18 Months
Dec 2nd, 2009 by Frank Knotts
Well Pres. Obama finally let the rest of the nation in on his plan, on how to proceed with the war in Afghanistan.
As I and others predicted the President attempted to walk the middle ground. He was clearly trying to please all of the political factions within the country .
He started out by reminding us of why we were in Afghanistan to begin with, by talking about 9/11.
He then laid out all of the original goals for going there. To disrupt al-Qaeda’s ability to plan and operate from that country, to over throw the Taliban so that they could no longer support groups such as al-Qaeda.
Then he spoke of why he believes that we have not been successful in these goals. He spoke of a second war in Iraq, and though he acknowledged our success there, he said it was why we had failed in Afghanistan. He said that the former administration had failed to give the generals the number of troops that they needed. This section of the speech was clearly an attempt to please the Bush haters.And to point out that he had inherited the war and its problems.
During this speech the President told us that he will be sending thirty thousand more troops to Afghanistan, this is less than Gen. Mc Crystal requested, again trying to please those who would send more and those who would send none. He stated that our allies would also be sending an additional ten thousand. Our thirty thousand should begin to be deployed in the early part of 2010.
The President again restated our goals in Afghanistan as being to disrupt al-Qaeda and to prevent the Taliban from returning to power, though he did say that any Taliban who turned from violence would be welcome to join the democratic process in Afghanistan.
The President it would seem was trying to send the message that he is committed to victory in Afghanistan, he said all of the things you would hope to hear from a war president while men and women are in harm’s way.
Unfortunately he couldn’t pull it off completely. Let us remember that he is trying to please everyone with this speech. So near the end of the speech he began to justify his reason for setting a draw down date, that being eighteen months from the start of the surge in July of 2011. He said due to our economic troubles we could not sustain the effort any longer. He said that we must send the message to the Afghan government that at some point they must stand on their own.
First of all if we don’t defeat the terrorist and they attack us here at home again, what will that do to our economy ? And by sending the message to the Afghan government that we will only fight with you for just so long , what he has really done is to send the message to the Taliban and al-Qaeda that you need only wait so long and then you can return . Eighteen months is nothing for those people to wait, they are a patient enemy.
So the President attempted to please those who support the war effort, while also pleasing those who do not support the war effort. And in the end he most likely only please our enemies, who now know exactly the limit of how long we will fight to protect our nation, our allies, our people and the people around the world who like us, seek freedom from terrorist organisations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Thank you Pres. Obama, we waited three months to find out what many of us already knew . That you are a political coward. All of the Bush haters out there can say what they will about our former President, but no one could ever doubt his commitment to the troops and to protecting this nation from those who would destroy it, and his commitment to victory in these wars that we didn’t start.
And one last point. Pres. Obama now owns this war . This is now his strategy for ending it. He can no longer point backwards at the Bush administration for its failure. And if it does end in failure , then it is Pres. Obama who will have to explain to history why.
