Obama To Announce US Troops Will Start Leaving Afghanistan by July 2011

Tonight's "surge speech" by President Obama will be more of a surge surrender. The President will be adding to our Afghanistan forces 30 of the 40,000 troops General McCrystal asked for three months ago. He will also be announcing that the surge troops will be out by July 2011 (just in time for his re-election campaign), basically announcing to the terrorists, hang on for 18 months then you can have a much easier time of it.

According to MSNBC (and confirmed on Fox):

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan over six months, an accelerated timetable — with an endgame built in — that would have the first Marines there as early as Christmas, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

U.S. troops are expected to start leaving the region 'well before' the end of Obama's first term, the AP reported Tuesday. A senior government official told NBC contributor Col. Jack Jacobs that the president believes that a transition from American-led combat to Afghan leadership of the effort will begin in July 2011.

 Obama's Afghan surge aims to reverse gains by Taliban insurgents and to secure population centers in the volatile south and east parts of the country.

In a prime-time speech to the nation Tuesday night from West Point that ends a 92-day review, Obama will seek to help sell his much bigger, costlier war plan by tying the escalation to an exit strategy, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Terrorists, as well as the rest of the Muslim world will see this as another show of weakness by Obama. As described yesterday in the WSJ:

[After his Cairo speech to the Muslim world] the crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. "My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger," goes one of the Arab world's most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion.

Mr. Obama could not make up his mind: He was at one with "the people" and with the rulers who held them in subjugation. The people of Iran who took to the streets this past summer were betrayed by this hapless diplomacy—Mr. Obama was out to "engage" the terrible rulers that millions of Iranians were determined to be rid of.

On Nov. 4, on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the embattled reformers, again in the streets, posed an embarrassing dilemma for American diplomacy: "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," they chanted. By not responding to these cries and continuing to "engage" Tehran's murderous regime, his choice was made clear. It wasn't one of American diplomacy's finest moments

Mr. Obama has himself to blame for the disarray of his foreign policy. American arms had won a decent outcome in Iraq, but Mr. Obama would not claim it—it was his predecessor's war. Vigilance had kept the American homeland safe from terrorist attacks for seven long years under his predecessors, but he could never grant Bush policies the honor and credit they deserved. He had declared Afghanistan a war of necessity, but he seems to have his eye on the road out even as he is set to announce a troop increase in an address to be delivered tomorrow.

Afghan Chieftains will be reluctant to side with US troops if they don't trust that we will be there to "finish the job."
 
Some the Muslim tradition, includes a sense of history and being able to lie in wait for your revenge. That's why you Islamists refer to Western Governments as Crusaders, or talk about Spain being Muslim territory.  If the terrorists are able to wait over a thousand years and still talk about taking back Spain, they will be able to "wait out" a weak American President for 18 months. Our war against Islamic terrorism is in big trouble, which means our troops and our families have been put in danger by Barack Obama's cut and run announcement.