The Taliban is jubilant at Obama's strategy. So is Iran.

[Casino67]

WSJ:

What does it mean that the U.S. will now be withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan on an accelerated and defined timetable in order to focus, as President Obama said last week, on "nation building here at home"?

It emboldens the Taliban, which thanks to Mr. Obama's surge and David Petraeus's generalship had all but been ousted from its traditional strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. "My soul, and the soul of thousands of Taliban who have been blown up, are happy," Taliban field commander Jamal Khan told the Daily Beast of his reaction to Mr. Obama's speech. "I had more than 50 encounters with U.S. forces and their technology. But the biggest difference in ending this war was not technology but the more powerful Islamic ideology and religion."

It increases the risk to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where the fatality count was finally starting to come down after peaking in 2010. Fewer troops means that U.S. commanders will have to make an invidious choice between clearing territory of enemies and holding and building it for friends. "Whether it is Nangarhar or Ghazni, Kandahar or Herat, the place where we decide to 'surge' with remaining forces will leave a window open—and the Taliban will crawl in," says a U.S. military official with experience in Afghanistan. "Any commander who has experienced a withdrawal under pressure knows that it is perhaps the most difficult operation you can conduct and certainly the most dangerous; it gives the attacker a feeling of superiority and demoralizes the withdrawing force."


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Am I right that Hitler over ruled his generals all of the time?
We know what that got him. Obama could just as easily said 'I don't care about the consequences, just get them out before the election.' Dick.

[Argyle58]

Obama could just as easily said 'I don't care about the consequences, just get them out before the election.' Dick.

 

Since it was a liberal journalist from MSNBC who called the "o" a dick, does that mean we can too, without being called a racist?

[Casino67]

Obama could just as easily said 'I don't care about the consequences, just get them out before the election.' Dick.

 

Since it was a liberal journalist from MSNBC who called the "o" a dick, does that mean we can too, without being called a racist?

 

You might not be called a racist, but you could be suspended.