A reader writes:
I love the time line that Obama has proposed for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan. Crafty. The neocons (McCain for one) are already saying that it gives comfort to the enemy, that they will just wait until we leave and then attack again. And the reason this is bad is what?
I think the hope of the White House is that the Taliban will lay low. If the Taliban want to wait until we leave, perhaps there is time for the Afghans to train and begin to defend themselves. If the Taliban attacks, there are enough troops to counter their attacks and weaken them by attrition. A win/win for us.
Obama is also telling the Afghans in the street that we are leaving, which hopefully will say to them that we are not their enemy, not their occupiers, and hopefully keep ordinary patriotic Afghans from joining the Taliban.
Very cool.
Another adds:
For what it's worth, the Liberals I follow on Twitter are all howling about the speech. And, right now, Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove are trashing the tone, the lack of detail, the focus on domestic policy, etc.In short, he pissed off everyone. And given the bag of garbage he was handed by the last Administration, that means he hit a home run.