Obama: Afghanistan troop drawdown won't be steep - AP

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

That durn Light at the End of the Tunnel is fading fast.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091210/ap_on_re_eu/eu_obama_afghanistan

OSLO – President Barack Obama said Thursday that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, set to start in 19 months, will be gradual, and U.S. aid to that nation will last for years.

"We're not going to see some sharp cliff, some precipitous drawdown," Obama told reporters in Oslo, where he traveled to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

The president said he is sticking to his plan to start the drawdown in July 2011, but he signaled that the United States will help Afghanistan train its security forces and develop its economy for some time.

"Several years after U.S. combat troops have been drastically reduced in the region," he said, "the Afghanistan government is still going to need support for those security forces. We are still going to have an interest in partnering with Afghans and Pakistanis and others in dealing with the remnants of terrorist activities there."

[NightWatcher]

1. I'm afraid we are going to be "withdrawing" them one at a time back to Dover

[ShortnFiery]

2. I'm sickened by this ORWELLIAN speak. "Escalate to Withdraw MFs!"

:puke:

[Arctic Dave]

3. Hate say I told you so but.......

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Actually Obama told us so during the campaign. nt

[Arctic Dave]

7. Yep. Some people wanted to believe falsely that Obama was going to bring this to

a close by the next election cycle. They were fools.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. They pinned their views on what he said and heard what they wanted to hear

I STILL voted for him in spite of what he promised to do about the good war... his words, not mine.

Why?

The alternative was that much more wost insofar as the end of empire.

This end is coming... and even Newsweek seems to have noticed... see cover story this week but hey... when people stop listening and just hear what they want to hear.

Oh and I said it before, this is about the silk road and the grand central Asian game.

[grytpype]

4. Obama has to deal with reality, boo hooo hooooo

Why oh why won't he miracle all the troops home????


???????


??????

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. He's too busy miracling more troops to Afghanistan and cemeteries.

[frylock]

8. i take it that nobody in your family is in any danger of being sent back to the meatgrinder?

so you know where you can shove your fucking boo-hoo-hoos, mkay?

[JVS]

13. Maybe he should deal with the reality that there is no winning this war.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

9. Is there honestly anyone who expected something other than a *gradual* withdrawal?

I mean, when conditions allow.

[amborin]

10. we'll be there for decades

[amborin]

11. the truth about Afghanistan threads sink quickly, too hot a topic perhaps?

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Nope, something about denial and it is not just a river you know

:hi:

Some of us said that this was no progressive, and why (or HRC) were not our first choices during the primaries. People are still in denial regarding this.

That said, even if we managed to elect Kucinich (or any other lefty) the needs of Empire are way too powerful... and until the Empire goes away...

[amborin]

16. agree, and it's going away fast! n/t

[bigjohn16]

12. K&R nt

[slipslidingaway]

17. knr nt

[amborin]

18. could this explain the escalation? : re-election?

"The real goals of the Afghanistan escalation are domestic and electoral. Like Lyndon Johnson, who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans.

..To cover his flank and look tough in the next US election, Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan. To look strong in front of swing voters, he will sacrifice the lives of hundreds of US soldiers, allow many more to be horribly maimed, waste a minimum of $30 billion in public money and in the process kill many thousands of Afghan civilians.

It is political theater, nothing else. What are the other possible explanations for Obama's escalation? And why has he pledged to start drawing down the new deployment after only a year of fighting?

Is it to get the job done? To rebuild Afghanistan? To kill Osama bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda? No, all those goals are nearly impossible. And Al Qaeda is too small and internationally defused to destroy.

Some say the Afghanistan war and the escalation are about building a pipeline to export gas from Central Asia. Nonsense--only a maniac would invest large sums of money in building a pipeline there. In the late 1990s the Argentine firm Bridas and the US firm Unocal jockeyed for the right to build such a project. But that dream, always tentative, has evaporated. It will be many decades, at best, before Afghanistan is safe enough to host a new, foreign-owned gas pipeline.

Others say the Afghanistan war is about establishing US military bases to menace China, Russia and Iran. Indeed, because of its occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US now has bases on either side of Iran and small bases in Central Asia. But these do not require this escalation.

The real purpose of these 30,000 soldiers is to make Obama look tough as he heads toward the next US presidential election."

snip

<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091221/parenti>

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Yep. It's political PR. Just lik LBJ's "tough on Communism" efforts in Vietnam.