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The Spectacle Blog
The New York Times reports that President Obama will announce tonight that he will withdraw 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 by the end of next summer. At that point the 30,000 additional troops Obama committed to Afghanistan in 2009 will have been returned.
According to the Times, this will be a more aggressive drawdown than what Gen. David Petraeus recommended. Furthermore,
It amounts to a broad rethinking of the military’s troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy that Mr. Obama adopted 18 months ago after a painstaking review. Officials have indicated that the administration now plans to place more emphasis on focused counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden - which the president is expected to cite as Exhibit A for a substantial American drawdown.
In other words, this drawdown was made possible by the killing of Osama bin Laden. Without that, the president would have had a harder time making the case for overruling Petraeus and co.
View all comments (8) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/06/22/10000-troops-to-leave-afghanis
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Oldefarte| 6.22.11 @ 4:56PM
Good, I can only HOPE that El Chosen One re-tools his decision and announces a 100000 evacuation of our military members out of that middle eastern cesspool. There never was, nor will there ever be a possibility of a successful war victory over there, since those morons hate this country and are too stupid/lazy to take the necessary efforts on their part to build/maintain/secure/protect their own national interests. Not only are their own neighboring Arab countries willing to lend their armies toward assisting our military's war effort, but additionally those wealthy oil shieks over there slide terrorist-fundingoil revenue monies under the carpet to our enemies support. After 9/11, we should have simply sent numerous b-52's loaded to the hilt with atomic bombs to be unleached in the middle eastern deserts [and spared the wounding/deaths of our military members]. Nagasaki/Hiroshima brought an end to WWII and the Japanese to the negotiating/surrender tables!!!!!!!!!!!
Skippy| 6.22.11 @ 5:05PM
Amen.
After reading "Unbroken" last week, I renewed my respect for Curtis LeMay.
Thom| 6.22.11 @ 5:46PM
The Viet Cong, I mean the Taliban and friends will be very happy with this decision. They will negotiate a “peace treaty” to speed up the process of the “paint drying” or the nuanced term now for playing at never ending defensive wars that only work in War College simulations.
First King Obama undercuts the minimum troop requirement of his handpicked General by 10,000 and then he delays the surge by nearly a year of getting even those forces in place while announcing their withdrawal before they even start going. Even Hitler wasn’t this incompetent.
Now the lack of progress with watching the “paint dry” becomes the justification for premature return piled on top of under cutting the mission in the first place. Who would have been surprised?
This begs the obvious question. What was the point of sending more troops beyond political calculation as this event surely is nothing but?
mike w| 6.22.11 @ 11:22PM
You would have us stay there indefinitely, with no national interest and no reasonable expectation of success (whatever that is)?
Thom| 6.23.11 @ 4:22AM
No. I would have us not follow the model that lost Vietnam. We are following the same model and expecting different results. If Afghanistan deteriorates even further after we pull out 33,000 then what another 33,000, the entire force? If it reverts to what it was before then what? Just ignore the largest terrorist training camp in the world? Didn’t work out too well doing that before. You think that will work better this time?
I’m not for continuous defensive war which is the only model the US practices now. I’m for decisive offensive war that crushes our enemy’s means to make war and buys a generation of time so that said places can grow and become prosperous enough to control events themselves. No country with a per capita income of around $1000 a year is going to maintain the size of army required to keep the Taliban out or under control. We will keep pouring money into Afghanistan until it collapses back into what it was before. Then we will declare “victory” and start building another wall in Washington DC to remind us of our “victory”.
Chris| 6.23.11 @ 7:22AM
Afghanistan has no chance to become more than an opium producing narco state. And in all honesty, if they were just a narco state, that would be an improvement. Afghanistan is not Vietnam.
All we need to do is state that we reserve the right to come back and take out anyone who so much as whispers about attacking us. It's stupid to stay in that wasteland trying to turn it into something it will never be.
weddingdresses | 6.23.11 @ 5:28AM
Amen.
After reading "Unbroken" last week, I renewed my respect for Curtis LeMay.
Bob K.| 6.23.11 @ 6:07AM
Then it will become Russia's problem again. They don't have to worry about the tribes on their southern border as much as long as we are there.