Biden: Taliban Not The Enemy

By Douglas V. Gibbs

It is no surprise when Vice President Joe Biden shoves his foot into his mouth. The man is a gaffe machine. . . either that, or he spews what he really believes out loud too much.

During Obama's Presidential Campaign in 2008 we had it hammered into us that Iraq was the bad war, and Afghanistan was the good war. In Afghanistan our troops have been attacked repeatedly by both al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But now, Biden, in an interview with Newsweek, said of the Taliban: "Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us."

After the you-know-what hit the fan, the White House back-pedaled, and Obama's press secretary Jay Carney complained that Vice President Biden’s statement was “taken out of context.”

Then, Carney essentially echoed Biden's madness, saying that the Taliban is not America’s enemy.

How quickly they forget the facts of history.

Have we not been in Afghanistan to not only destroy al-Qaeda, but to also eradicate the Taliban regime which gave al-Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan? al-Qaeda operated from Afghanistan with impunity because the Taliban let them. Osama bin Laden formed an alliance with the Taliban, his forces trained with Taliban forces, and his relationship with the Taliban leader Mullah Omar was pretty close from what we understand.

The Taliban refused to cooperate when we asked them to extradite terrorists involved with attacks against America. Osama bin Laden praised the Taliban as the “only Islamic government” in existence and praised the Taliban’s leader.

We have not only been at war with the Taliban, but they are clearly a part of the Islamic mess that constitutes our "enemy."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

‘The Taliban, Per Se, Is Not Our Enemy’: VP Biden’s Jaw-Dropping Gaffe - Yahoo News/The Blaze