Whenever in doubt blame Bush - But failed policy in Afghanistan is morerecent and in fact we were on track before 2009

Afghanistan Mistakes Cost Lives, US Envoy Admits - well he would would he? The mess began when Obama became president. Political correctness and the Wests refusal to accept the fanaticism of our enemy is our downfall. 

Lives would have been saved had strategic mistakes not happened early in the Afghan conflict, a senior US diplomat has conceded.

Speaking in London to a small group of journalists, Ambassador James Dobbins, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, explained that the international coalition lost focus in the early years of the conflict and should have done more to engage wavering members of the Taliban when the opportunity was there.

"I think we made some, several, mistakes back in 2002," he said.

"I think it was probably a mistake to delay a serious effort at reconciliation really until 2011. I think an effort to integrate those of the Taliban who were willing to come over, who were willing to operate within the new dispensation, who were willing to accept the constitution as it was evolving at the time, those initiatives would have been better if they were taken earlier."

"Secondly, I think it was a mistake not to have deployed a substantial peacekeeping force in the country beyond Kabul.

His comments come at a time when effectively, due to Obamas mismanaging of the war on terror as a whole, the west is surrendering in Afghanistan under the guise of a 'pull-out' or 'withdrawal!"

James Dobbins continued "Of course" he went on "the decision to move onto Iraq ultimately made it more difficult for us to turn our focus back to Afghanistan when the situation eroded there."

Iraq again. Whenever in doubt blame Iraq and Bush. 

Mr Dobbins was appointed to the role of Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan by US Secretary of State John Kerry in May this year, but he held a similar position in 2001 when he was tasked by the Bush administration with establishing a new Afghan government.

Asked whether the withdrawal could have happened some years earlier had the mistakes not been made, Mr Dobbins replied: "Possibly. I think it is possible we would never have had an insurgency.

How he could have made these remarks is beyond the pale. If course there would have been an insurgency because the enemy we're fighting isn't based on right and wrong or of any moral or justified conviction. Their whole world view is based on dominance and submission and they don't do compromising. 

Asked whether those mistakes cost lives, he replied: "As I said, I think the insurgency would either have been avoided or attenuated and clearly many lives - Afghan as well as allied - would have been saved."

So now it's now avoided or 'attenuated'- James Dobbins just cannot accept that the insurgency has been a hard fight for US, British and other coalition forces, but with hands untied and with a more aggressive attitude, more so in the last few years, the battle in Afghanistan could have been won.

He stupidly warned it was a mistake to compare the current negotiations to the failed security agreement with Iraq.

"The Iraqis didn't want us, didn't need us, and we promised to leave," he said.

Well the Iraqis certainly didn't want us, those who were doing well under saddam hussains dictatorship, but it's a different story for those that didn't see eye to eye with the regime. The Iraqi post invasion experience is the same as the present Afghan one. It's due to the wests obsession with political correctness and its refusal to accept that this present war is against a wicked and ruthless enemy and if we want victory we have to untie  the hands of our troops as well as the hands of those involved in the politics of the campagn and fight the philosophy of our enemy until it is destroyed, not put a watered down version of it back into power only for the dilution to ferment over time to again create the undiluted carbon copy version. 

This erosion of common sense has advanced under the Obama administrations take over of the White House and the blame for the failiours in Afghanisan lay at their door.

George Bush was thrown in the deep end. War suddenly and unexpectedly came on 9/11 and events unravelled fast. 

Considering this Mr Bush handled the situation well and whether the likes of James Dobbins like it or not Mr Bush was on the right track while Obama never got on that track.

Compromised with help from

Sky news