The stakes our "Community Organizer" are gambling in a bid to feather his re-election are not small.The stability of the AF/PAK region effects much more than just this dusty corner of the world. There is no need to remind anyone with a bit of common sense that the Whacki-Pakis have Nukes and the Taliban/Al Qaeda would just LOVE to get their hands on a few. The stability of Afghanistan has helped keep Pakistan from teetering further into the abyss. What do you will think will happen when we are a smaller presence in this area ??
To the people of this region, time is a much different thing than to the west. We look at troops being here until 2014 and people back home *groan* about how long that is...Meanwhile, our enemies look at waiting 3 years until they can return to terrorizing the local populace here and they see that as hardly anytime to wait at all.
The " Empty Suit " has placed his own needs/wants/desires over what his military has recommended and our country, along with the rest of the western world will likely pay for his naive decision.
"The Haqqanis and their Arab friends will build their training camps on our graves when you leave us," stated the Village Elder. Funny, but I trust the wisdom of this Afghani more than that of the Village-Idiot-From-Chicago. The Village Elder has real "skin" in the game whereas when Obama mucks it up, he'll be safely ensconced stateside, giving another speech about how things didn't quite work out the way he thought they would. The Village Elder and his family, not so much.
Michael Waltz: Obama's Dangerous Message
Commentary - www.foreignpolicy.com
"We always suspected you would abandon us again. Now your president has said it," the deeply lined leader of a key Mangal subtribe scolded me across a small wooden table set with a bowl of Afghan raisins and nuts. To his left, dozens of other Afghans nodded in agreement. We were sitting in the small office of a women's center on the outskirts of Khost city that was apparently funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and abandoned years ago.
I had been working closely with him for most of the year to garner his support along with his 500 arbakai, or tribal militia, during my most recent tour in Afghanistan. This meeting was supposed to be the final step toward winning over this historically pro-government subtribe.
He and his tribal council were now withdrawing their support completely. It was only week after U.S. President Barack Obama's 2009 speech at West Point, where he announced the surge of U.S. forces but undercut the policy with the simultaneous announcement that he would begin their withdrawal by July 2011.
"We appreciate all that you have done for us -- wells, roads, schools," the elder continued. "But until you are prepared to commit your children to stand side by side with our children, we cannot work with you."
"The Haqqanis and their Arab friends will build their training camps on our graves when you leave us," he concluded before walking away.
The president's speech on Wednesday, June 22, outlining his strategy to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces is evidence that American policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is more about U.S. domestic pressures than it is about making any sort of long-term commitment to stabilize the region so that terrorist sanctuaries can no longer be used to attack the West.
The debate within the administration and among Washington's pundits over numbers of troops and timelines misses the point. According to former colleagues still at senior levels of the military commands and at the Pentagon, the differences between the most extreme options offered to the president amounted to only a few thousand troops and several months on the timeline.
The larger strategic issue is the broader signal Obama has sent to U.S. allies and the region: America is leaving. This signal, which was received loud and clear by those Afghan elders in 2009 and reinforced Wednesday night, presents four fundamental problems.
First, the entire region has begun to maneuver for a post-American Afghanistan and mostly in ways that run counter to U.S. interests. What this administration doesn't fully realize is that the Afghans, their government, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Iranians, and the rest of South and Central Asia aren't listening to the policy nuances of Wednesday's announcement. All they hear is U.S. withdrawal and abandonment. More disturbingly, all the Taliban and al Qaeda hear is that they have survived the worst of it and they only need to last a few more years until 2014. Three and a half years is nothing in that part of the world. Although Obama attempted to emphasize that significant U.S. forces will remain after the withdrawal of the surge, their very mission to win over the populace will be severely undercut by the message he sent Wednesday night. The entire region is now hedging against the United States rather than siding with it.
