Biden, on the Afghanistan Debate, in His Own Words - The Atlantic

When President Obama began to deliberate on the path his administration would pursue in Afghanistan, Vice President Joe Biden's staff prepared a classified presentation for the National Security Council. The document acquired a nickname in military circles: "From the Sea," because in it, Biden sketched out plans for a minimal deployment of American ground forces in the country.

Biden said he and Obama agreed that "we were not in Afghanistan for nation building. We were not going to commit to provide and guarantee resources to build that country for the next ten years." There was agreement that "the COIN strategy was not appropriate for signing on indefinitely to a nation-building campaign."

Thirdly, the "fundamental reason for being there was Al Qaeda," matched by the need to keep "Pakistan from disintegrating, and radicals from getting control of nuclear weapons, and that securing an Afghan government was in the service of the first two objects." Biden said he often posed this question to national security principals: "If there was no Al Qaeda and Pakistan was stable, would you be making recommendations to put tens of thousands of troops and sending hundreds of billions of dollars to Afghanistan?" Biden says "the answer with several of the members was yes. Mine was emphatically no."

On Face The Nation, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the U.S. presence in the region this way: We left Afghanistan in the late '80s, we left Pakistan in the late '80s, and we find ourselves back there now. And certainly the questions that are out there from the citizens in those countries are, 'Are we going to stay this time or not?' -- Biden, on the Afghanistan Debate, in His Own Words‎

Afghanistan's nation building - washingtonpost
OpEdNews - Article: The new Afghanistan policy: Murder Inc.