Obama speech on Afghanistan
Very presidential. There's no doubt this president can give an eloquent speech. That's not in question, especially if you watched his speech on Afghanistan from West Point tonight.
The question is, will an extra 30,000 troops help us accomplish our goals in Afghanistan? And second, what are those goals? I would've liked to have heard more on the latter from the president.
Still, it showed wisdom when he spoke almost as much about Pakistan as Afghanistan. Our maneuvers in Afghanistan, rooting out the Taliban, turning weaker, less-committed Taliban to our side (or to the side of the Afghanistan government) and helping the Afghan troops and security forces stand up on their own, are all important. But so is working closer with Pakistan. I noticed Obama spoke about our relationship with Pakistan, which he said should be based on mutual respect and mutual trust. That has not been the case. It remains to be seen if we can trust Pakistan to work together with us and our increased troops, when Pakistan has implicitly harbored terrorists in their midst, or in the very least, done little about them.
These indeed are perilous times.
Comments
Steve, we realize you drank the Obama Kool Aid long ago when you contributed money to his campaign and put up one of those cheesy posters in your house, but most people don't believe this was a very presidential speech.
It was a phony speech.
Not ONCE did he utter the word "win" or "victory."
Not once.
The only exit strategy to have in this theatre of war, is to come home after we've WON.
In war, you don't give a timeline for when it's going to end.
It ends when it ends...when one side has won.
He said that the Afghanistan theatre is "vital to our nation's security."
Ok, but if it's vital, then it's a war which must be fought until we achieve victory.
This is not a little carton of yogurt---there's no expiration date on our nation's security.
Obama is suggesting that this theatre of war will no longer be vital to our nation's security beginning in July 2011.
At least he did finally admit that we did a good thing by winning the war in Iraq.
Bush is vindicated in that respect.
Steve, keep in mind, Obama was the wise sage who insisted that the surge in Iraq WOULD NEVER SUCCEED.
Obama has been proven wrong about that.
By the way, Steve, it's really disingenous of you to commend Obama for his recent remarks regarding Pakistan, when you know very well that during the 2008 campaign, Obama actually recommended we should invade Pakistan. Funny how you "forgot" that Obama had made those remarks during the 2008 campaign.
Posted by: Barcelona Hilton | December 9, 2009 3:13 AM