Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pressure the Locals to Do Their Part? The Administration plans on creating "benchmarks" for Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet in order to retain the commitment of U.S. troops and money to the conflict. But long-standing corruption and incompetence can't be quickly eradicated. "The Pakistani and Afghan governments are both next to useless when it comes to this issue," Democratic Representative Dave Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, tells TIME. So look for fairly elastic benchmarks, which will only please those who are required to meet them...
...What's the Bottom Line? Obama's decision carries high stakes for the thousands of Americans he's ordering into harm's way as well as for Afghanistan itself. But there's one more consequence he's unlikely to mention but can't avoid. The speech will underscore Obama's ownership of the Afghan mission, says Anthony Cordesman, a military scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. By 9 p.m. E.T., Cordesman says, Obama will "have to take personal responsibility for the outcome of the war ... betting his historical reputation and second term on the outcome...
Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan - the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is an honor for me to do so here - at West Point - where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security and to represent what is finest about our country...
...address these issues, it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women and children without regard to their faith or race or station. Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers onboard one of those flights, they could have also struck...
...know, these men belonged to al-Qaeda - a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world's great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents. Al-Qaeda's base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban - a ruthless, repressive and radical movement that seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere...