Updated on
Summary
Defending President Obamas Afghanistan war policy, US Vice President Joe Biden said the strategy rightly puts the onus on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to step up to the plate, root out corruption and train up his own national police and army. Biden urged Afghan leaders to get in the game as he issued a robust defense of America's under-fire war strategy. Almost nine years after the US-led invasion, the conflict is at a critical juncture as President Barack Obama pours in tens of thousands more troops to try to break the back of a fierce Taliban insurgency.Obama's decision to accompany the military surge with a July 2011 target date for beginning a US withdrawal has been criticized as wrong-headed and an invitation to the Taliban to stick it out and wait for them to leave. You have got get in the game. We're not here forever. We cannot want the security of your country more than you want it, Biden urged during a trip to Iraq, where he was trying to persuade squabbling leaders to form a government.His comments to MSNBC came the day after General David Petraeus formally took over command of the Afghan war. Biden described the endgame in the war launched to oust the Taliban and destroy Al-Qaeda as: To provide enough time and space for the Afghan government to be able to generate enough force that they can thwart those they cannot reconcile with.
