Ok the good, the bad and the ugly

[nadinbrzezinski]

1.- There is an end date, there is a deadline a time line. That is the good. Yes, we WILL GET OUT OF THERE by 2011... not soon enough, but yes, we will.

2.- The Bad... Mr. President there were shadows on why we need to do this. I could argue many times over for them and against them. Why? Yes, there is a threat coming from Central Asia. but the military is not the best way to deal with this. Oh and I know some of them, like the Central Asian Game and the Silk road are just damn too foreign for yer audience, I get that.

3.- The ugly... kiss your domestic agenda goodbye. You just lost your base, that for some reason did not listen when you told them that yes, you were going to escalate this thing.

Now I will also say this, which some of you will not like. The word does have real dangers to us and others. And yes RIGHT NOW they are located in the mountains of Warizistan (as well as middle class homes all over Europe and perhaps the US). The world is not kumbaya and buttoning in and closing our doors to the world will not change this fact. Don't care if this the isolationism from the left or the right...

Oh and I know you missed this, but while Karzai is the government they will be going around him, and all these agricultural programs.

I will HAVE to read the damn thing to look for other things that are barely hinted... and no, he did not make a good case... and I was hoping he could.

Oh and I am NOT for this either ok, before you think I am just for the war. Just pointing out what is going on with this damn speech.

[Luminous Animal]

1. The so-called end date is no such thing.

"Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.... taking into account conditions on the ground."

If the conditions on the ground suck, no exit let alone a beginning of an exit.

[Luminous Animal]

2. And another thing...

What does this mean?

"and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011."


It leads to the question, transfer to where? Why didn't Obama say that we would begin to bring our troops home in 2011?

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Which is code for we are getting out

the code is not necessarily for you, but Department of Defense personnel. They were told, in civilian speech.

Get this done, your ticket is over by 2011. You'd better be ready to begin this transfer. Which means, we will transfer and get out.

Those were marching order to Planners... and those orders were given two days ago, just made public today.

[Odin2005]

3. K&R

[lame54]

5. WILL GET OUT OF THERE by 2011 - a see it to believe it moment

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. We got a time line and that is a good change

[Libertas1776]

7. This is how it always goes...

they promise an end date...and then a million fucking things come up between now and then. Just give us a little more time...30,000 more troops will control the situation Mr President...My fellow Americans I ask you to sacrifice....just a little more time....Mr. President, 40,000 more troops tops....My fellow Americans, there comes a time when we must buckle down....record unemployment....the economy continues to spoil....I will not seek nor will I accept the nomination for the Democratic Party....Ladies and Gentlemen, President Sarah Dobbs McPalin. :nuke: :nuke:

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I am not for this but reality is that he gave you a time line

also reality is that this will not stop until the grand central game is lost by us. Or somehow we are able to get something that looks like victory. But you got a time line.

Right now US Troops in Iraq are behind the wire and casualties are way down. That is the route they hope to go.

Bringing troops home, only if and when the Empire collapses.

[many a good man]

8. No one has sovereignty over Waziristan

No one ever has. This fact should be recognized. I'm sure Pakistan can be persuaded to understand. Taken from this perspective, the path should be clear.

Killing people only hardens resistance. There needs to be a new approach.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. I am ready to listen to what you proppse

what that Paki withdraws? Wait they did.

Reality is that the dynamic on the ground has to change, but just withdrawing did not exactly work very well.

[many a good man]

12. Change the dynamic there

Humanitarian assistance, independence, dignity. Get them to turn against the Taliban and foreign AQ elements. Stop emboldening the resistance through the collateral damage of Predator strikes. Make the statement that self-determination is possible and preferable. Human rights will follow.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. The Pakis stopped all kinds of agressive acts

in Warizinstan. They even signed a cease fire.

The bombings in places like oh I don't know Paki cities increased, to the point that the Pakistanis DEMANDED the army move in.

Granted they need to do all the work om the ground, but retreat has been tried

Why I love simple solutions, they rarely work.

[many a good man]

17. It sure ain't easy

I never implied that it was. One thing is for sure, we have to stop creating failed states.

