Obama To Announce Starting Point For Pullout, But No Timetable Or End Date
On a conference call with reporters just now, senior Obama officials announced that he will only announce a starting date for withdrawal from Afghanistan — and will not specify a subsequent pace of withdrawal or a target end date for completion of it.
Officials said that Obama would announce a troop increase of 30,000, as expected, and specify July of 2011 as the target date for beginning to transfer responsibilities to the Afghan forces. But they took pains to stress that the date was only a starting point for withdrawal.
“He will not specify the end of that transition process,” one official said. “Nor will he specifiy the pace at which it will proceed.” The official added that the speed of withdrawal and the end date “will be dictated by conditions on the ground.”
“The pace of transition and how long it will take will be dominated by conditions on the ground,” a second official emphasized, adding that those conditions are “not possible to foresee with accuracy.”
Officials did, however, emphasize that this is “not an open-ended commitment.”
The announcement is likely to mollify Republicans and conservatives, who were gearing up to portray any fixed timetables as a sign of insufficient American resolve, and anger the Dem base, which fears that the failure to articulate clear sign-posts for withdrawal could result in a protracted and open-ended quagmire, despite vows to the contrary.
Officials said Obama will say that the core goals in Afghanistan are to “prevent the return of Al Qaeda,” to “prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government.”
The question is how skillfully Obama will make the case tonight that these goals are achivable and worth the cost, how clearly he’ll define them, and how convincingly he’ll make the case that the commitment isn’t an open-ended one.
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Here’s something Greg, MoveOn is splitting with Obama on his decision in Afghanistan and asking members to call the White House with their displeasure. They will be having a strategy meeting after tonight’s speech to determine their position and actions going forward.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/moveon-moves-against-obam_n_375677.html
Sounding very Bush-like…
I think that this is smart policy and politics.
From what I’ve read we can’t abandon Afghanistan right now b/c of Pakistan and the fights going on in the border region between the countries. However, a withdrawal start date sets the fact that we ARE leaving in stone. Gives the military the resources they asked for an an objective time limit. And leaves the Republicans with one choice come 2012: advocate for more war or support the President’s withdrawal plans. And given the history of Afghanistan and Iraq, it puts them in a difficult place far away from where most Americans are.
I think folks want the war to end; but they don’t want an abrupt pull out. This balances the need for Americans to achieve an orderly withdrawal and is much like the Iraq withdrawal.
Again I believe this is Obama’s first serious blunder. Now he may be compounding his mistake. In his urge to pacify the left with some sort of timetable for withdrawal…he has made it so long and so open ended that even when he does realize his horrid mistake a year or two from now he’ll be trapped by his own words.
Remember the Village is not a place that respects flexibility or the ability to correct mistakes. Now if Obama…like Reagan in Lebanon…should realize the futility of this war and tries to change course or make any correction he’ll be blasted from the right by folks like SBJ and QB who will dig up this speech and throw it back into his face.
That’s a real over simplification sbj and I think you know it. I may not agree with Obama on this but at least I know he took his time and looked at it from all angles. Unfortunately, he didn’t come to the conclusions I was hoping for. Finishing a war that Bush started and then neglected is hardly Bush-like.
“As written, it seems to be implying that Sarah Palin wrote a book.”
I think you’re reasonable.
I also think there isn’t one thing I can do about this decision, except decide not to vote for Obama any more and that is exactly the same thing as cutting my own throat.
I hate war – it’s our most futile endeavor. Never just solves a problem – creates 50 more every time.
But neither I nor Obama started this conflict and I can’t affect what Obama does about it, so there’s no point in throwing a fit over it.
Well, if withdrawal is based on things improving in Afghanistan, then it is an open ended-ended commitment. The White House can try to spin it as not being, but they are just engaging in Orwellian Double Speak.
If we are not setting an firm draw down dates, and are going to only draw down, if conditions on the ground improve enough to allow us to do so, then that is absolutely an open-ended commitment.
What about the Karzai Mafia rule. If they stay corrupt and incompetent, are we still going to stick it out?
edit:
any firm withdrawal….
Very Bush like is fumbling intelligence and charging into a country with a population that posed no direct threat to our country with no apparent plan on when to get out.
Liam, that is precisely what they’re saying. No pace of withdrawal, no end date — both of those to be dictated by condtions on the ground. Couldn’t be clearer.
I see the wrong cut and paste got into my comment – I apparently didn’t pick up Rhoda’s quote – “I think folks want the war to end; but they don’t want an abrupt pull out. This balances the need for Americans to achieve an orderly withdrawal and is much like the Iraq withdrawal.”
Which is a reasonable view, as I said.
