Hello and welcome to the Think Tank.
I am writing to express my concern with our occupation of Afghanistan. President Obama has decided to add 30,000 troops to our current force. In an attempt to appeal to the 51% of Americans that now say they are against the war (CNN/ORC poll) he also came up with an exit strategy. In July 2011 President Obama plans to begin withdrawing troops. Robert Gibbs then claimed that the exit strategy set in stone and that troops will start coming home in July 2011 period. Gibbs said the plan has "no flexibility." Or does it?
Hillary Clinton seems to think otherwise.
"We're not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we're talking about is an assessment that in 2011, we can begin a transition." ~Hillary Clinton on Meet The Press
Apparently neither does Robert Gates
"We're not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We're talking about something that will take place over a period of time... Because we will have 100,000 troops there. And they are not leaving in July of 2011."~Robert Gates on Meet The Press
So what is actually going on? It seems that the so called exit strategy was just an attempt to quell the public's anger and we don't really know what, if anything, is going to happen in July 2011.
We know that if the U.S pulls out of Afghanistan the Taliban will quickly overthrow the weak democratic government. As Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times:
"This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man, if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we won't be doing at all: nation-building in Afghanistan. Yikes!"
So the question is: Should we try and pull out and leave Afghanistan and now Pakistan to the Taliban? or should we stay the course and try to pull off in Afghanistan what we did in Iraq? Post Below
2 comments:
Good work, good quotes, good questions. (Religion is a much easier topic to understand!) America is one of the best role-model nations in the world, but the only one who can counter the terrifying threat implied by the advance of Islam - whether the extreme or the moderate variety or not. Of course believing women are a substandard species and to be denied a role outside the home of these cruel chauvinist bastards would be useful in deciding that war is an unacceptable solution in dealing with said threat. Myself, I have always rather loved women. Most of them anyway.
What Obama is realizing is that in Iraq and Afghanistan Bush actually had the right idea (surge). He promised everyone that he would begin pulling out but like most politicians went back on his word and expanded the war.
His non commitment is his attempt at relieving the pressure from the American people. This whole thing is the realization that Bush had it right.
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