Posted by Tina
His constituents were not all happy with President Obama:
“With just one speech … you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics,” Michael Moore
“The President needs to hear that we want to bring the troops home, not send more,” Moveon.org
Europe is cautious and skeptical:
“Searching in Vain for Obama Magic,” by Gabor Steingart – Spiegel Online
Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric — and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught. ** One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s speech would be well-received.
“Europe Reluctant to Pledge More Troops” Spiegel Online
The US government is looking for up to 7,000 additional troops for Afghanistan from its NATO allies. But few countries in Europe are rushing to fill the void. Germany and France want to wait until the Afghanistan conference at the end of January. ** For months, pressure had been growing on US President Barack Obama to reveal just what his oft-mentioned, revamped Afghanistan strategy would be. Now that he has announced it — a US troop increase of 30,000 combined with a timeline for the beginning of withdrawal — the focus has shifted. Now it is time for America’s European allies to make pledges of their own. But on Wednesday, concrete pledges of additional troops were few and far between.
Peter Wehner’s observation is both critical and optimistic:
“A Fighting Chance,” by Peter Wehner – Commentary Magazine
The decision President Obama made was better than the speech he gave. What will matter, long after his address is forgotten, is that Barack Obama gave Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, two of our greatest military minds, the troops (30,000, plus additional allied troops) and strategy (counterinsurgency) they need to prevail in Afghanistan. ** To the president’s credit, this is the second wave of troops he has sent to Afghanistan (in February, he approved sending 17,000). Mr. Obama, in siding with McChrystal and Petraeus, wisely ignored the counsel of his vice president, Joe Biden, whose 35-year track record on national-security matters is an almost unbroken string of unwise decisions. And the president made a decision that puts him at odds with his liberal/left-wing base, which seems as eager to lose in Afghanistan as it was eager to lose in Iraq. ** As for the understandable concern some people have about Obama’s 18-month time line: it is, at least for now, less worrisome than it might appear. In his speech, Obama said we will “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.” That is a key caveat; if conditions on the ground change, Obama has left himself plenty of room to revisit his decision. Nothing is etched in stone. ** The president wisely backed away from bashing President Karzai, which at this point would only have been counterproductive. ** At the same time, the speech did almost nothing to advance the public’s understanding of what is at the core of a counterinsurgency (as opposed to a counterterrorism) strategy. Obama’s remarks were also another instance of his being ungracious and unfair to his predecessor.
“On AfPak, is Obama clever or stupid,” by James Lewis – American Thinker
LBJ is the name that comes to mind after Obama’s decision to send an added 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. When he inherited the Vietnam War from JFK, LBJ had a big domestic program — the “War on Poverty” — to push through Congress. To LBJ Vietnam was a “distraction,” in Obama-speak. So LBJ would not make a full-scale commitment to win or to get out: He tried to do both, in little dribs and drabs that gave the enemy enough respites to build up again every time LBJ hesitated before another ‘escalation.’ Obama says he wants to walk away in 18 months, but right after the Democrats lose the next Congressional elections, will Obama want to be the president who lost AfPak, and therefore left Pakistani nuclear weapons at the mercy of a victorious Sunni Taliban?
Read the speech at Real Clear Politics