Last Tuesday night, Barack Obama told the nation he plans to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next half year or so. On Wednesday, Administration officials went up to Capitol Hill to convince some skeptical members of Congress about the plan, and on Sunday, those same men and women made the rounds to reinforce the public while meeting with the Sunday morning boys club (Bob Schieffer, George Stephanopoulous, David Gregory, Chris Wallace & John King. When will a woman break on through?)
Immediately after the President's speech, commentators described it as trying to have a little something for everybody; For those who support the war, Obama's troop increase, while not as large as requested by General Stanley McChrystal, was still something that they believed in. However, many of those in support of a surge objected to the fact that it's scheduled to last for only 18 months.
However predictable the news of a announced withdrawal was expected, it's the anti-war folks who get little out of the deal. That's because A ) there are currently 68,000 troops in country, with no announcement when they would leave, and B) those troops might not really be leaving that soon anyhow.
At least that was the thrust of the comments made DOD Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Council head James Jones, and Central Command head David Petraeus in the various talk shows they filtered out to on Sunday morning.
This was Sec. Gates on Meet The Press with host David Gregory:
MR. GREGORY: Secretary Gates, is this a deadline?
SEC'Y GATES: It's the beginning of a process. In July 2011, our generals are confident that they will know whether our strategy is working, and the plan is to begin transferring areas of responsibility for security over to the Afghan security forces with us remaining in a tactical and then strategic overwatch position, sort of the cavalry over the hill. But we will begin to thin our forces and begin to bring them home. But the pace of that, of bringing them home, and where we will bring them home from will depend on the circumstances on the ground, and those judgments will be made by our commanders in the field.
MR. GREGORY: Regardless of the circumstances, though, what you're saying is that withdrawal will take place at that point.
SEC'Y GATES: It will begin in July of 2011. But how, how quickly it goes will very much depend on the conditions on the ground. We will have a significant number of forces in there…
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
SEC'Y GATES: …for some considerable period of time after that.
Later in the interview, Gates was asked by Gregory, "How many years in Afghanistan?" Gates said he did not want to put a give a deadline.
Of course, as comedian Bill Maher posited in his performance in Tampa last week, when does the U.S. get out of any country? If you think otherwise, realize that we currently have 47,000 U.S. troops that taxpayers are supporting in Japan.
One of the arguments against the time certain is that Taliban forces will 'lay low' until they know that the U.S. will be packing up and heading out. But as (usual Obama hater) William Krystol from the Weekly Standard admitted on Fox News Sunday, that would actually be a good thing, no? And those same forces who have been committing violence will just sit around and do what? arts and crafts for the next year and a half before strapping on their rifles? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Providing some opposition to the administration's P.R. offensive was Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. He argued that Al Queda is operating all over the world, but if U.S. wants to pour resources into one specific area, that the epicenter is in Pakistan near the Afghan border. But he asked:
Why would we build up 100,000 or more troops in parts of Afghanistan included that are not even near the border? You know, this buildup is in Helmand Province. That's not next door to Waziristan. So I'm wondering, what exactly is this strategy, given the fact that we have seen that there is a minimal presence of Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but a significant presence in Pakistan? It just defies common sense that a huge boots on the ground presence in a place where these people are not is the right strategy. It doesn't make any sense to me.
But can Feingold seriously stop the escalation, or stop funding, he was asked? His response was robust, but in actuality, seems dubious.
And what's going to happen here is that it's probably going to be difficult to stop it now. We'll do whatever we can. We're already working with members of both parties in both houses to question whether this funding should be approved. We're going to fight any attempts to use sort of accounting gimmicks to allow it to be funded. If there's an attempt to have an emergency supplemental, I think that's something we're going to oppose, not only on the grounds of it being an unwise policy, but also being fiscally irresponsible.
But in the end, George, what's going to happen is, if we continue this policy and build up these troops, there's going to be more and more members of Congress who aren't comfortable with it, and it's not just going to be Democrats.
Meanwhile, those of us who admire Stephanopoulous work on Sunday mornings (where his show is definitely the must see program of the day, with the death last year of Tim Russert) may not get the opportunity to keep on seeing him do what he does so well.
That's because he's reportedly seriously considering joining Good Morning America.
In the article in today's Politico, speculation centers on if Stephanopoulous makes the move, he might have to deal with some lighter fare on GMA, which he hasn't previously hasn't had to prove. Not so David Gregory, who I did not know until now was actually seen dancing on air to a Mary J. Blige performance on the Today Show last year.
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2009.