Second, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recently addressed very bluntly, the United States cannot let the withdrawal of a few thousand U.S. troops be the green light for the Europeans to run for the exits. Unfortunately, despite the attacks on Madrid, London, and Denmark, we know that will likely be the case. At least the planned drawdown of U.S. civilian capacity is something we can control. During my most recent visit to Kandahar, one senior U.S. military commander described USAID as a source of instability rather than stability due to its continued lack of a meaningful presence in the provinces and therefore its inability to fulfill its promises to Afghans.
Declining troop numbers will also affect the ability of U.S. government civilians -- most of whom operate under military protection as they provide aid and guidance on agriculture, governance, and the rule of law -- to go out in the field. From what my former colleagues have told me, the civilian agencies have their own withdrawal schedule, with plans to pull back their already meager presence from forward bases.
Third, every Afghan I've spoken to recently, from ministers to my former interpreters, is increasingly concerned about the prospect of civil war. My Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara friends believe the United States is cutting a deal with Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and the Taliban at their expense. A multitude of notable Tajik leaders -- the late Deputy Interior Minister Daoud Daoud, former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, former Minister for Reconstruction Ehsan Zia, former Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, and others -- are increasingly spending time in their home turf reconstituting old alliances and networks. The Northern Alliance is getting the band back together and that includes outreach to its old allies in Iran, Russia, and India -- all of whom are increasingly viewed as more reliable than the United States. The U.S. policy of withdrawal based on timelines rather than conditions -- not to mention excluding minorities from talks with the Taliban -- are only exacerbating the situation.
Finally, Obama's policy is based on the assumption that al Qaeda is defeated and cannot reconstitute itself in the seams of an increasingly unstable Pakistan, a diminished U.S. and coalition presence, ethnic tension, and Afghan army and police forces that are years away from independent operations. This is a very dangerous assumption. Al Qaeda can and will restore itself as the United States invariably loses its hard-fought gains with the Afghan people due to diminished resources and will. A counterterrorism strategy must be nested within a counterinsurgency strategy, as the populace won't risk their necks to work with the coalition unless they feel they will be protected. It takes a network to defeat a network.
Success in Afghanistan and the region is going to be tough and expensive. Most importantly, it will take time. Nearly every commander and civilian who has served there, including me, cites the progress that has been made in the last 10 years, but caveats his or her response with the need for more time. Although the costs are great, they will be far greater if the United States leaves too soon. The people of the region will never trust America again, and the cost of re-engagement if our assumptions are wrong will be nearly insurmountable.
Michael Waltz is a former South Asia advisor to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and a Special Forces officer (reserve component) with multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is now vice president of Metis Solutions, a strategic international consulting firm.
“This is a political decision, not a military decision....” - Damned Straight.
The cheers you heard last night were the Taliban getting exactly what they wanted from the President last night. They are more than happy to wait for things to go back to the way they were before the Surge pushed them to the brink....It will be a year before the 30000 extra leave but "Barry-From-Chicago" isn't worried about the economy or the terrorists, unless those issues can be used to bolster his re-election campaign....what a feckless POL.
Hopefully he'll be ousted and when we have to detail why we let the terrorists catch a break and allow them to return to their murderous ways, we'll owe the world an explaination on why we made decisions on the fate of this effort based solely on what POTUS hoped would help the empty-suit get relected....not based on what the military experts said we should do.
The people of Afghanistan have always feared we would only give this a half-hearted effort and then leave....It may be that their worst fears about the future of this place will be realized based on what the "Community Organizer" told the world last night.
To Obama, Afghan war no longer seems so smart
By: Glenn Thrush - Politico
June 22, 2011 11:16 PM EDT
If Afghanistan doesn’t fit President Barack Obama’s definition of a “dumb war” – his famous description of the conflict in Iraq — he’s no longer entirely confident it’s still a smart war worth blood, treasure or his own political capital.
In a primetime address Wednesday night announcing the withdrawal of 33,000 U.S.troops in the next year, Obama trumpeted the fulfillment of two goals first articulated nine years in the same Chicago speech in which he defined George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq — killing Osama bin Laden and denying a safe haven to al Qaeda.
