Perhaps to deflect attention off the friendly fire Frank Guinta's campaign received yesterday, the NHGOP got the "flip-flop" vapors today over this:
"I have not been in agreement with this. I used to be until I went to Afghanistan myself and certainly have talked to many people who are involved in Afghanistan. At this point I have been holding my comments. I am deeply concerned about where this country is right now and our own deficits and our own problems and the fact is we still don't have these countries stepping up like I think they should," [Shea-Porter] said.
More succinctly she said later in the interview that on she wouldn't support Obama's proposed plan: ""For this build up my inclination is no, but I am going to listen very carefully."
Note how Carol goes out of her way in her remarks to point you to the fact that her view on Afghanistan was shaped as a result of her trip there seven months ago:
Afghanistan simply needs more help than the United States alone can provide and the country is engulfed in chaos with no obvious end, Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter said after a recent trip to the war-torn nation.
"It's been seven years now, and really to fix Afghanistan would require an effort that I don't see happening," Shea-Porter said by phone from Washington.
The United States has by far the most troops and money invested there, Shea-Porter said, and fixing Afghanistan would require huge amounts of money and manpower from Europe as well, a political prospect that seems unlikely at best.
I don't know why the NHGOP doesn't read the Union Leader, but there it is - Carol's view on Afghanistan, consistent with today's interview, from as far back as last May.
Nearly eight years after the start of the U.S. campaign there, things are so bad, she said, that "Afghanistan makes Iraq look extremely sophisticated."
...She said she's worried for the men and women of the military, who she was "so impressed by."
"I don't want this to be another Vietnam," she said.
"We have succeeded in eliminating al-Qaida from Afghanistan, but the Taliban are terrorizing the people while providing some social order in areas where the central government has no legitimacy," she said. "We need to have an honest conversation to tell the American people what needs to be done and how we are going to do it. I was told it's going to take 12 to 14 years to stabilize the country and it can't just be a military solution."
..."We don't want to have another Vietnam, where we do enough to keep it going but not do enough to win," she said. "I remember the Bush administration saying, 'We do what we must in Iraq and what we can in Afghanistan.' We are paying the price for that neglect."
