Obama made his loooooooong anticipated speech tonight on Afghanistan and announced he would send 30,000 troops to help fight the war and then announced a date to withdraw hereby officially dooming this war to the same fate as Vietnam:
President Obama, in a speech that could define the rest of his presidency, announced Tuesday that he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan with plans to start withdrawing them in July 2011, a move intended to appease the military, a war-weary public, and anti-war liberals.
President Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., as he travels to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009, to speak about the war in Afghanistan. (AP)
President Obama, in a speech Tuesday that could define the rest of his presidency, laid out a plan to quickly send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to revive the struggling war effort while setting a preliminary timeline for withdrawal — aiming to start handing over security roles to Afghan forces by July 2011.
The much anticipated strategy decision is one of the most significant foreign policy moves of Obama’s early presidency, and the White House is hoping the plan will achieve the tough task of appeasing the military, a war-weary public and the anti-war left.
“We did not ask for this fight,” Obama said in a prime-time speech he delivered from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., before tracing the events that led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, starting with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Afghanistan has moved backwards, he said, and huge challenges remain. But Obama declared Afghanistan is not lost.
“The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 – the fastest pace possible – so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers,” Obama said.
“They will increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight,” he said. “And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.”
Couple problems with this. As he sat twiddling over Afghanistan these troops could of already been in the transition of getting to Afghanistan. But no, instead he waited and waited. It took what? 5-6 months to get the surge troops into Iraq? How long do you think it will take with these troops? And now with the Taliban and al-Qaeda now knowing the date of our surrender all they have to do is wait.
We did not set a date for withdrawal from Iraq until AFTER we had decimated the insurgents inside Iraq.
Obama’s brilliant strategy? Announcing it before we have even came close to decimating them.
All in an effort to appease both sides of the aisle while accomplishing nothing.
The problem is not troop numbers. When he declared on Tuesday, “These additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011,” the president has undercut the McChrystal plan and made success difficult to achieve.
There should be nothing wrong with an open-ended commitment to victory. In late 2006 and early 2007, when the Bush administration put the finishing touches on the strategy that would become the Iraq surge, Obama and many of his top aides questioned its wisdom. On July 19, 2007, for example, Obama declared, “Here’s what we know. The surge has not worked.” That a year later Obama scrubbed his criticism from his campaign website suggests that today he recognizes the positive impact of George W. Bush’s decision. What Obama fails to understand, however, is that the surge is not only a military strategy, but a psychological one as well.
Iraq’s surge succeeded because Bush convinced Iraqis that he would not subvert his commitment to victory to politics. Bush’s actions showed insurgents had misjudged the U.S. and that Bin Laden was wrong: The U.S. was no paper tiger. Iraqis, no more attracted to al-Qaida’s extreme vision than ordinary Afghans are to the Taliban, believed America to be strong. Rather than make accommodations to the terrorists, Iraqis could fight them. The Sunni tribesmen believed that the U.S. would guard their back, and let neither al-Qaida nor Iranian proxies run roughshod over them. For Iraqis and Afghans, it is an easy decision to ally with militarily superior forces led by a commander-in-chief with a clear and demonstrable will to victory.
Obama is not Bush. By declaring his commitment finite, he removes the psychological force from his surge.
Byron York: (via Ace)
Democratic voters and candidates were playing a complex game. Nearly all of them hated the war in Iraq and wanted to pull Americans out of that country. But they were afraid to appear soft on national security, so they pronounced the smaller conflict in Afghanistan one they could support. Many of them didn’t, really, but for political expediency they supported candidates who said they did. Thus the party base signed on to a good war-bad war strategy.
~~~Other top Democrats adopted the get-tough approach, at least when it came time to campaign. In September 2006, as she was leading the effort that would result in Democrats taking over the House and her becoming speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said George W. Bush “took his eye off the ball” in Afghanistan. “We had a presence over there the past few years, but not to the extent that we needed to get the job done,” Pelosi said. The phrase “took his eye off the ball” became a Democratic mantra about the supposed neglect of Afghanistan — a situation that would be remedied by electing ready-to-fight Democrats.
But now, with Democrats in charge of the entire U.S. government and George Bush nowhere to be found, Pelosi and others in her party are suddenly very, very worried about U.S. escalation in Afghanistan. “There is serious unrest in our caucus,” the speaker said recently. There is so much unrest that Democrats who show little concern about the tripling of already-large budget deficits say they’re worried about the rising cost of the war.
It is in that atmosphere that Obama makes his West Point speech. He had to make certain promises to get elected. Unlike some of his supporters, he has to remember those promises now that he is in office. So he is sending more troops. But he still can’t tell the truth about so many Democratic pledges to support the war in Afghanistan: They didn’t mean it.
The Democrats didn’t mean it? Shocker!
How in the world can this man state that we MUST win this war while saying it will be over on a date certain?
On another note, let’s have a look back a few year: (via HotAirPundit)
See author page
And now… wait for it. The Taliban will just lay low for 18 months. Why not? Train, rebuild their strength and arms and mark those days off the calendar before they strike enmass and destablize and overthrow the government in Afganistan… say August 1st, 2011.
In fact, if they lay low, Obama will escalate the withdrawl and the Afganistan government will have a false sense that they acually can police themselves…
Good god, what a FOOL….
I like the idea of a deadline myself. It’s been nine years with nothing resolved. Put pressure on the Afghanistan government to get their act together and challenge our own military and intelligence agencies to get the job done.
Do you plan to stay there forever? How can we possibly afford to stay there forever? Would you personally pay more in taxes to do so?
