What did 'I, I, I' think about Obama’s Afghanistan troop withdrawal speech? I, I, I…me, me, me…al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda…no mention of Patraeus, huh? Oh yeah, our ‘extraordinary’ military! Damn George Bush, I killed Osama bin Laden. Bloviation and platitudes abound. Basically, we’re pulling out and leaving it up to a corrupt government that is sure to return to the Taliban’s grasp…deal with it! Make an empty nod to ‘our founding’, placate the base, and end with more platitudes.
As a Global Post report puts it quite accurately:
In the end, there were few surprises in the long-awaited speech that U.S. President Barack Obama delivered Wednesday. It followed a carefully constructed narrative that has been in the works for at least the past year: the United States, after successfully completing its mission in Afghanistan, will bring the troops home.
"Most analysts predicted that the bulk of the “surge” troops — the 33,000 soldiers that Obama promised to send in his West Point speech in December 2009 — would stay until the end of 2012. Instead, they will all be withdrawn by the end of next summer, just in time to feature prominently in the fall presidential campaign.
If this sounds cynical, it is. The president’s speech, like much of the rhetoric surrounding the Afghan war, was a triumph of misdirection — the smoke-and-mirrors approach to public diplomacy."
The political toying with Afghanistan over the past decade has not only cost us in American blood and money, but has instilled no confidence in its people who hoped for change.
"The president’s announcement of a faster-paced withdrawal will most likely increase the panic among ordinary citizens, while relieving some of the pressure on the militants.
Obama promised that “this is the beginning — but not the end — of our effort to wind down this war,” and reassured Afghans that the United States would build “a partnership with the Afghan people that endures.”
Of course the U.S. president must tend to his constituency, which was the central theme of his speech: “America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”
But his “responsible peace” will provide little comfort to Afghans facing a perilous and uncertain future."
In the final hour of Wednesday’s show, Mark Levin also took note of the politicization, coining it “a very odd speech”:
“First of all, the deadlines he put in there, they’re political. By September of next year, we’re pulling out all these troops? So he’s playing to his base. That is very unfortunate, very unfortunate. We’re bombing the hell out of Libya, and we’re withdrawing from Afghanistan a significant number of troops. If you can figure that out in some coherent way, I’d love to hear from you, because I think this is a mess, an absolute mess.
And I’ve also been reading articles today where we have people on the ground, telling reporters, on and off the record, that they are not at all sure that the Afghan military is up to the task; so I certainly hope that all these gains that we’ve had and all the blood spilled doesn’t turn out to be a truly horrific waste of somebody’s father or mother or son or daughter, because he’s timing these things on political grounds.”
Levin went on to express his confusion with Obama as to when we should use our military and when not. “I have no idea what his comprehensive approach is to national security, none.” But reminded us, “Never let us forget, this is the place from where we were attacked.” Levin surmised that this was a political/anti-war speech, except, “on the one hand, we’re pulling out of Afghanistan, on the other hand, we’re involved in Libya. I don’t get it.” After returning from the break, Levin went on to explain why we’re even in Afghanistan, and what his strategy would have been, which is what ‘war’ used to be about...defeating an enemy!
”Anybody know why we’ve been in Afghanistan? Yes, we’ve been in Afghanistan for our own national security purposes. We’re not trying to help build that society in some ways just because that’s the sort of thing we do. We’re trying to build it, because we were attacked from there, and the Taliban can’t wait to overrun that country with its hordes and take it back. And what if they do that and al-Qaeda re-establishes itself? That’s the concern. I don’t have a simple answer; I don’t pretend to be a general. I did say, and have said over the years, if it were me, I’d have been sending our big bombers over there to flatten the place, and I’m serious about that, instead of sending troops to go up into those treacherous mountain areas and valleys and so forth. Let their ‘soldiers’, let their terrorist die. But we don’t do that sort of thing anymore. We don’t bomb countries to Kingdom Come. I don’t know why, I mean, if we’re at war, the purpose of war is to defeat the other side, right?
But all that said, I think we have an absolutely, inexplicable foreign policy, and an absolutely, inexplicable use of our military when it comes to this president, when we use it and when we don’t…So let’s just be clear. The reason we’ve been in Afghanistan is for our own national security purposes. We would never have gone there if there hadn’t been a 9/11.”
