US Special Ambassador Richard Holbrooke raised a few eyebrows yesterday when he announced, in front of a number of reports, that the withdrawal from Afghanistan would begin in July and that the war would be over by 2014.
Which was particularly surprising as a number of other officials, including the president, have repeatedly disavowed the July drawdown date and have made the 2014 date out to be the prospective start of some transition to Afghan leadership of the war.
Holbrooke seems to have changed his mind today, however, insisting that there is absolutely no “exit strategy” for the nearly decade long Afghan War and insisting that 2014 would not be the end of the international occupation of Afghanistan.
NATO is expected to focus this weekend’s Lisbon summit on the Afghan War, but as is so often the case officials will not consider any strategy that might seem like ending the war. According to NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, continuing the war will be the only option considered.
I find this line of reportage to be quite amusing. Every few days, there is video of Obama on a variety of news outlets — including the mainstream media — stating that the July 2011 drawdown date is firm. Another amusing point: the graphic on the latest landing page for antiwar.com features a cartoon of a Beck supporter carrying an antiwar.com placard — who or what is the meaning of this? That some right-wingnuts are reading antiwar.com? Or, that some right-wingnuts are actually demonstrating for peace? I would like to know.
Peacegeek,
If you listen closely to Beck, he is no warmonger. In fact, at times he mildly questions our foreign policy. And he treats Ron Paul with more respect than he treats most politicians. Small point I know but compare that to Hannity or O'Reilly or any of the antiwar liberal commentators on MSNBC who were so vocally antiwar when Bush was in power and are now strangely hushed with Obama and a pastelle Beck suddenly grows into a giant among minnows.
Afghaniscam- "absolutely NO exit strategy…"
Yeah, we knew that.
Ummm, how does "one" exit a quagmire? Oh wait I know, choppers hovering over downtown Saigon. Oh sorry, I meant downtown Kabul.
No matter what this president or his seven dwarfs are telling, they change their mind anyway,
it all depends if the talk is before or after the election.
Before the election its usually just misleading BS anyway.
But the voters seem to like it,
Wolfgang
Seems fitting. Why bother with an exit strategy when we didn't have an entry strategy?
I'm sure the mujahid are well aware that we aren't leaving until our empire has been bankrupted and broken. They feel that the USSR was a much stronger opponent than we are. They're not worried about the outcome, they know it will end in grief for America. It's just a matter of time. At the rate we are hemorrhaging money, they wont have long to wait.
Refusal to withdraw may end like the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand" but there may be no Xenophon to lead them to the sea.
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