This morning as you’re sipping on your coffee, you can see the overnight results for President Obama’s withdrawal speech on Afghanistan.
This morning NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has told reporters today that one-third of NATO forces will withdraw from Afghanistan by next year. In Paris President Nicholas Sarkozy said France would begin a “progressive withdrawal” from Afghanistan.
Everyone is rushing for the exits. The President was warned this could happen if it looked like America was about to cut and run.
In fact over the last few weeks during his worldwide farewell tour, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that the worse thing to happen is for NATO to “rush to the exits” in Afghanistan. This, he said, would jeopardize military progress.
Echoing a similar sentiment is anti-insurgency expert Brian Jenkins, now at the Rand Corporation. “If we signal that we are just getting out, then it does risk a stampede for the exits,”he told AFP.
Well the stampede has begun.
Yes Mr. President, words do have consequences.
So, Bush took his eye off the ‘good war’, Afghanistan, to go into a poorly thoughtout war in Iraq. Now Obama takes his eye off Afghanistan, for what? Libiya? Is this some leftwing compulsion to act out all of their own peranoid memes?
If the General waivers in his resolve, the troops will rout.
Bush doubled down on Iraq… and won.
I am for drawing down severely in Afghanistan, leaving enough of a base to hit Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. However, you cannot, as POTUS, just go out and say you plan to get out. You have to consult with all your allies involved, and come up with a certain plan and commitments. Then you jointly announce it. If you do not, they will use the first excuse to leave and announce their own independent plans.
This guy really is an amateur.
always knew he never meant to stick it out in Afghanistan, “the central front on terror”. It was just a way to get elected. He painted himself into a corner with his characterization of Afghanistan as the good war. Now that there is a way out of that corner, he is bolting for the exit, with no thought for the consequences. He never actually gave a damn.
It remains a stupid way to go about even his own rush for the exit. Entrances and exits should be graceful, memorable things, not a stumbling lurch for the door.
Germany’s Social Democrats and Greens are now pushing Merkel for an exit date. And the terrorists will use these announcements on their recruiting websites. Obama wanted them to like us. Well now they do; it makes their life so much easier.
“Yes Mr. President, words do have consequences.” You say that as if it was unexpected; for this President, it’s a feature, not a bug.