WASHINGTON: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry on Tuesday said he was "very wary" of sending more American troops to the region. Kerry said neither of the two extremes -- a nationwide counterinsurgency and nation-building effort in Afghanistan nor "walking away from the place" -- were do-able.
| Kerry doesn't think any US military project is do-able, from Vietnam to date. He was against liberating Grenada, catching Noriega in Panama, liberating Kuwait, chasing al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan and liberating Iraq. |
"The key in Afghanistan is we have got to figure out what is achievable, measured against the legitimate interests of the United States, primary among which is Al Qaeda," he said. "In Afghanistan itself we have to resolve the question of whether the Taliban are per se a threat to us."
| I thought we had resolved that on 9/11 ... |
Kerry will meet the top US and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and said he had many questions for the man who has recommended a radical change in US strategy there, backed by at least 40,000 more troops.
"I may decide that there is a do-able strategy that achieves the goals I set out, that requires some additional troops," Kerry told Reuters in an interview.
| Isn't that the President's job? |
"I don't know the answer to that question. I honestly don't. I am very wary of it because of past experience and because of some of the challenges that I see."
Kerry says the lessons of that war suggest that more troops should not be sent to Afghanistan without a clear exit plan. He said the US could not afford and its people would not accept a full nation-building effort in Afghanistan.
| The Democrats never seize upon the obvious exit plan: win. |
|