White House pledges Obama will order a ‘real drawdown’ of troops from Afghan war in July

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama will usher in a “real drawdown” of U.S. forces from Afghanistan starting in July, but said no decision was imminent on how many troops would come home or how fast.

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney described Obama’s upcoming decision as important but narrow — a long-promised withdrawal in July based on local conditions, but not a re-opening of the war strategy that Obama announced in December 2009 and affirmed last winter. “There is not an enormous debate about this,” Carney told reporters.

Obama is under pressure on Afghanistan as public support for the war remains low, congressional pressure for a faster exit mounts and defense officials urge him not to pull troops home too fast for risk of undermining tenuous security gains or influencing allies to remove their own troops with haste.

The president pledged to begin a July 2011 withdrawal when he ordered in 30,000 more troops in December 2009.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-consults-war-advisers-as-decision-nears-on-july-drawdown-of-troops-from-afghanistan/2011/06/06/AGv86KKH_story.html

:spray: :rofl: :thumbsup:

Will that be a sternly worded letter or a media announcement? :rofl:

Shun the non believers....

maybe it will be just like his "real drawdown" in iraq where five us troops were advised and assisted to death this weekend.

"The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama will usher in a “real drawdown” of U.S. forces from Afghanistan"
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and send them to Libya

we stay.

That's how it works.

That's how it works for them. Endless war.

/cynic

And desperate. Really, really desperate.

all we need is to get involved in THAT conflict, too.

So if the US does indeed actually 'drawdown'
5,000 US Troops from Afghanistan, does this
indicate another 5,000 Xe Mercenaries will
be sent in to replace them?

Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires.

The original premise was to go after Al Queda,
and has morphed into going after the Taliban.
Whats next, the Poppy growers?

I think political circumstances have conspired to make it possible for Obama, at a critical point in the election cycle, to back away from his signature foreign policy disaster, which is the massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

I am personally prepared to help out by overlooking the fact that what set the stage for withdrawal was not some grand diplomacy befitting a Nobel Laureate peacemaker, but by the summary and one presumes brutal execution of an opponent.

Going even beyond this personal commitment, I am also prepared to pretend that our side won something in that long, dark conflict. The important and serious thing is that our role in the Afghan war be brought to an end.