Editorial
The New York Post
December 2, 2009
It took passing long for President Obama to make up his mind about Afghanistan, but last night he moved off the dime, announcing that America’s “vital national interests” require the dispatch of another 30,000 US troops to the war zone.
Funny thing, though. While he stressed that America’s “security is at stake in Afghanistan” — and it most surely is — not once during his 4,580-word speech could he bring himself to utter the word “win.”
Not once.
Indeed, even as Obama announced his surge, he also laid down a withdrawal date — July 2011 — when he’ll be starting to move all troops out, thus bizarrely tipping his hand to the enemy.
The president said that the Afghan government and people know that “that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.” (Let’s all hope so.)
But the stakes for America are huge, too, because events in Afghanistan affect the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Obama himself conceded that: “We must come together to end this war successfully,” he said. “For what’s at stake is . . . the common security of the world.”
But “end this war” does not necessarily mean “win this war.
Read the entire article here.