They did not fumble the Intelligence. They fixed it, as in cooked it up, as did the Brits, at our urging.
@lmsinca: Of course it’s an oversimplification – this is a comment on a blog! I meant only that, IMO, the similarity to Bush rhetoric regards Iraq was striking: “The speed of withdrawal and the end date “will be dictated by conditions on the ground.”
@ruk: “He’ll be blasted from the right by folks like SBJ and QB who will dig up this speech and throw it back into his face.”
So unfair. At this point I am cautiously optimistic that Obama is continuing with a counterinsurgency strategy. I will be very interested in hearing him compare the strategy he announced 7 months ago to this new strategy.
“Sounding very Bush-like…”
You’re such a piece of work. AS if you aren’t saying that in the hopes of discouraging one or more of Obama’s supporters. As if you wouldn’t really consider it a good thing if Obama was more Bush-esque.
Bush made the mess. Obama has been forced to deal with it.
# Greg Sargent | December 1st, 2009 at 03:55 pm
Liam, that is precisely what they’re saying. No pace of withdrawal, no end date — both of those to be dictated by condtions on the ground. Couldn’t be clearer.
…………………..
Absolutely Greg.
@Tena…You know how much I respect your opinion and so may I very respectfully disagree…
“except decide not to vote for Obama any more and that is exactly the same thing as cutting my own throat.”
“there’s no point in throwing a fit over it.”
I believe there is a point in throwing a fit over it. We are not knee jerk righties who march lockstep with our leaders. If one of them is making a huge mistake we should let them know. Of course we won’t vote rethug but again it might bring a challenger from the left like Grayson if Obama doesn’t listen.
However I have enough faith in Obama to believe when he realizes his mistake…and when he loses the support of the country…he will move to correct his mistake.
A large part of my faith in Obama hinges on just that fact. He is not the arrogant “my way or the highway” type of leader we were stuck with for 8 years. I think he actually pays attention to us and “throwing a fit” may achieve some results sooner rather than later.
We can blame Bush all we want…yes he started this war…I think we all agree up until the disaster at Tora Bora it was well waged and appropriate. But since then it has been nothing but a disaster and our original stated goal of capturing OBL is no longer operative since he left Afghanistan years ago.
Obama is skating on very thin ice for those of us who voted for change. Yes I know he campaigned on Afghanistan as the “war of necessity” but we also voted for a pragmatist who would do things differently. His appointments of Summers and Geithner…what appears to be favoritism to Wall Street…and now another bow to the Military Indutrial Complex make many of us really worry that NOBODY…not even Obama can handle the corporatists.
For a look at the REAL money behind this move here is an excellent read at Firedoglake
It’s far more than 30,000 troops @ 1,000,000…for every soldier there is at least one contractor from the MIC @ an additional $500,000
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/16899
I support Obama but I believe the larger the fit we throw the sooner we’ll get the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s time to bring them home! There are nukes to worry about in N. Korea…coming soon perhaps to Iran…we can’t occupy everybody who might have loose nukes, and so hopefully our secret deal with the Pakistanis is enough to protect their arsenal.
Rhoda, I think that’s an astute comment about the politics and setting a date for starting withdrawal in stone. It’s a commitment to getting out but not with the deadline that would either show our hand in the field or give Republicans a specific target.
Republican “Bush like”: Ignore the warnings about terrorists that the outgoing administration repeatedly explained was a ‘blinking red light’.
Republican “Bush like”: Ignore the official Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) that explicitly warned a full month before 9/11/2001 that “Bin Laden [is] Determined to Strike in US”.
Republican “Bush like”: Ignore the military Generals and instead outsource the war to profiteering corporatists.
Republican “Bush like”: Lies US into a second war that had nothing to do with those that attacked US.
Republican “Bush like”: Fail to provide enough resources or troops to successfully conclude either war.
Republican “Bush like”: Commit war crimes.
Republican “Bush like”: Illegally spy on American citizens.
Republican “Bush like”: Claim your lawyer cronies gave you permission slips to violate the Constitution.
@tena: “Obama has been forced to deal with it.”
“AS” sort of comes with the territory, eh? AS if I should feel sorry for someone who chose to campaign for President and now has to make difficult decisions. Y’all are in a pickle because you spent 6 or more years criticizing Bush for using the same sort of rhetoric that Obama is now using.
Republican Bush rhetoric: Declaring a “crusade” even while allies amongst Muslims are essential to accomplishing the mission.
Republican Bush rhetoric: Declaring “Mission Accomplished” and then ignoring the increasingly deadly and expensive wars that you walked away from.
