Obama: US Will Begin Withdrawing From Afghanistan in 2011
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, December 10, 2009, 5:16 AM
“His plan comes up short. There’s not enough troops, not enough resources and not enough urgency. What President Bush and Senator McCain don’t understand is that the central front in the War on Terror is not in Iraq and never was. The central front is in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the terrorists who hit us on 9-11 are still plotting attacks seven years later.”
Barack Obama
Campaign Speech
September 9, 2008
But, that was just a campaign speech.
Today Barack Obama announced that the US will begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in 2011.
He didn’t mention anything about “victory” or “urgency” in his speech:
The AP reported: Prior to getting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, President Barack Obama met with the Prime Minister of Norway. The President said once again that he plans to start drawing down U.S. Forces in Afghanistan in July of 2011. (Dec. 10)
ADVERTISEMENT
-
Featured Story:
Horrible… Obama Tells Foolish Supporters: I’m Not Over-Spending… “I’m Running to Pay Down Our Debt”
Published May 23, 2012 at 11:51 pm - 63 Comments
Betsy Ross commented:
BO is right about transparency…..
it’s totally obvious this is a 2012 campaign gimic….
Neoavatara commented:
Yes, but like most things Obama says, it is all talk. Ultimately, if the surge works, he can take out troops because he was successful. I hope that is true. But if the war is going badly, is he going to withdraw and basically surrender there, right before his election? I think not.
http://neoavatara.com/blog/?p=9062
ahem commented:
Is this a shock? He essentially surrendered to the Taliban the other day. Bring ‘em home now.
bill-tb commented:
Our dear reader, not a leader, just a Marxist ideologue.
chuck in st paul commented:
The ‘Central Front on terrorism’ is not in Afghanistan. It is in Iran and Saudi Arabia. These are the nests of vipers that are infecting the world with their poison. They have agent states like Syria that deserve a serious smackdown.
Having said that, the current battles are in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.
So go ahead Barry and just say anything that pops into that empty little head of yours Mr. Empty Suit.
Thanks 52%, you’ve proven what silly, shallow thinking, ignorant asses you truly are. We merely have to look at the icon of your worship.
LibertyMinded commented:
‘BRING EM HOME NOW! I say! liberals should be shaking their heads in disgust at the mistake they made in electing barack obama and the republican party should be ashamed of not nominating Ron Paul as the candidate for the 2008 election.
bg commented:
++
just posted this in another thread..
flashback:
Barack Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan
flashforward:
Obama: 18 months to defeat Taliban
Jake Diliberto of Veterans Rethinking Afghanistan:
Obama’s plan for Afghanistan unrealistic
==
bg commented:
++
Neoavatara @ 7:51 am #2
also posted this..
Obama, uh, Bush was right..
kumbaya will never work with the enemy we
& the rest of world still face, ergo: he still is..
==
bg commented:
++
Pakistan Reportedly Detains Five D.C.
-Area Muslims on Suspicion of Terror
[December 8: Federal investigators are searching for a Howard University dental student and four other missing Muslim men reported missing from the Washington, D.C. area, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned. There is concern they may have been sent abroad to train for jihad. The five were last seen November 29.
The identities of two of the missing men, Howard student Ramy Zamzam and Waqar Khan, have been mentioned in online postings, including a Facebook page that was set up Monday for friends to offer their support. Some of those pages, however, appear restricted to friends and associates.
It is not clear where the men are believed to have gone, but an informed source told the IPT that at least one left behind a farewell video.
According to the Facebook and Twitter postings, Zamzam is among the missing. He has been active in the Muslim Students Association, serving as president of the MSA DC Council. A Howard University spokeswoman has not responded to questions from the IPT.
The disappearance comes as U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of homegrown Islamist extremism. This concern is prompted by a spike in attacks like the Fort Hood massacre, and conspiracies broken up by law enforcement before any attacks took place.]
Pakistan Detains 5 Americans in Raid Tied to Militants
[HEMMER: How is it that the United States is now emerging as a breeding ground for terrorists?
