Political Quotes

“The 2001 authorization of military force and the justification for our continued military presence in Afghanistan is that the Taliban in the past provided a safe haven for al Qaeda or could do so again in the future. General Petraeus has already admitted that al Qaeda has little or no presence in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is an international organization, and, yes, they are a threat to America. The Taliban is only a threat to us as long as we continue our military occupation in Afghanistan. After more than 9 years of military occupation of Afghanistan, can we really continue to claim to be acting in self-defense? The premise that the presence of our troops on the ground keeps us safer at home has been repudiated by recent terrorist attacks on the United States, all done by people other than Afghans outraged at continuing U.S. military occupation of predominantly Muslim countries. That is not to justify what they do, but it is to clarify the condition that we have in Afghanistan. For how long are we going to continue to dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives before we realize we can't win Afghanistan militarily? At the end of the year, the administration and U.S. military leaders were touting peace talks to end the war with high-level Taliban leaders. These Taliban leaders turned out to be fake. A November 2010 article in The New York Times detailed joint U.S. and Afghan negotiations with Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, a man the U.S.…”