Word: qaeda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Commander in Chief, Obama promised an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, but he still hasn't fully defined the U.S. goal there, even though he repeatedly insisted during the campaign that this war - the war that began as an effort to find Osama bin Laden and dismantle al-Qaeda - was in the national interest...
...done until the end of March, but it has already achieved some clarity about U.S. goals and priorities: "Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan," said an official familiar with Riedel's thinking. "Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable...
...enough, except that historically it has proved to be impossible. "People talk glibly of 'the total disarmament of the frontier tribes' as being the obvious policy," wrote the young Winston Churchill, who gallivanted, a bit too gleefully, with a 19th century British expeditionary force through the areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now ensconced. "But to obtain it would be as painful and as tedious an undertaking as to extract the stings of a swarm of hornets, with naked fingers...
...comprehensive diplomacy accompanied by lots of money. The diplomatic task is to nudge India and Pakistan, who nearly came to an agreement in their eternal Kashmir dispute in 2007, toward a lessening of tensions in the hope that the Pakistani army will turn to the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban...
...stabilize the military situation," said an Obama aide. "Continue to build up the Afghan army, and help the government to become more effective." In other words, hope that the disintegration of Afghanistan can be prevented while waiting - and hoping - for the Pakistanis to take effective action against the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens...