Obama finally spake to the snoozy masses.
It is all sadly predictable. 30,000 US troops will be sent but the military will withdraw in 18 months in July 2011. Yes, before the next election.
So the combined forces, including Australia’s, have just 18 months to turn it around and settle the country into complete stability before heading off. I do not have faith it will be done. Not just because of the huge effort required, but also because now the terrorists know they only have to wait it out 18 months.
Obama disappoints me. He sent all those troops there as General McChrystal requested and for what kind of song and dance? How many of those good men and women will die with no purpose?
George Bush the younger went on and on about US resolve and how they’ll stick it through to the bitter end. Bush was wrong. Bush himself had resolve he stuck it through for what 7 years until he was replaced. And that’s the key. The US, like any democracy, is mutable and what one leader believes is not what another may believe. The US itself does not have resolve. It cannot be relied upon past the next election.
Australia has to re-examine our relationship with the US. Perhaps people who know better than I do will be convinced it can all be done in 18 months. Perhaps the real mission is to provide allied support in the case we’ll need it one day. But does the US have the resolve to help us?
For myself, I don’t see why our serving men and women are there. I see nothing but disgrace in sending the military off to fight hard spending our wealth and getting injured and dying, then to be sent home in 18 months in enforced failure. It would tear my heart if it were me, or my son or daughter. I think the whole lot of our people should come home today.
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