to keep you from looking at the bottom line. Im not talking about on the books or not. Im talking bottom line debt. The debt that we or our kids must pay interest on until we pay it off. Im not talking about infrastructure, or Limbaugh, or any of that other smoke the hard left is blowing to keep your mind off the numbers. Just look at the numbers. OBAMA WANTS TO SPEND 2 OR THREE TIMES WHAT ANY PREIDENT HAS EVER SPENT.

But if you want to talk taxes, then be aware, one of the ways Obama wants to pay for his spending is someting he calls "Cap and Trade". This is a tax on burning coal and some oil. That tax will raise your utility bills. Even the Dems in congress are balking. But if they dont pass it, and still pass the Obama budget our debt in ten years will rise BEYOND $15 Trillion.

It gets worse. The world seems to experience some amount of recession every ten years or so. By the next one we will be so far in debt we will not be able to borrow for another stimulus.

These arent the rantings of some right wing kook. These are real numbers from Obama and/or honest brokers on the net. But if you think I am spinning them do a little research yourself. The conclusion is irrefutable.

YOU ARE SUPPORTING OBAMA AS HE RACKS UP MORE DEBT THAN YOU CAN PAY. YOU WILL LEAVE AMERICA WORSE FOR YOUR CHILDREN THAN IT WAS WHEN YOU GOT IT.

[promaclaura]

Promaclaura,

I'm glad that your family has been rewarded for their efforts. I don't know what industry they work in or what they do but plenty of hard-working people who've sought retraining and schooling to keep pace have been dislocated by trickle down, regardless of your narrow experience.

No one. no matter how much ambition they show gets ahead without the efforts of plenty of the very people you disdain. I'm certain that your family drives cars, eats at restaurants, has their dry cleaning done by, buys their groceries from, and stays in hotel rooms made clean by the very people you look down on as not being as worthy of a reward for their efforts and hard work. As someone who worked their way through college to be in the position to have a good life if not wealthy life, I can assure you that acheiving an education and climbing a corporate ladder is much easier than doing the grunt work which makes the executive work even possible.

Society is like a ladder, no one rises to the top rung unless the lower and middle rungs are first maintained and made strong.
Posted by yeswecan23 at 7:53 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Everyone in our family has worked the "grunt" jobs and worked hard to get out of them. Currently their jobs are at GM, automotive supplier, disaster restoration company and a financial planner. We all live in the State of Michigan, which is in the worst shape and been in the dumper for years. I don't act like I'm above it all, as everyone of us has worked those very jobs you think I disdain. When I was in a manufacturing facility, the norm was for the line workers to scoff at additional training, call in sick all the time, and take multiple breaks for their ciggees. Hard work was a "foreign" word for them, so they stayed exactly where they belonged, those that wanted more took advantage of opportunities offered.

What we are seeing now is a world economy that has caught up with us and those on the low end of the totem pole are seeing their jobs go bye-bye to those in other countries that will work for less (and are happy about it too). The days of high-paying low-skill jobs are OVER, and that's what all the lifetime line workers are complaining about. I don't blame this on trickle down economics, I blame it on people not seeing the writing on the wall and realizing that 3rd world countries can take those easy line jobs and do a bang up job on the cheap.

By the way, the current positions in my family require more skill and more time on salary. We don't get to punch out on a clock or have a union protect our jobs like your average factory worker. You see, we don't expect something for nothing, which seems to be the case for many in our society.

[yeswecan23]

McHineguy,

How do you figure that Obama is spending more than Bush?

It was Bush who gave Obama TARP, the auto bailout, Iraq, Afghanistan, the "temporary" tax cut for the wealthy(cutting taxes increases our debt and the deficit the same as spending), and pre-TARP bailouts to the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman.

Obama's budget includes the cost of Iraq & Afghanistan that was not included in the Bush deficits but was being paid for with borrowed funds, the stimulus spending made necessary by the financial mismanagement of the previous administration, and efforts to improve our financial/educational/energy. & health initiatives that will create jobs and revenue streams in the future.

Obama has put forward the stimulus at $787 billion, and the mortgage modification program at $275 billion. That's $1.062 billion. The "temporary tax cut for the rich that Bush and the GOP Congress passed in its first few months totalled $1.4 billion. Let the "temporary" tax cut die and you've paid for Obama's spending so far. Let's not forget that Bush & the Republicans were inheriting a budget surplus needed for the baby boomer's retirement but gave it to those least in need instead and now have left the current President with this mess and a baby boomer retirement crisis on the horizon to deal with(not to mention troops coming home in need of jobs and healthcare).

[yeswecan23]

Promaclaura,

I'm glad that your family has been rewarded for their efforts. I don't know what industry they work in or what they do but plenty of hard-working people who've sought retraining and schooling to keep pace have been dislocated by trickle down, regardless of your narrow experience.

No one. no matter how much ambition they show gets ahead without the efforts of plenty of the very people you disdain. I'm certain that your family drives cars, eats at restaurants, has their dry cleaning done by, buys their groceries from, and stays in hotel rooms made clean by the very people you look down on as not being as worthy of a reward for their efforts and hard work. As someone who worked their way through college to be in the position to have a good life if not wealthy life, I can assure you that acheiving an education and climbing a corporate ladder is much easier than doing the grunt work which makes the executive work even possible.