One additional achievement unmentioned in the 14-minute address: The role Obama’s Afghan surge played in bolstering his national security credentials at a time when Republicans portrayed him as just another weak Democratic president lacking the guts to wage war for a just cause.
But that just cause, in Obama’s view, is no longer reason enough for what had essentially become an open-ended U.S. commitment. So the president has opted for a faster-than-expected withdrawal timetable against the advice of senior military advisers, including Gen. David Petraeus.
“These long wars must come to a responsible end [and] we must learn from their lessons,” said Obama, articulating a more surgical approach to U.S. military intervention than he was able to describe during a speech on Libya earlier this year.
History will tell if the speech Wednesday night was a form of capitulation, a well-earned victory lap or combination of both.
Obama’s “dumb” vs. “smart” war meme, first outlined in his October, 2002 speech as an unknown state senator, didn’t seem to be far from his thoughts. Now as then, he made the argument for extricating the country from an unpopular war without losing political face — or bitterly-won gains against al Qaeda.
“We must chart a more centered course,” he said after announcing that 10,000 troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan by year’s end.
“We must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events but we must also be as pragmatic as we are passionate, as strategic as we are resolute. When threatened we must respond with force – but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.”
Robert Kagan, a former adviser to his 2008 opponent John McCain, warned that a quick withdrawal threatens recent gains against the Taliban – and popular opinion could swing against the president if an emboldened enemy takes the speech as a cue to step up attacks.
“This is a political decision, not a military decision,” he told POLITICO. “Americans are tired of this war, that’s true. But they hate losing more, and if there’s the perception that we’re being run out of there, the public will turn on him fast.”
Stephen Hayes, a writer with the conservative Weekly Standard, summed up the view of many hawks when he told Fox News that Obama seemed to be “declaring” victory even though Afghanistan teeters on the verge of violent chaos.
“I think we’ve undercut a strategy that was working,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned. “Having all the surged forces leave by next summer is going to compromise next summer’s fighting season.”
Liberals, on the other hand, think the speed of the pull-out is too sluggish, with Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) expressing disappointment and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) telling MSNBC the 30,000 troops “ought to come home by the end of the year.”
Yet the politics of Afghanistan are scrambled and unpredictable, with many Republicans citing the fiscal strains of waging two full wars – and the House GOP threatening to pass legislation de-funding Obama’s controversial intervention in Libya.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) seemed skeptical but not overtly hostile to Obama’s speech. “Congress will hold the administration accountable for ensuring that the pace and scope of the drawdown does not undermine the progress we’ve made thus far,” he said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t reject the plan out of hand either, focusing on the need for the White House to adjust their timetable according to conditions on the ground.
“The drawdown of forces described by the president needs to be conducted in a manner that respects the professional judgment of our military commanders, preserves the security gains of the last year and allows for a slower pace of withdrawal if necessary,” McConnell said.
In the hours leading up to the address, Obama’s staff emphasized a triumph without triumphalism.
Yet it was hard to mistake Obama’s valedictory tone, despite his acknowledgement that the gains in Afghanistan could be fleeting and that “dark days” of fighting remained prior to a larger pull-out in 2014.
“Mission Accomplished” it wasn’t – the best Obama offered was “The tide of war is receding.” But he mentioned the killing of Bin Laden no fewer than six times while praising the surge and he began with an explanation of his decision to transfer military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Obama aides emphasized that “Operation Enduring Freedom,” which has cost the lives of more than 1,600 Americans over the last decade, has finally achieved many of its objectives under his stewardship. With the terror threat migrating to Yemen and Pakistan, they declared that the smart war simply doesn’t look quite so smart anymore.
“On the threat side, we haven’t seen a terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan for the past seven or eight years,” a senior national security official told reporters.
“There has been clearly fighting and threats inside of Afghanistan,” the person said, adding that that there is “no indication at all that there is any effort within Afghanistan to use Afghanistan as a launching pad to carry out attacks outside of Afghan borders.”
