Last Night's SpeechFollow

No one's talking?

The Pres announced troop draw-down in Afghanistan. 10,000 troops pulled by the end of this year. Another 33,000 next year and promise to change our mission from combat to support by 2014.

Is it enough? Too much?

Will we be able to plant an effective, honest, productive government in Afghanistan by 2014...or ever? Does it matter?

We're supporting a ton of peeps over there right now - over 200,000. Presumably those numbers are what it takes to keep the Taliban from being organized enough to breed effective terrorist groups.

The bleeding-heart part of me would like to see our military insuring an on-going infrastructure than can cure this sick nation. Afghanistan hovers around in the top 5 countries for worst mortality rates - > infants, kids under 5 and women giving birth don't have a great chance at life. Thus far though those dollars that have been targeted to building supportive communities have ended up mostly in the pockets of corrupt quasi-ruling men.

The peace-lover in me simply says we should pull out all our military and go home. Being there, being in war there, is not making us safer here at home.

Anyways here are the transcripts of last nights speech.

Eight years and it hasn't worked in Iraq, why would it work in Afghanistan?

As much as I'd like to see us leave and let the whole country kill itself slowly, there is still a need for American troops there. I'll leave it up to the brass to determine the appropriate amount.

If by "base" you mean "The majority of the American people". I personally support the effort and was glad to see more troops sent there. But the war is losing support rapidly from all ends of the political spectrum, especially now that bin Laden is gone and the nominal reason for the invasion (Taliban government sheltering/hiding OBL & Al'Qaeda) no longer applies.

That reads as "leave targets in country so they don't blow themselves up instead."

Yes? I think you're mistaking Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

You had mixed up the Taliban and Al-Qaida. Deliberately, I'm sure.

Didn't see the speech myself, but the OP pretty much has the gist of the parts that matter from what I've heard. I'm kinda torn on this as well. On the one hand, there isn't a whole lot left to do in Afghanistan. That war was never about trying to rebuild a modern democratic country (while Iraq was). Different countries, different missions, different exit conditions. Now that OBL is dead, the main concern is simply leaving the country with (hopefully) enough stability that the centralized portions can keep the outlying tribal groups in check. Assuming those conditions are met, then by all means start bringing troops home.

On the other hand though, the concern is that if we're too firm with a timeline rather than conditional response, we may leave the country in a state ripe for being overrun and we end out back where we started. The outlying territories aren't that important. What really matters in terms of Afghanistan's relevance to us is who controls Kabul and Kandahar and the international airport located in those cities. That was the real problem with the Taliban controlling the country. It could use the sovereignity of the country to effectively send people and money anywhere in the world it wanted. That's a problem we need to make sure doesn't happen again.


I don't think there's one right answer, but that's why I do feel that our actions have to be flexible and in response to conditions in Afghanistan. My concern is that Obama is saying that to the cameras, but is sticking to a timeline no matter what for political reasons. And some rumblings from the military suggest that this is true.

I think we should keep forces in Afghanistan until we can force the remaining Taliban members to rebuild the Bamiyan Buddhas by hand. *grumble*