{"id":5189,"date":"2011-06-23T01:41:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T08:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5189"},"modified":"2011-06-23T01:41:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T08:41:44","slug":"afghanistan-just-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/23\/afghanistan-just-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Just Say No"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many of you, I watched Obama\u2019s speech on Afghanistan last night, and like many I was very disappointed in what he had to say.  I have the complete video and a link to the text below, for those who missed it, but the bottom line is this.  Obama plans to withdraw only the additional troops he added in the most recent surge.  That will leave 66,000 troops in Afghanistan at the end of next year, near double the number of troops there when he took office.  His later plans are too nebulous to understand, let alone describe.  Furthermore, Obama plans to continue a COIN (counter insurrection) strategy.  For a COIN strategy to succeed, we need a local government in place that can win the loyalty of the people.  Karzai guarantees failure.  A counter terrorism strategy takes far fewer troops and would be far more effective at protecting the US.  Obama is wrong.  We need to withdraw and pursue a counter terrorism strategy while doing do.<\/font><\/p>\n

Here is the complete video.<\/font><\/p>\n

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For the text version, click here<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

Republicans reactions varied.<\/font><\/p>\n

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President Obama’s announcement tonight of a drawdown in U.S. surge forces from Afghanistan<\/a> met with the dismissal and skepticism that one would expect from Republicans. <\/p>\n

However, there is a split in the reaction: some Republicans are toting the hawkish line of following the wishes of the military and to continue to put forward a strong national defense. Others suggest the war should be ended sooner to save the hundreds of billions of dollars the government spends in Afghanistan yearly<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Even the candidates running to replace President Obama are somewhat split. They are all trying to appeal to GOP voters who oppose the president, but also to the many Americans who oppose the continued war effort in Afghanistan as well as those who want government spending reduced at all costs. The reactions of three of the leading Republicans show a wide range in the reaction among the president’s opponents\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <CBS<\/a>><\/p>\n

Ed Schultz shared my discontent, along with Rachel Maddow, and even Chris Matthews.<\/font><\/p>\n

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, I would support a move in Congress to limit funding for the war to hasten the withdrawal.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now, when Obama is wrong, I say so.  I won\u2019t distort my writing to play politics.  That said, the notion of any of the available Republicans in the White House leaves me so fearful for the survival of our nation that, assuming Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the alternative to supporting him, with all is faults, is to court disaster of the highest magnitude.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many of you, I watched Obama\u2019s speech on Afghanistan last night, and like many I was very disappointed in what he had to say.  I have the complete video and a link to the text below, for those who missed it, but the bottom line is this.  Obama plans to withdraw only the additional […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}