Graham: I’m almost ready to “pull the plug” on Afghanistan

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If Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai doesn’t change his tune fast on two key U.S. demands, the U.S. military should just pack up and go home and leave Afghanistan for good, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said today.

Graham, who has been one of the strongest congressional supporters for continuing the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan beyond 2014, said today that unless Karzai relents on his demands that the United States immediately hand over control of Afghan prisoners and end night raids against insurgents, there is no way the U.S. can achieve its objectives in Afghanistan and therefore should just end its involvement there.

“If the president of the country can’t understand how irrational it is to expect us to turn over prisoners and if he doesn’t understand that the night raids have been the biggest blow to the Taliban … then there is no hope of winning. None,” Graham said in the hallways of the Capitol Building just before entering the GOP caucus lunch.

“So if he insists that all the prisoners have to be turned over by March 9 and that we have to stop night raids, that means we will fail in Afghanistan and that means Lindsey Graham pulls the plug. It means that I no longer believe we can win and we might as well get out of there sooner rather than later.”

Graham acknowledged that those two issues were crucial in ongoing negotiations over a U.S.-Afghanistan Status of Forces Agreement, which would provide the legal basis for the ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014, the deadline President Barack Obama has set for transferring full control of the country back to the Afghans.

“I am going to pull the plug on Afghanistan from a personal point of view if we don’t get this strategic partnership signed,” Graham said. “Karzai’s insistence that all detainees we have in our custody be turned over by Friday to an Afghan system that will let guys walk right out the door and start killing Americans again is a non-starter.”

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He has the right attitude towards negotiations. Now personally I’d just as soon get out regardless, but if we stay it has to be with enough freedom of action that we a hope of accomplishing something.

I’d rather have our troops cpme home yesterday; this hellhole is not worth one more drop of blood by our warriors.

BTW, interesting developments in Yemen: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/03/aqap_raid_renders_yemeni_mecha.php

Pretty impressive raid.