Clinton supports Obama to keep US Army in Afghan

“We certainly don’t want them engaged in on the ground combat”. Despite middling poll numbers overall, Obama remains very popular with the Democratic base voters, especially African-Americans, whose support Clinton needs as she campaigns for her party’s nomination. We want them to help support and train the Afghan army.

During a Friday afternoon campaign appearance in Nashua, Clinton said Obama did not reach his decision “easily” and noted the partnership the United States has established with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. “But all things considered I believed that the president had made the right choice and put us in the best position to succeed”. “I will proudly carry forward the record of Democratic achievement”, she said during a speech addressing Alabama Democrats in Hoover, Ala. Bernie Sanders, has not yet commented on Obama’s decision. And Clinton armed herself with new national security credentials in her four years as secretary of state. Pressed to name policy differences, she said she’d seek to “build on the successes of President Obama, but also, as I’m laying out, to go beyond”.

Clinton has not talked extensively during her campaign about how she would pursue a peaceful transition from the war in Afghanistan. One Democratic strategist described being astonished at two focus groups of white, college-educated women who repeatedly offered “liar” as a Clinton description and rejected the notion that having the first woman president was a big deal.

“I was a little tongue in cheek when I said that in the debate because, you know, we are going to be in a very contested political campaign, and I am going to do everything I can to win”, she said.