Quiet the strategist our dear reader, he is. As Rove said, he seriously needed some energizer batteries for that teleprompter. And we waited what, 93 days for this?
First we get our guys out of the areas the FNC military analyst circled, head to the mountains and hide for 18 months, and then home free — Afghanistan is all ours.
Anybody get the part about the timing, leaving right before 2012. And what might happen in 2012?
Wasn’t that what all the “dithering” was about? String it out, put in more troops piecemeal, declare victory and begin bringing troops back in 2011. You can’t peak too soon, ya know. Yeah, I too, thought I heard something about an election in 2012. Bad news for him. The public is not as cynical or stupid as he is. We get it that he’s gambling with real lives. He should be removed for incompetence.
Thank goodness the President didn’t let politics and polls interfere with his di–*cough* I mean thoughtful thought process which processed all information and came up with the following great plan:
“Troops will quickly be sent to the front. If they don’t get their butts shot off within 9 months, they will pull out and the Tal’-ee-bawn can have the place. If they do get their butts shot off they will just get home sooner. And I’m sorry that I had to inherit all these problems because Sommme-one didn’t do anything right for 8 years. Good night, and God bless me.”
http://www.nooz.gr/page.ashx?pid=9&aid=905380&cid=8#
Please look at the picture of the West Point cadet reading his book while President Obama is giving his speech for the surge in Afghanistan.
Curt, unfortunately you have fleshed this one quite well.
If I were the enemy commander, I would train, recruit and train. Engage US troops with a superior concentration of men intermittently for training and confidence building. Concentrate my efforts in a year and three months, so that it would appear that you are driving the enemy out of the country during their scheduled withdrawal. Victory will be assured with patience.
Once the Americans have completed their withdrawal, begin the terrorism on US soil. Make inroads with the Leftists to assure complete victory in North America.
A few minutes after the speech ended, I got a text from a certain Marine..
“And the consensus iz F**K OBAMA.”
Scheduling the egress around elections is a new low. Even for a Dem.
Telegraphing that egress time is more than a new low, it’s treasonous.
The word also is that any and all requests for any additional will be turned down. This will be it.
I suspect this is just a cover for obama to claim he “tried to win” but Bush messed it up too badly. That way when he pulls the troops, probably before 2011, he can hope to minimize the damage.
Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan is dropping faster than any other issue:
I doubt this empty speech will help.
With regard to the 18 month time line and the comment from Mac @ #2, I think it is safe to say that drawing down too soon and not backing the Afghan government will yield a result reminiscent of the collapse of South Vietnam, circa 1975. Mac, is that what you want? I recall that Obama went out of his way in tonight’s speech to say that Afghanistan and Vietnam were not alike. I HOPE that he includes outcomes for a favorable contrast but that will require a CHANGE in his current predisposition to leave irrespective of factors other than time.
@Mike’s America: is that graph with, or without the sacred IPCC adjusted corrections? LOL
DANGIT MATA! I just had to backspace-out the same joke! 🙂
The rhetoric and debate and handwringing over our involvement in the two countries sends a message to the enemy and our allies and the rest that the U.S. isn’t in it to win; but is in it, looking desperately for the quickest exit to slink out of.
Shameful. The president should be delivering the kind of speech that inspires and increases morale and support and the will to persevere. We’ve come a long way from
Chris Matthews with his foot in his mouth, again:
What if ….Obama’s now war in Afghanistan is a success and we defeat the Taliban and maybe even find OBL…How do we defeat him in 2012? What would be the conservative take on this?
If that happens, I would be very happy, and give him Big Kudos. We must not sink to the Lefts
level by “hoping” for a loss in Afghanistan like they did with Iraq. Not that I see this happening, but if any of us hear that sort of talk from our side, we must call them on it immediately and with much vigor. I for one can express relief that he’s sending more troops than I had initially thought he would, on a faster time-table than I thought he would. I’m GLAD to be wrong. There are certainly other aspects of this plan I disagree with, and I think it took him to long to essentially do (partially) what was the plan had been for a year now, but that’s a different discussion. 30,000 dawgs will have an impact.
But voters vote with their wallet’s and all he’s done so far is to worsen the economy. There are economic shoes left to drop, and drop they will.
He’s also guaranteed of enough gaffs visual and otherwise to make a loss highly probable.
Thank you Patvann, I appreciate your opinion.
@MataHarley: I ran the polling numbers through the IPCC program with the hockey stick bias and this is what came out:
A politician playing both sides of the issue – what a surprise.
A President acting seditiously with little outcry by the watchdog media – what a disgrace
Well, i thought we went into afghan for Binladen and Al queda, all I hear is about the taliban. I have not heard anything new about what we are doing to get Bin Laden. werent most the the highjackers from Saudi Arabia and not Afghanistan? “Afghanistan houses terrorist that will attack America,” but you can think/plan terrorist attacks anywhere. “Stay there until the mission is a success.” what do you consider success, that all taliban/terrorist are dead? thats like trying to stop all violent crimes in America… Not going to happen, so why try and do that across the world in another country?
I see alot of people saying “we should send more troops, stay in aslong as it takes.” Majority of those people never served in military or deployed to either fronts, if so they are probably not serving still, but that doenst mean their isnt any.
Whoa….brilliant comment, TN! I’ve never, ever seen any one lay it all out there, like you just did. Very original and erudite points! Congratulations! No one can answer a single one of your challenges because they are just that damned head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest-perceptively brilliant! You got us good.
You probably have more smarts in your entire body than any one of us here possesses in our little pinky.
Hope to receive more of your brilliant postings!
@Wordsmith:
You lil’ devil!