Society is like a ladder, no one rises to the top rung unless the lower and middle rungs are first maintained and made strong.

[promaclaura]

What's the lie? McHineguy told you to go to Obama's website for the information, are you saying that Obama is lying? Also, Reid's train and Pelosi's mouse protection are true as well, so what is the lie?
Posted by promaclaura at 6:33 AM : Mar 29, 2009


Again, all I ask of you or anyone in the Right to do is show success OF YOUR plan. Stop attacking the other guys plan when YOU have NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to put in it's place. I sincerely hope you don't think Trickle Down is going to work, because there is NO EVIDENCE what so ever that it will or ever could. I say the "Budget" put out by the Republican's and it's NOTHING but Trickle Down without the figures and the standard LIE! We can NOT move away from failure by doing the same things... that we already know isn't going to work. Now as I said no one can tell if the Presidents Plan is going to work, it isn't even in place yet but EVERYONE who has a BRAIN knows that Trickle Down doesn't... we have THREE DECADES of FAILURE to show for that insanity.
Posted by skyk-2009 at 6:46 AM : Mar 29, 2009

My whole family has thrived on "trickle down" and we still do. Four brothers with families that have good paying jobs and climbed the ladder to bigger rewards. Those that didn't thrive on trickle-down are those who thought that a forever job on a manufacturing line was going to protect their future. With no desire to improve your life, shrugging off extra skills and sure "your" life will trickle down the toilet. My family didn't do that and grabbed all the skills and opportunity they could, they are ALL doing well.

[promaclaura]

Throwing all the money in the world into Afghanistan/Pakistan will do squat, it'll shine it up briefly, and then the tribal society will become dominant again.
Posted by promaclaura at 6:19 AM : Mar 29, 2009


It's always the same for you ditto heads who continue to defend the failures of the Right! Sure we were wrong, sure we shouldn't have done it but believe me THIS time... sure I've never been right before but believe me this time. All you have to sell is fear of a different direction and views that are not in the mental range of the Extreme Right. Now as I see it, following the lead of people who have handed us nothing but failure is insane.
Posted by skyk-2009 at 6:35 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Unless Obama is ready to invade Pakistan, he is doing the same thing Bush did. Kicking the Taliban's b utt in Afghanistan once again, and then the big decision for Obama (like Bush), do we invade Pakistan to finish the job?

[promaclaura]

I have already agreed we need to upgrade much of our infrastructure. But Obama isnt doing that. Look at the facts on HIS web site. He is spending $110 Billion on infrastructure. ONLY $110 Billion. The rest is payoff to his cronies. A bullet train for Harry Reid, a Marsh Mouse for Nancy Pelosi. And our kids are going to pay for it.

Again, you are supporting him as he spends more money than any president ever, even Bush. As a result of just his spending, you will leave your children much less than your paretns left you. You cna blame Bush all you want, he didnt do a good job. But that is hardly an argument that Obama should do worse.
Posted by McHineguy at 11:03 PM : Mar 28, 2009

Our New President hasn't even been in office Three Months and all you in the Radical Right can do is LIE about him and his plans. LOL
Posted by skyk-2009 at 5:10 AM : Mar 29, 2009

What's the lie? McHineguy told you to go to Obama's website for the information, are you saying that Obama is lying? Also, Reid's train and Pelosi's mouse protection are true as well, so what is the lie?

[promaclaura]

Another sentence that stood out is that this operation is looked at in terms of 3 to 5 years AT A MINIMUM.

Posted by promaclaura at 1:37 PM : Mar 28, 2009





I agree.

Bush SHOULD have concentrated on Afghanistan 7 years ago, instead of giving up to invade a country that didn't do anything to us.

Obama's plan is going to take 3 - 5 years at a minimum, and to think of those wasted 7 years turns my stomach.


Though that did give them a place to assassinate Pat Tilman, temporarily creating a "hero" for Bush's cause.
Posted by hungry1968-15 at 2:58 PM : Mar 28, 2009

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, I'm not relying on your theory. I think in terms of if we hadn't invaded Iraq too and don't believe Afghanistan would be a done deal if we hadn't. What Bush didn't do is attack Pakistan, which is the protector and main supplier of the Taliban. Read any article, plenty on this site and they say "the defeat of the Taliban in 2001". This means we DEFEATED THEM, with the remnants escaping into Pakistan. Most libs theory is "if we had only stayed" and spent gobs of money to set up Afghan society we wouldn't be having a problem, WRONG, all those good things libs believe we were supposed to do would have been blown up already by the Taliban crossing over from Pakistan. If and when we ever leave there, it will go right back to the tribal society and all of our efforts wasted, unless of course we want to leave our troops forever at the border and keep on paying Afghanistan/Pakistan to be good boys. You'll notice that Obama is doing the same thing as Bush, defeating the Taliban but not trying to build their society, Obama will come to the same point of Taliban defeat and say "ok, what now, do we stay indefinitely to keep the Taliban out?" Or do we attack Pakistan to finish the job? ps Throwing all the money in the world into Afghanistan/Pakistan will do squat, it'll shine it up briefly, and then the tribal society will become dominant again.