Kerry Says “We must recommit to Afghanistan”

September 9, 2006 Speech at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts “The Administration [can’t] pretend that the war in Afghanistan is over or that the peace has been secured….The truth is, the Bush-Cheney Administration has engaged in a policy of cut and run in that country. This Administration has cut and run while the Taliban-led insurgency is running amok across entire regions of the country. The Administration has cut and run while Osama bin Laden and his henchmen hide and plot in a lawless no-man’s land. They cut and run even as we learn from Pakistani intelligence that the mastermind of the most recent attempt to blow up American airliners was an al Qaeda leader operating from Afghanistan – yes, from Afghanistan. That’s right – the same killers who attacked us on 9/11 are still plotting attacks against America and they’re still holed up in Afghanistan. To avoid repeating the terrible mistakes of the past, we need to send significant reinforcements to Afghanistan: Start with at least five thousand additional American troops –more elite Special Forces troops, the best counter-insurgency units in the world; more civil affairs forces; and more experienced intelligence units. More predator drones to find the enemy, more helicopters to allow rapid deployments to confront them, and more heavy combat equipment to make sure we can crush the terrorists. And more reconstruction money so that the elected government in Kabul, helped by the United States, not the Taliban, helped by al Qaeda, rebuilds the new Afghanistan.”

September 9, 2006 “Switch the Fight to Afghanistan” Op-Ed in Manchester Union-Leader “We must recommit to Afghanistan.”

September 25, 2006 “Losing Afghanistan” Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal “If Washington seems to have forgotten Afghanistan, it is clear the Taliban and al Qaeda have not. Less than five years after American troops masterfully toppled the Taliban, the disastrous diversion in Iraq has allowed these radicals the chance to rise again. Time is running out to reverse an unfolding disaster in the way we were right to fight after 9/11…Quite simply, we must change course – starting with the immediate deployment of at least 5,000 additional U.S. troops…We must recommit to victory in Afghanistan.”

October 3, 2006 “The Retreatican Party?” Posting on Democratic Daily “We have reached a critical point in Afghanistan. This administration is on the verge of making the same mistake they made in not recognizing the threat of the insurgency in Iraq until it was too late. We know the risks of letting Afghanistan become a terrorist haven. Yet the administration’s policy have defined cut and run. Cut and run when we had Osama bin Laden and his henchmen trapped in Tora Bora. Cut and run when we diverted resources from the hunt to invade Iraq.”

  Today, others agree…

SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD (D -WI) Eau Claire Leader Telegram: Fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan—October 4, 2006 “With so many of our brave troops, and our resources, in Iraq, the U.S. has not done enough to address the resurgence of the Taliban and growing instability in Afghanistan.”

SENATOR HARRY REID (D – NV) The Bush Administration Took Its Eye Off the Ball In Afghanistan—October 6, 2006 “Five years ago, America struck back against the killers who attacked our nation on September 11th. With the country united and the world with us, our nation took action in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and destroy the al Qaeda terrorists they aided and abetted. Five years later, the mission remains undone. The Bush White House took its eye off of the ball and took America to war in Iraq based on faulty and cherry picked intelligence. As a result, al Qaeda has not yet been destroyed, the Taliban is resurgent, and Osama bin Laden remains at large. We cannot allow Afghanistan to slide into chaos. We need a new direction.”

LAWRENCE KORB AND BRIAN KATULIS CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS (PDF) – October 25, 2006 Our plan “reduces U.S. troops to 60,000 by the end of 2006, and to zero by the end of 2007, while redeploying troops to Afghanistan, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf.”

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT In an interview with The Santa Barbara Independent – November 3, 2006 “We should have kept our attention on Afghanistan.”