Smart, dumb or otherwise, Afghanistan remains an easily forgettable, if not altogether forgotten war. And Obama’s speech didn’t seem to attract the attention of previous addresses he’s delivered.
Of the three broadcast networks, only one – CBS – led with the Obama speech on their evening news shows. ABC and NBC both featured the floods in North Dakota at the top of their broadcasts.
That reflected a larger focus, adopted by Obama himself, on tending to the country’s internal affairs, especially the economy, and pulling back from the international entanglements of the Bush years.
“We have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times,” Obama said. The president acknowledged the popular frustration with seeing schools and roads built abroad at American expense while an atmosphere of fiscal austerity reigns in the U.S.
“America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” Obama declared.
Under Obama’s plan, roughly 68,000 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan by late next year — about twice as many as were in the country when he took office. He vowed to continue to withdraw troops “at a steady pace,” though he offered no further details on the timetable.
“This is the beginning – but not the end – of our effort to wind down this war,” he said. “We will have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we have made, while we drawdown our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government.”
A few days ago, I posted about the inevitability of the US and Afghan governments discussing the extended stay for US military here in Afghanistan for the forseeable future....
Take a read here : http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/2011/06/secret-us-and-afghanistan-talks-could.html
Well now, despite what the NY TIMES and many other Liberal members of the press have been trumpeting/writing about this week, here is the " other shoe " hitting the floor. Last week they promoted several stories talking about the Administration looking over "accelerated" withdrawl plans....sounds like they were manufacturing the news again...something they do on a regular basis.
The US Military has recognized the need to maintain the pressure on the Taliban and others here who would like nothing more than EXACTLY what the NY TIMES wants - For the US Military to "cut & run" so the Taliban can go back to running Afghanistan.
The professionals we entrust with the defense of the country aren't hung up with polling, politics, the 2012 election cycle and the other games that go on in Washington. They are focused on what it will take to see the mission through.
So here is the real deal. This ain't finished and it will take longer than the "Empty Suit " promised the country when he made the intitial plan. Sorry if that messes up your polling, election plans, fund raising in California, or other areas where people don't realy know anyone who serves in the military....ya know, that stuff is for the poor people to handle, not the sons or daughters of the elite.....On the GOP side, SLICK MITT ROMNEY has never served, nor any of his grown children...he'll try to make sure whatever tripe he puts out about Afghanistan matches the latest polls....not reality.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is a " You can pay me now, or you can pay me later " issue. We either stay on track and fix this now, or we " cut & run ' and will face larger issues no one wants to think about, like the TALIBAN running Afghanistan again.
Pentagon wants to 'extend' Afghanistan surge
(AFP) – 6 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The US military is asking President Barack Obama to maintain its troop surge in Afghanistan until the fall of 2012, a month before a scheduled withdrawal, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The timeline would mean the president could promise large troop reductions to a war-weary public just ahead of the November 2012 presidential elections in which he seeks a second term, but military officials told the Journal that the electoral schedule had nothing to do with their proposal.
Instead, they said they were focusing on placing as much pressure as possible on the Taliban and the violent eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, especially during the next two warm-weather fighting seasons, usually the period of heaviest fighting from militants.
Obama ordered the 33,000 extra forces in December 2009 to throw a wrench in an emboldened Taliban's momentum, bringing the total deployed to 100,000. The United States plans on leaving only a "small fraction" of the overall forces after December 2014, when security will be handed over to the Afghans.
He promised to begin withdrawing troops this July but the White House has yet to say how many troops it will be pulling out or when, insisting such decisions will be based on conditions on the ground, where troops have been battling the Taliban for nearly a decade.
Military and Obama administration officials told the Journal that it was unclear whether the president would follow the military's recommendation and change his withdrawal plans.
A senior US official favoring a slow drawdown said Obama's decision on a timeline to complete the withdrawal of the surge troops remaining in Afghanistan was far more important than that about the initial drawdown next month.
The stakes our "Community Organizer" are gambling in a bid to feather his re-election are not small.