Republican Bush rhetoric: Using anti-democratic rhetoric like, “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”
Republican Bush rhetoric: Explicitly acknowledging that Republican’s are elitists whose true masters are the elite of the elite: “This is an impressive crowd – the haves and the have-mores, some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”
I’d say people criticized Bush for the colossal mistakes his administration made.
ABC — I don’t think we should be under any illusions about what’s happening here. Obama aides themselves are saying that the conditions on the ground that will dicate both the pace and timing of withdrawal are unpredictable. It’s also unclear whether Obama will clearly define what has to happen on the ground for withdrawal to actually take place.
“I don’t think we should be under any illusions about what’s happening here.”
What’s happening here is that the progressive wing is getting hosed!
Greg…thanks for continuing to point out that no matter how anyone spins this..it IS an open ended committment.
ABC – “It’s a commitment to getting out but not with the deadline that would either show our hand in the field or give Republicans a specific target.”
I respect your concerns but am not truly concerned.
First of all the Repubs are irrelevant…no matter WHAT Obama does they will object. If in four years there was a Jeffersonian Democracy in Afghanistan the Repubs would still ***** so they truly do no count.
As far as the Taliban waiting us out if we supply a timeline…they are GOING TO WAIT US OUT…no matter what. That is the point of those of us who object on pragmatic grounds. Nobody…Nobody..has ever subdued Afghanistan…are we so guilty of hubris that we believe we can accomplish what has NEVER been done before?
One thing you can be All But Certain about is that the Taliban or some similar organization will be in Afghanistan LONG after we leave…whether it’s next year..three years…ten years..or twenty years.
The terrorists are laughing their butts off at this move! It’s exactly the kind of thing they hoped would happen as a result of 9/11!!!!
@SBJ…”So unfair.” So SBJ if Obama pulls a Reagan and changes his mind in seven months and pulls the troops out..you’re NOT going to be pasting snippets of his speech tonight where he commits to staying longer?
I do not see it that way. I see it as sincere call on President Obama’s part. I just happen to believe that it is a dreadful call, and one that greatly increases the chances that he will not win a second term. I will support him, again, but I wish he had been a profile in courage now, and told the American people that we will have to continue to take out the Al-Qaeda type leaders and camps for decades, and therefore I will reduce our presence down to a enclave of no more than twenty thousand troops in Afghanistan, from which we will continue to track down and take out the terrorists and their camps for as many decades as we have to.
Greg, are you saying that because Obama thinks conditions on the ground are unpredictable and also won’t say what’s required on the ground for withdrawal that that means he’s not committed to withdrawal?–that the idea of a withdrawal is itself likely to be an illusion?
I’m going to wait to hear what he says about it. From that point forward, I will get a better idea of what he’s on about.
Ought we give any wieght to world opinion on this? Are we essentially going it alone again?
ABC.
It is as simple as ABC.
He said that we can not leave now, because securing Afghanistan is vital to our national security.
If things are just as bad, in a year or two, or three, or more, then he can not leave because it will still be vital to our national security.
That means that President Obama has to defeat the Taliban, route them, and get a competent and non corrupt Government in place, and also a functioning national police force and Army, in a 14th century tribal region, with no cohesive national identity, and an annual GDP of less than one billion dollars for a population of around 33 million people.
That is what President Obama has now bought into.
That is as simple as ABC.
Liam — don’t forget that he is also sending 30K more Americans to do it — and that he’s now responsible for sending more than half the total 100K that will be there after the escalation.
It seems a *whole lot* of what Obama (and us) are banking, literally, on is for a stand up Afghani government to emerge that is able to govern and defend itself in basically the next three years.
So, what are we starting with? A president who we were openly critiscizing until very recently who we know is corrupt. We know that we have a tribal-based culture that has no real expereince of Western-style governing, and we know we have a terrain that is damned hard to deal with militarily.
““What do you say to a War Tax?””
Right winger “sbj”: “Obama promised no increased taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.”
Okay, agreed, only those that make over $250,000 a year need to pay the War Tax.
Considering that Republicans gave their true masters, the ultra-wealthy, tax cuts during our time of multiple wars(something which is directly responsible for the multi-trillions in debt that Republican policies were responsible for), it’s clearly time that the privileged elite that the Republicans serve to start showing some patriotism and help US out by paying their fair share of all these wars that the Republicans started.
ChuckinDenton
I’m like you, still waiting to see what he says tonight and if he can sell it. My instincts tell me ruk and Liam are right, perhaps for different reasons, but I’m still waiting for the speech. He’s been on the phone for several days getting support, hopefully from our allies and will presumably discuss that tonight as well.
Greg,
and those 30K more troops are going to cost us over million dollars per troop, per year in Afghanistan.