"The president’s announcement of a faster-paced withdrawal will most likely increase the panic among ordinary citizens, while relieving some of the pressure on the militants.
Obama promised that “this is the beginning — but not the end — of our effort to wind down this war,” and reassured Afghans that the United States would build “a partnership with the Afghan people that endures.”
Of course the U.S. president must tend to his constituency, which was the central theme of his speech: “America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.”
But his “responsible peace” will provide little comfort to Afghans facing a perilous and uncertain future."
In the final hour of Wednesday’s show, Mark Levin also took note of the politicization, coining it “a very odd speech”:
“First of all, the deadlines he put in there, they’re political. By September of next year, we’re pulling out all these troops? So he’s playing to his base. That is very unfortunate, very unfortunate. We’re bombing the hell out of Libya, and we’re withdrawing from Afghanistan a significant number of troops. If you can figure that out in some coherent way, I’d love to hear from you, because I think this is a mess, an absolute mess.
And I’ve also been reading articles today where we have people on the ground, telling reporters, on and off the record, that they are not at all sure that the Afghan military is up to the task; so I certainly hope that all these gains that we’ve had and all the blood spilled doesn’t turn out to be a truly horrific waste of somebody’s father or mother or son or daughter, because he’s timing these things on political grounds.”
Levin went on to express his confusion with Obama as to when we should use our military and when not. “I have no idea what his comprehensive approach is to national security, none.” But reminded us, “Never let us forget, this is the place from where we were attacked.” Levin surmised that this was a political/anti-war speech, except, “on the one hand, we’re pulling out of Afghanistan, on the other hand, we’re involved in Libya. I don’t get it.” After returning from the break, Levin went on to explain why we’re even in Afghanistan, and what his strategy would have been, which is what ‘war’ used to be about...defeating an enemy!
”Anybody know why we’ve been in Afghanistan? Yes, we’ve been in Afghanistan for our own national security purposes. We’re not trying to help build that society in some ways just because that’s the sort of thing we do. We’re trying to build it, because we were attacked from there, and the Taliban can’t wait to overrun that country with its hordes and take it back. And what if they do that and al-Qaeda re-establishes itself? That’s the concern. I don’t have a simple answer; I don’t pretend to be a general. I did say, and have said over the years, if it were me, I’d have been sending our big bombers over there to flatten the place, and I’m serious about that, instead of sending troops to go up into those treacherous mountain areas and valleys and so forth. Let their ‘soldiers’, let their terrorist die. But we don’t do that sort of thing anymore. We don’t bomb countries to Kingdom Come. I don’t know why, I mean, if we’re at war, the purpose of war is to defeat the other side, right?
But all that said, I think we have an absolutely, inexplicable foreign policy, and an absolutely, inexplicable use of our military when it comes to this president, when we use it and when we don’t…So let’s just be clear. The reason we’ve been in Afghanistan is for our own national security purposes. We would never have gone there if there hadn’t been a 9/11.”
Make no mistake, this war has been a cluster-you-know-what within a few short years, perhaps even months, after its commencement, with primary ‘thanks’ to political tinkering throughout, from those on Capitol Hill, most of who know nothing of combat or have forgotten, all the way up to some of the top brass who seem to be more interested in posturing alongside their political colleagues in Washington than reigning Hell upon the enemy. And all to what avail? To the expense of our heroic soldiers, whose hands have been tied at so many turns. I have total faith in the American soldier, but the question that begs to be answered is directed towards our American government: are we capable of actually launching an effective war effort anymore? Because the lenience and clouded objectives that we’ve shown our enemies over the past few decades is quite unsettling, and now Obama’s opportunistic resetting of the goalposts on the Afghan front, while maintaining an unclear, and essentially unlawful, Libyan presence, doesn’t render confidence either.
As one Levin caller so succinctly described about Obama’s speech, “I found it amusing in kind of a frightening way how he tells us that he’s never going to relent in his pursuit of al-Qaeda, seconds after he just told us exactly how he’s going to relent in a step-by-step systematic approach with dates and amounts of troops he’s going to withdraw, pretty much laid out exactly how he’s going to relent." Just short of handing over the entire game plan to our enemy! Then the caller affirms Levin’s previous discussion, “I think I know why we went into Afghanistan. To kill terrorist!”
