Reaction to the president’s speech "In contrast was the bold statement of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), which read in part:
“This is a part of the world where leaders always hedge their bets. Even the slightest impression that the United States is looking to get out is devastating. It is one of the reasons why Pakistan continues to undermine our efforts to target Al Qaeda. It also discourages tribal leaders in Afghanistan from cooperating with us to defeat the Taliban, and it encourages the Taliban to keep on fighting.
“Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It is about the bigger fight against Al Qaeda and radical Islamic terrorism.
End of Surge Has to Encourage Taliban "The withdrawal of the surge forces against the advice of our military commanders, may wind up breathing new life into the Taliban cause after the setbacks it has suffered they have suffered in the last two years. If, as a result of this decision the Taliban regains the ground it lost since the surge then we will look back at this speech as a victory for America’s enemies, not a political coup for Obama."
Full Text of President Obama's Afghanistan Speech
Here are some pre-speech comments from Blackfive (an exceptional milblog):
Obama to give Re-Election speech on A-Stan tonight "Obama has dim-wittingly reinforced every weakness that al Qaeda and the rest have properly stated about us; we don't have the will or intestinal fortitude as a nation to fight them as they do to fight us. They don't have to beat us to win; they simply have to outlast us... They have now done so for the second time in Afghanistan."
30,000 troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan
"But to the point – “listening to the generals” is apparently only something Republican Commanders in Chief should do. Obama has decided, for entirely unmilitary reasons, it is time to pull the plug on any hope of holding our gains in Afghanistan. Note, I didn’t say get out of A’stan. 30,000 troops isn’t even close to a full withdrawal (100,000 there now). However, it is a margin of difference between consolidating and keeping what we’ve driven the Taliban out of and being too thinly spread to do that. In fact, that was the whole purpose of the surge (just as in Iraq) – take and hold."
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| http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/ericallie |
Obama to give Re-Election speech on A-Stan tonight "Obama has dim-wittingly reinforced every weakness that al Qaeda and the rest have properly stated about us; we don't have the will or intestinal fortitude as a nation to fight them as they do to fight us. They don't have to beat us to win; they simply have to outlast us... They have now done so for the second time in Afghanistan."
30,000 troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan
"But to the point – “listening to the generals” is apparently only something Republican Commanders in Chief should do. Obama has decided, for entirely unmilitary reasons, it is time to pull the plug on any hope of holding our gains in Afghanistan. Note, I didn’t say get out of A’stan. 30,000 troops isn’t even close to a full withdrawal (100,000 there now). However, it is a margin of difference between consolidating and keeping what we’ve driven the Taliban out of and being too thinly spread to do that. In fact, that was the whole purpose of the surge (just as in Iraq) – take and hold."
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