sailingaway
06-22-2011, 08:14 PM
http://www.thenation.com/blog/161605/obamas-too-slow-afghan-exit-strategy-scores-him-no-political-points
Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for president because grassroots progressives thought he was marginally more anti-war than Hillary Clinton.
After securing the nomination, Obama was elected president.
Upon securing the Oval Office,he promptly abandoned any pretense of being opposed to military misadventures abroad, appointed Clinton as his Secretary of State, kept the Bush-Cheney regime’s team at the Department of Defense, surged more troops into Afghanistan and steered U.S. forces into a new fight with Libya.
Now, the president is proposing to remove some of the troops he sent to Afghanistan – about 10,000 (roughly 7 percent of the occupation force) by the end of the year.
The U.S. force on the ground in Afghanistan will still be more substantial than the force that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney put on the ground there.
Indeed, even by the most optimistic timeline proposed by Obama, the U.S. occupation force will at the end of Obama’s first term be much larger than the U.S. force that was there when Bush and Cheney left the White House in 2009.
Under Obama, the war will continue for years to come.
more at link
Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for president because grassroots progressives thought he was marginally more anti-war than Hillary Clinton.
After securing the nomination, Obama was elected president.
Upon securing the Oval Office,he promptly abandoned any pretense of being opposed to military misadventures abroad, appointed Clinton as his Secretary of State, kept the Bush-Cheney regime’s team at the Department of Defense, surged more troops into Afghanistan and steered U.S. forces into a new fight with Libya.
Now, the president is proposing to remove some of the troops he sent to Afghanistan – about 10,000 (roughly 7 percent of the occupation force) by the end of the year.
The U.S. force on the ground in Afghanistan will still be more substantial than the force that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney put on the ground there.
Indeed, even by the most optimistic timeline proposed by Obama, the U.S. occupation force will at the end of Obama’s first term be much larger than the U.S. force that was there when Bush and Cheney left the White House in 2009.
Under Obama, the war will continue for years to come.
more at link