UnNews:Obama: One more year in Afghanistan, then bust
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| Obama: One more year in Afghanistan, then bust | 
|
5 July 2010
WASHINGTON D.C. -- U.S. President Barack Obama has only one more man and one year left to prepare for surrender in Afghanistan.
And last week, that man warned about the year ahead.
"The tough fighting will continue," General David Petraeus said. "Indeed, it may get more intense as the enemy smells certain victory. But that doesn’t matter because we just need to survive until next year. And then we can all go home."
| “ | The president has ordered me to 'hold-em-off' for just one more year! | ” |
Just months after taking office, Obama wanted a new strategy to break the stalemate in Afghanistan. And he fired 12 top generals in a row, one every month there. It was only the 12th time in 60 years that an American wartime commander was pulled from his post.
The 12th commander, General Stanley McChrystal, was recently fired after an embarrassing magazine profile that made General McChrystal sound contemptuous of having a Mohammedan commander-in-chief in charge of a war against Mohammedans.
This week, the Senate formally approved Petraeus Afghanistan's 13th U.S. commander in just over a year. It's hard to imagine Obama firing him too but Petraeus faces a different kind of pressure; he really has only a year to complete his mission. Obama has promised to withdraw all combat forces from Afghanistan by July 4th 2011.
After nine years of war there, polls suggest Americans want him to meet the deadline. Obama's own Democratic Party supporters tend to be among the most impatient to surrender. Last month was the deadliest for foreign forces since the start of hostilities and everyone is weary of the loss of life and limbs.
| “ | It’s not that we’re losing the war! Rather the war is losing us! And Sheikh bin Laden personally gave me his scout's honor there would be no more attempts on the World Trade Center. So what's the point in pursuing him anymore? It's time for change! | ” |
Osama Obama is pledging to pull-out and many Republicans wonder how the U.S. can prevail in a war that it's already planning to lose.
"We need to give our strategy the necessary time to succeed. As I said during the campaign, we need 100 years," Obama's one-time rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain, said this week.
| “ | We cannot afford to have a stay-the-course approach to our surrender in July 2011 when the facts on the ground are suggesting that we need more and varied commanders. If I had been elected president I'd be prepared to stay the course even if it took 1,000 years! | ” |
Obama has two goals that will be difficult to reconcile: victory and surrender. He has one year and one man. It's a very tall order. But the Muslim world, in particular Al-Qaeda, is very supportive of Obama’s plan.
Sources[edit]
- Mann Womann "Comment: One year to win in Afghanistan". CNN, July 5, 2010