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With Obama's New Afghanistan Strategy, an Effort to Find More Realistic Goals

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Mr Obama You are President of a peace loving Natoin We as People of Afghanistan thank you for offering us more help and support.
in my Openion for the US it is very important to study the long historey of Afghanistan,I just meansion one example when British India's Forigen minster Duran impposed Duran line on Great Afghanistan in 1893 at that time the pwople of Afghanistan became unitted and fought against the british in Wazirstan there were around 40000 british solders to fight with Haji Mirzali khan with whome there were around 1500 tribal fighters but brithis army solders were unable to keep fighting and had finaly accepted defeat
ofter almost a hundred and eight years later we have got us army in Afghanistan this such a time while lar aw bar greart Afghanistan is still devided half of Afghanistan is under Panjabee dictatership and our pashtoon people have been kept first by the british then by present pakistan government un educatted.
In two third of Afghnistan that is in our hands norhteren alliances who are immagrants in Afghanistan are rulling on the majority Pashtoons Afghans Who are the real children of Afghanistan Mr Karzai only by name Afgan Pashtoon Who is unable to talk in Afghani or pashto language is by name in power.The powe is with Takiks.
The pashtoon Afghans are still waitting for great Afghnistan but how can that happen if pashtoons are not in power even pashtoo or Afghani language is treated like a forigen language in Afghanistan and Mr karzai's goernment is trying to impose minority on majority pashtoons the so called Duran line is expirec some 16 years befor while our pashtoons brothers are still not offically unitted with us nevertheless pashtoons has crossed this line and made national unitty but in media we are still called two saparate natoin like pakistani or Afghani while each pashtoon is an Afghan but each Afghan is not a pashtoon.
For the US it was possible to come some 17000km away to Afghanistan but it is not possible for them to go five Kms and cross the expired and so call Duran line.
On the other side of duran line we got FCR law this is made by British india in 1901 and still acttive and the area is called FATA which means Fedraly administrated Tribal Area.
This is something the Brithis has done for the Afghan Nation as a gift.
US is in Afghanistan while pashtoons are under the Iran Panjabee and Tajike dictatership.
We as pashtoons Afghans kindly ask the US to save us from these sleeve snakes.
bye Hamidullah Khosty

Hamidullah Khosty of AL 7:53AM July 11, 2009

What a New Strategy Should Have to Succeed in Afghanistan - An open letter to Barack ObamaWashington - May 10, 2009
Mr. President,
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the occasion of your election to the Presidency, as it has been remarkable in more than one way.
Mr. President,
I would like to share here, with a great economy of words, what I view as essential on the subject of the situation in Afghanistan. Recently, you laid out your Administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan. While I congratulate you for your willingness to bring change to the United States’ mostly unsuccessful approach of the last eight years – and not going beyond in order not to divert from my main focus here, I believe that not all the changes announced are going in the right direction and/or are sufficient to reach the results sought out – i.e. the stabilization and the normalization of the situation in Afghanistan.
Certainly, appointing a Special Envoy, increasing reconstruction/development aid money, further funding the development of the Afghan Security forces, and articulating a more firm and comprehensive policy towards Pakistan, as well as hinting at overtures to non-Al Qaeda-linked armed opposition groups, can be viewed as positive steps.
But to save Afghanistan from the current downward spiral, more radical changes and serious rethinking are needed. To witness any real improvement, I believe it is essential to state and accept that:
· Thirty years of conflict have excessively weakened Afghanistan in all aspects and one must recognize that the temporary and strictly defined involvement of the international community is still needed to put the country back on its feet.
· All countries and organizations involved in Afghanistan need to respect the country’s Sovereignty - not simply in words but also in deeds.
· Any international military and political actions in Afghanistan need to be channeled though the United Nations as the only legitimate guarantor and implementer of the international community’s decisions vis-à-vis one of its members.
· The 2001 Bonn Conference and its outcome - in the form of the current inefficient and mostly corrupt Afghan Government - have failed to deliver.
· Without the restoration of decent security conditions throughout the country, economic, educational, democratic, or any other type of development cannot prosper.
· Sending more foreign troops to Afghanistan is not the solution: More troops to be implanted locally will only antagonize the locals - as it will emphasize the notion of living under occupation – and, in the end, will counter-productively weaken furthermore the central Government.
**Sorry. I am running our of space here. Please read the rest of it at http://threehornedlion.com/assemakram/pages/articles/Open%20Letter%20to%20Obama.html.
Thank you.
Assem Akram

Assem Akram of VA 8:44PM June 16, 2009

Award-winning Cartoonist Bashes Obama's New Afghanistan Policy
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/03/29/award-winning-cartoonist-not-fond-obamas-afghanistan-strategy

Thomas Stewart of MD 12:48AM March 30, 2009

Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan was just the same wine as Bush's, but Obama served it in a new bottle with an "accountability" label for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the Americans liked the "No Blank Checks" taste, and asked for more of it.
But to the Afghans and Pakistanis it sounded like: "We will pay your governments to pursue and destroy those who hate the U.S., and those who support them." And although this has been going on since 2003, the "no blank checks" means that the bodies of Taliban have to be counted now before the checks are signed! That's a two-prong strategy: 1. The U.S. continues and intensifies airstrikes and Predator strikes from the skies, and 2. The paid by the U.S. Afghan and Pakistani forces act as its mercenaries to attack the Taliban on the ground - along with the NATO forces. And it probably looks like with this flawless strategy, the Taliban would certainly become a memory very soon - unless someone looks at the history of Afghanistan.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus - who followed Alexander the Great's conquest all the way to Afghanistan, and his battles in the Khyber Pass- opined that "foreign conquerors" cannot rule a land forever without the support of the
local population. But Niccolo Machiavelli later said during the Middle Ages that it can be done by appointing local tyrants to govern on behalf of the outside power -as the Persian Empire was doing by appointing local governors (the Satraps). That is what the U.S. has done with Karzai in Afghanistan since 2003, but today, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that "Afghanistan cannot be governed from abroad." Can Obama turn history upside down? No, but he needs to buy time to find a face-saving way out - rather than take Lyndon Johnson's road to Vietnam desperation, and his disgraced quit from re-running for the presidency.
The war in Afghanistan will not be won with more battles with Taliban, or with more U.S. schemes to deny political power to those who see Taliban as part of the landscape - like former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. No surprise that the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) is working in tandem with them. The ISI has long term goals of national security that transcend Bush's ego to make history for himself, or Obama's priority to walk carefully and secure his re-election on 2012.
The people that Obama demanded to wipe out the Taliban before they receive the U.S. checks, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Asif Zardari of Pakistan, are dead weights either sustained or supported by the U.S. to stay on the backs of their hostile to the U.S. population. And Obama's bet to expect from them to deliver victory to him for his "signed check" is a wishful thinking that will not survive the test of time. Nikos Retsos, retired professor

Nikos Retsos of IL 6:25PM March 27, 2009