September 22, 2009 08:56 PM UTC

Obama on Afghanistan

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• by: BoulderRepublican

In March of this year, Barack Obama made a speech detailing his plans for Afghanistan. In the speech linked to below at the White House’s own website, he had this to say: “Good morning. Today, I am announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this marks the conclusion of a careful policy review, led by Bruce [Reidel], that I ordered as soon as I took office.”

Then, Obama told America what the goal was: “Many people in the United States — and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much — have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? And they deserve a straightforward answer. So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That’s the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just.”

Soon after this speech, where he also detailed his new strategy (the White House blog post linked here is actually titled “A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan”), he appointed a man with no counter-insurgency experience to help implement it as the lead General in Afghanistan.

But on September 16th while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the President said “You don’t make determinations about resources, and certainly you don’t make determinations about sending young men and women into battle, without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.”

The situation is deteriorating, and even though he has called Afghanistan “the War of Necessity,” the President has so far denied General McChrystal’s request for more troops. And just this week, the General said that “a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.”

It appears he is walking back his strategy from earlier this year, and whether or not he eventually commits additional troops to Afghanistan, he appeared on David Letterman saying that “we are not going to make any decision about any further troop deployments until we know what exactly is our strategy…”

Maybe this is what Joe Biden was talking about when he said “the Presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training.“