Obama Puts Forth Afghanistan Withdrawl Plan
By aaroncynic in News on Jun 23, 2011 3:20PM
Yesterday President Obama announced a partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In an address given from the East Room of the White House last night, Obama announced that 10,000 of the 33,000 troops he sent in the “surge” in December of 2009 would come home before the end of this year. Following this initial withdrawal, the remainder of the troops from the surge would be scheduled to return to American shores by the end of summer 2012. From there, Obama said “Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.”
In his speech, Obama briefly noted the cost of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, both fiscally and in American lives, saying “These long wars will come to a responsible end.” He attempted to appear centrist, calling out some critics who have called for a more isolationist U.S. Foreign policy along with those who are still interested in carrying on interventions throughout the globe. In addition, the President called for a “focus on nation building here at home,” saying “we must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy.”
While bringing the troops home is certainly a welcome sign of relief for a nation beleaguered by two wars and plenty of other globe trotting military actions, the plan to hopefully have most of American troops home by 2014 doesn't go far enough for some. A Pew Research poll released shortly before Obama's announcement showed that a majority of Americans (56%) want troops home “as soon as possible.” Since it's likely plenty of boots will still be on the ground after 2014, Obama's plan doesn't move quickly enough.
In addition to waning American support for the war, Congress also criticized the timetable. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said “It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of U.S. forces would happen sooner than the president laid out.” The Republican critique painted the Obama plan as “aggressive.” Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said “We all want our troops to come home as soon as possible, but we shouldn’t adhere to an arbitrary timetable on the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.”
However long it takes American forces to withdraw from Afghanistan, one thing is clear - the longer we stay, we’ll see more deaths of American and coalition forces, along with plenty of civilian causalities. The Guardian reports that Wikileaks data released last year shows over 24,498 deaths between 2004 and 2009. In addition, the United States has spent nearly $500 billion on the war. With price tags so high hanging off the war, we have to hope there is a speedier, safer end to it.