Think about that for a moment. Just those additional Troops are going to cost us thirty times the annual GDP of Afghanistan, each year that we keep them there. It is absurd.
We have already spent over 300 billion in Afghanistan, and now we are going to probably end up spending more than a trillion dollars in that 14th century tribal hell hole.
As I said once before: It makes about as much sense as spending 10 million dollars on veterinary fees, in an effort to try and revive a dead cat.
@ruk: These are silly games that you play. Is the security of Afghanistan important to our security at home? Obama has already stated that we must prevent the Taliban from returning to power as they are a direct threat to our security. If he decides to pull out, leaving the Taliban free to return to power and again permit a safe haven for terrorist training camps, you can bet that I’ll be critical.
At the moment, however, my point is to be much more of a troll regarding Obama’s wishy washy rhetoric. I am criticizing all the hypocrites who demonized Bush for using the same rhetoric that Obama now uses. Greg is at least consistent in calling him out on this – his readers should do the same.
@SBJ “I am criticizing all the hypocrites who demonized Bush for using the same rhetoric that Obama now uses. Greg is at least consistent in calling him out on this – his readers should do the same.”
Perhaps you missed the Morning Plum. More than one of us called out Obama on this. We progressives are not like the knee jerk righties who follow their leader no matter what.
“and those 30K more troops are going to cost us over million dollars per troop, per year in Afghanistan.”
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t forget the matching 30,000 civilian contractors from the MIC that will cost an additional 500,000 each.
Rukidding,
I know, I know. That is why I said that we will probably waste a trillion dollars in that 14th century hell hole.
Like I said: were spending 10 million in veterinary fees in order to try and revive a dead cat.
Right winger “sbj”: “my point is to be much more of a troll”, and it should be acknowledged that your duplicitous nature makes you very good at it.
Nowhere does Greg say what “sbj” claims he said.
“sbj” also make false assertions about the “left”. The same “left” that decried Republican Bush’s wars will also go after Obama, they already are and have been.
But many on the “left” (such as the right wing Dems that would fall within your overly broad brush as the “left”) actually supported Bush’s wars (especially initially).
And to the best of my recollection, Obama has consistently supported the Afghanistan war. Obama was also quite explicit during the primaries about supporting the drone attacks in Pakistan.
Obama was, however, explicitly against the Republican’s Iraq War Lie.
You’d make a better right wing troll, “sbj”, if you could stick to the facts and try to make honest arguments.
@ruk: “Perhaps you missed the Morning Plum.”
I did. And I’m sorry that I did – Liam got a SUPERB dig in on tena. Fabulous!
Imho:
Obama is going to show that he can make the difficult, unpopular choices during a time of war in order to bolster national security. Republicans, naturally, are TERRIFIED of Obama doing the right thing on national security. In a few hours we’ll know just how terrified.
Based on what I know, I am not ready to support a surge. But given what I don’t know, I could very easily support it. It is obviously a difficult decision for Obama, but I am confident that he will make the right one.
>>>we know we have a terrain that is damned hard to deal with militarily.
Actually, the South East province of Kandahar — where I believe the greatest troop surge will take place — isn’t as mountainous as the East or North East. It’s also right across the border from Quetta, the Taliban HQ and hometown of Mullah Omar.
Happy Hour roundup posted; lots more on Afghanistan:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/afghanistan/happy-hour-roundup-beginning-of-the-end/
Ethan-
True and hopefully we won’t have to get to bogged down in the mountains. The thing about sending troop overseas to rugged lands is that we require more sustenance than the natives do, both financially as well as physically. Even though it is the military (which is ostensibly tougher), the American soldier and all of the support network is vastly more logistically hairy than it would be for natives.
Greg: Respectfully, you are ignoring the fact that while this is an escalation it’s also the USA for the first time beginning to set a timeline to withdraw. Gen. McCrystal himself said that by 2013 we’d be out of there for the most part. The conditions on the ground MIGHT change for the worst; but this escalation illustrates the USA has made a significant and compelling commitment to the region and if that doesn’t result in pacification and improvement in Afghanistan the President can say he did his best and come home from a war that he can argue was lost in 2003.
JMHO
But this is the USA saying they are getting out by the end of the Obama administration. Axelrod said that Karzi recognizes we will be gone and we are not committing to the region indefinitely. Policy wise and politically: this is smart I think. It gives the USA a chance to create a climate of peace, allow the Afghans to step in, and declare the USA of having done it’s part and get out. Much as we are in Iraq right now.
This is not an open ended commitment. There is a clear recognition that the USA will not be there forever and the 2011 date to begin withdrawal makes this a campaign issue IMO. The Republicans can argue for indefinite war or they can support the president in bringing the troops home. But either way, this is going to be ending.