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Old 12-20-2011, 11:37 AM   #10
spence
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT View Post
That's idiotic for 2 reasons. First of all, regardless of what that statement "sounds like" to you, yuo are assigning benign intentions when you cannot know what Biden meant.
Actually, listening to the quotes it seemed quite clear what he meant. You stopped listening after "Taliban".

Quote:
Second, while we are negotiating an end to our involvement, that negotiation does not involve the Taliban, we are working with the Afghan govenrment, which (no thanks to you) is no longer the Taliban.
Rumors of negotiations with the Taliban have gone on for some time, and it's hard to think we could reach agreement with the Afghanistan Government without some form of agreement with the Taliban. The Pakistani variable in the equation would make elimination nearly impossible.

Quote:
As of today, as of right now, we are in a declared war with the Taliban.
This is factually not true.

Operation Enduring Freedom was a military action approved by Congress, there was no legal declaration of war.

The objective was to eliminate al Qaeda's safe haven and remove the Taliban from power.

We are still fighting the Taliban yes, but we are not "at War" with them. Doesn't make much difference to those doing the fighting, but it's an important distinction to those trying to end it successfully.

-spence
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