Pak retreat felt like a victory to the rebel forces. Predator drone attacks fueled recruitment. Simple retreat won't work. You need a strategy. I agree its one of the hardest things in the world, one we are not particularly well-suited for.

Pakistan has to drive out the extremist generals and Taliban sympathizers from the ranks. They are beginning to do a good job of this on their own - witness the Mumbai terror attacks. We need to let this play out and turn the people against them instead of us.

[LooseWilly]

11. The problem I see is precisely that "they" are in Waziristan.

As long as "they" (the Taliban, or al Qa'eda... depending on which set of conflicts you happen to be referring to at any given moment) can operate there... I don't see what the point is of "holding" Afghanistan (or "denying safe haven", if you prefer). Al Qa'eda is capable, I'm pretty sure, of training, planning, and launching attacks from there as readily as anywhere else.

I was hoping there would be some illumination as to why I was wrong. I didn't see it (just heard a vague hint of a "link" between mission in Afghanistan and Pakistani struggles with extremism... and on the other hand a mention of someone who was indeed trained/planned/launched from Waziristan, which seems to support my assumption that there is no absolute need for Afghan Soil from which to operate).

As it stands, it feels like an escalation for the sake of saving NATO face and covering his independent-hawk flank politically, all without acknowledging the usefulness of Afghanistan as a geopolitical transit zone for pipelines from the Caspian to Pakistani harbors. I am unimpressed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Here is what you wrote

I was hoping there would be some illumination as to why I was wrong. I didn't see it (just heard a vague hint of a "link" between mission in Afghanistan and Pakistani struggles with extremism... and on the other hand a mention of someone who was indeed trained/planned/launched from Waziristan, which seems to support my assumption that there is no absolute need for Afghan Soil from which to operate).

---------

For the record, this is the strategic reason, that and the referral to India, but it was so poorly articulated I was going

:banghead:

That is what they want to do alas that region is worst than the wild west, and as a critique of this... the leaders in the WH and the DOD are looking at this as if this was a country in the post Metternich ideal. It's not.

So they may be able to get a few, or even many leaders coopted, but unless a lot of things change on the ground to drain the proverbial swamp...

I do believe now that those in charge perhaps don't get what they are dealing with, but the tactics of consolidation into larger areas... sounds damn familiar... to ahem oh Nam circa 1967...

And I sure hope I am readying this wrong and they actually can do this. And chiefly do it with a low price in blood.

[LooseWilly]

18. It sounds like we're reading this speech similarly...

I'll confess a relative ignorance of the Metternich reference, but it seems to (broadly) suggest that these regions are being treated as nations on a European model... while they don't seem to behave in accordance with such notions. Nevertheless... it seems like a territorial flexibility isn't being taken into account.

And that's what I find... perplexing. Just holding some patch of territory, when the likes of al Qa'eda can just move to territory down the road... leads to a need to... hold all territory?

It seems like there's a fundamental dysfunction in this strategy... and the speech tonight seemed to be addressed not to the left (my ilk), but rather to the right & right-of-center... who take that "point"/"end-goal" for granted...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. das ugly (der ugli?) revisted and revised.

any military logistics expert would scoff at what we were fed today. It is nearly impossible to add, then remove so many bodies (especially living ones) from that distance. To make things worse, there are no trains between where our troops will be sent, and to the nearest deep sea dock. (Iraq's ports work, Iran's would be far better. If only we had some sort of security agreement with them, just like they proposed back in 2001 and again in 2002)

It is literally impossible to move 100,000 men, supplies, equipment, by plane. If we used every single cargo jet we had, the biggest can carry 3 strykers, and their crews each. If we simply left them all our expensive toys, and borrowed every US flagged 747, at 300 per plane, let's see. . . . carry the four, divide by. . . . and . . . ., well it would take a long time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Kabir pass

and Paki ports, that's the way I read it.

Oh and we have agreements with a few of the Stans... and a security agreement to move troops over the former Russian territory. That's how they are getting round that one.

Oh and that pass is a problem by the way.