Posted on 08/16/2010 11:04:22 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AFP) – The White House said Monday that July 2011 was a "non-negotiable" deadline for starting a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, while insisting that President Barack Obama and his top general in Kabul were on the same page.
The White House was quizzed about a seeming disconnect between the two after General David Petraeus said in an interview aired Sunday that he could seek a delay in the troop drawdown if conditions on the ground required it.
"I think the president has been quite clear in explaining that it's a process, not an event, and that it's conditions-based," he told NBC television's "Meet the Press" program.
"The president and I sat down in the Oval Office and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice."
But White House spokesman Bill Burton, speaking to reporters traveling on Obama's plane to Milwaukee, said the general's remarks had been taken out of context.
"I think that that is a very thinly sliced parsing of what he had to say. He said very specifically that that deadline stands and there is no daylight between the president or his commanders on the ground when it comes to July 2011," Burton said.
"As you saw with Iraq, when the president makes a commitment, he keeps it. And he intends to do that here as well," he said.
"Obviously the scope and rate of withdrawal will be conditions-based, but the date is not negotiable," Burton added.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Cards and rosaries are seen as US soldiers pray during a celebration of Contemporary Protestant Service at the NATO base in Kandahar on August 15. The Taliban waging a vicious insurgency in Afghanistan have signaled a willingness to cooperate with international forces, the UN and human rights groups to investigate civilian deaths in the war. (AFP/Yuri Cortez)
Heads up, America! With the premature withdrawal from Iraq and, soon, from Afghanistan, we will have lost the war on terror.
Thank you, Obama
US soldiers patrol with Afghan National Army soldiers in Kukaran in Kandahar province. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates insisted Monday the July 2011 date to start withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan was set in stone, putting him at odds with his top Afghan war commander. (AFP/File/Yuri Cortez)
How long will it be before Petraeus is thrown under the bus?
I’d like to believe that the administration doesn’t realize that comments like these torpedo the whole effort, but I can’t.
Obama does not care who he gets killed what a moron!
Now that the hard deadline has been made absolutely public, all the Taliban needs to do is lay low until the deadline passes. And until the deadline passes our troops and their allies will be forced to operate under even more stifling rules of engagement.
FUBO, you traitor!
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks next to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (R) in a cabinet meeting where Obama commented on General Stanley McChrystal's complaints in a recent Rolling Stone magazine article, at the White House in Washington, in this June 22, 2010 file image. Gates will retire sometime in 2011, CNN reported on August 16, 2010. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files
Hearing that will make AQ and the Taliban happy. For them, the good news just keeps coming from Obama’s mouth.
Any casualties here on out are on his head.
The guy is a frickin military genius. Announces withdrawal date and then assures the enemy that the date is not negotiable.
And all through history military leaders were obsessed with not giving those kinds of plans away - if only we had known what a waste of time and energy it was to guard ones military secrets the way it has been traditionally done.
It truly is a new day, isn’t it?
The White House said Monday that July 2011 was a “non-negotiable” deadline for starting a US withdrawal from Afghanistan,
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Obama; “ They have to be out before we beging the final push for re-election.”
I think it could be even worse than that. The Taliban can ramp up their attacks as the deadline approaches so they can claim they drove us from the country.
With Gates also looking to downsize the Marines, few of the NCO's see a good career future or deployments that have meaning.
The list, ping
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