EMERSON: Well you know Bill, the warning signs were manifest three years ago in a Pew Poll of American Muslims when it was revealed that a third of American Muslims between the ages 18 and 29 supported suicide bombings and that primarily- That radicalization we should have picked up on but we didn't, has suddenly spawned dozens of plots that are homegrown of second generation American Muslims who want to carry out jihad or plan to carry out jihad, either here or abroad. This year alone, we've seen nine such plots. So Bill, it should not be surprising that this is occurring. What is surprising is the extent to which it has occurred so rapidly on American soil. We've become Europeanized.
HEMMER: You're sitting there with the Capitol Building behind you. These men came from you area, from our nation's capitol. They had US passports, what did these guys do? At least one of them was going to Howard University. Did they fire up the computer and take in all the noise of jihad?]
uh, what say you BO??
[btw re: Howard University.. both ex-Muslim/Black Nationalist Rev Wright & Obama’s Harvard sponser al-Mansour aka: Donald Warden attended H-U, small world hey..)
==
bg commented:
++
re: bg @ 10:45 pm #10
The Missed Signal on American Muslim Radicalization
[This acknowledgement by CAIR and fellow Islamist groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) comes after at least nine cases of homegrown Muslim extremism in 2009 and the disappearance in 2008 of about 20 Somali men from Minneapolis who returned to Africa to fight with the Al-Shabaab terrorist group. It also follows their collective insistence that religious motivation be kept out of the discussion of Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting spree at Fort Hood last month.
These past actions followed a pattern, in which CAIR spearheaded efforts to dismiss any concern about radicalization in America. That denial was on full display in 2007, after a Pew survey found a quarter of Muslim American men under age 30 found suicide bombings justifiable. In a television appearance, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper bobbed and weaved to avoid confronting the question.
"I think it's wrong to focus on a couple of questions to put forward an agenda that goes against the bulk of the findings," he said. When host Tucker Carlson cited a finding that 61 percent of the respondents expressed concern for rise of Islamic extremism in the U.S., a number Carlson thought was too low, Hooper made it clear he was not among them: "I don't foresee a rise in religious extremism in the Muslim community."
Similarly, MPAC spokeswoman Edina Lekovic cast the support among so many young American Muslim men for suicide bombings as a distraction:
"When we look at the statistic about suicide bombing, it is indeed a disturbing one. But taken out of context, it's even more frightening. You know, the University of Maryland did a poll just in December where they found that 1 in 2 Americans support, sometimes--with the same wording--they find it at least sometimes justified for innocent civilians to be targeted by bombings or attacks. I think that any sort of support, no matter what side it comes from, is absolutely outrageous."
None of the organizations launched any programming at that point to combat the ideology. That failure helps create a mindset that leads five young students with promising futures to give it all up to jihad, said M. Zuhdi Jasser, executive director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser's organization tries to counter the Islamist hue of the "mainstream" national organizations by advocating a strict separation between faith and public policy.
Groups such as CAIR and MPAC have spread a message that America has been at war with Islam since 9/11, he said, rather than emphasizing the country's efforts to improve life for Muslims.
"Unless they're going to do a 180, saying American soldiers are in Afghanistan liberating Muslims ... unless they change the narrative then this thing they're going to do is useless," Jasser said.
The U.S. has failed to counter the narrative, too, Jasser said. He echoed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman who recently wrote about "The Narrative" that fuels anti-American hostility. More Muslims die from attacks by fellow Muslims than foreign soldiers, he noted, but:
"The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand 'American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy' to keep Muslims down.
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny —
in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving."]
much more here and here and here..
==
Josh Reiter commented:
*shakes head* I just can’t believe this man has any competent strategic ability whatsoever. Not only does this make the enemy shrink away to wait another day but it tells our soldiers to just fold their arms and wait till they get to go home.
bg commented:
++
i was listening to Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, on C-Span earlier tonight.. he was adamantly back-tracking stating that the “timle-ine” is not a “time-line”, that it’s supposedly when the transitioning is to start.. he also stated the transitioning “time-line”
(not) was Karzai’s doing not Obama’s.. iow: Pontius O’Pilate strikes again..
==