Biden Warns of More ‘Sacrifice’ in Afghanistan

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

LONDON — Entering a debate that has stirred political tumult in Britain, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an interview broadcast Thursday that more coalition troops will die in Afghanistan but the war was “worth the effort.”

Speaking during a tour of Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden told the BBC that the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was “a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.”

His remarks have a particular resonance here at a time when the American-led coalition has recorded some of its worst casualties since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Britain has some 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan — the second biggest contingent after the United States — and so far this month alone has lost 19 soldiers to bring the total since 2001 to 188 — higher than the British death toll in the Iraq war. The latest fatalities came Wednesday when bombs killed two United States service members and one Briton in southern Afghanistan.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/world/europe/24afghan.html

[dgibby]

1. Worth the effort?

I love Joe, but :wtf: This should never have been a war, it should have been handled like a crime. We have no business being there, and instead of escalating, we should be packing up and heading home. What a clusterfuck!

Afganistan, where old Empires go to die.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. for what? to what end? what's the purpose, the goal of this "sacrifice"?

Why are we there? What is our objective? To kill/catch bin Laden? THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR ALMOST EIGHT YEARS AND WE AIN'T GOT HIM YET.

Anything "sacrificed" has already been sacrificed in vain. We haven't got bin Laden. We haven't driven out the Taliban. We haven't stopped terrorism.

There comes a time, Joe, when you gotta admit you just made a mistake and you get out. Okay, okay, "you" didn't make the mistake; booosh and cheeeney and rumsfeld and feith and perle and all those other bloodsucking ghouls made it. You don't have to KEEP making their mistake. I mean, if you KNOW it's a mistake and you knew from the beginning that it was mistake, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IT? You're behaving like a gambling addict. "I have to keep losing so I can win back what I've already lost."

It's lost, Joe. The money is lost, the lives are lost, and nothing, not even a great victory, will bring them back. And you don't even know what kind of "victory" you're trying to win.

You're lost in the same kind of fog of war that McNamara tried to use to justify his own insanity. It didn't work for him, Joe, and it won't work for you and that nice young man you ran with.




Tansy Gold

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. Worth the sacrifice? Jeez, where have I heard that old lie before?

[mvd]

5. It's time we..

stopped trying to make the Middle East what we want and deal what happens there. I support orderly, complete withdrawal (where is the "last resort"?), and the choice of words here is frustrating.

[latebloomer]

6. worth the sacrifice

as long as it's not your kid that's dying.

[jakeXT]

4. a place that, if it doesn't get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the USA

Love it, a bit better than "fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here"

:sarcasm:

[yurbud]

7. which oil company wrote him a check?

[Vidar]

8. This is just a worhtless sacrifice of poor young men by rich old men.

My apologies: didn't want to leave out Nancy & Hillary.

[defendandprotect]

9. We should be leaving Afghanistan and Iraq -- and Biden should wake up -- !!!

[casaloma]

10. War for profit

So abundantly clear that someone is making huge amounts of money off this boondoggle.

[sarcasmo]

11. Those poppy fields must be priceless to the CIA.

[steven johnson]

12. Sounds like a 'light at the end of the tunnel' speech

Perhaps we should worry about terrorists more and democratizing Afghanistan less.

[dflprincess]

13. It sounds like the only "sacrifice" will come from the troops and their familes

the ones making money off this farce won't even be expected to pay a fair share of taxes on their profits.