While the Right rants about timelines and conditions on the ground this proves they don't get it. It don't matter one bit what conditions on the ground are. The 11th dimensional chess master has checkmate in 3 moves.
I would start by pointing out that no where in the speech is the phrasing of the US winning in Afghanistan. There is no win for us in Afghanistan. Never has been never will be. No one in the History of Mankind as far back as Alexander the Great has won in Afghanistan. The only ones who are going to win in Afghanistan are the Afghans. I believe the President "gets it"
Afg/Pak border and Rachel Maddow
There's Waziristan that's one problem but what she really didn't get last night was a huge strip of the border below and above Waziristan a whole lot of square miles is disputed territory.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/...
McChrystal lite
The scream from the right is "You can't second guess the Generals". The President challenged McChrystal's assumptions Namely that we could trust Karzai. It's the President's job to challenge the assumptions it's called leadership.
McChrystal asked for 80,000 Combat Troops(trigger pullers) which over the long haul is a pool 240,000 to allow for rotations,leave(liberty) ,Killed and wounded.
This was promptly chopped down to 40,000 Combat Troops(trigger pullers) which over the long haul is a pool 120,000 to allow for rotations,leave(liberty) ,Killed and wounded.
Makeanewplanstan
The new new new plan is 5000 trainers and 25,000 combat troops
There will be about 5,000 dedicated trainers in the 30,000, showing the emphasis on preparing Afghans to take over their own security. And the president is making clear to his generals that all troops, even if designated as combat, must consider themselves trainers.
Over the long haul is a pool 75,000 to allow for rotations,leave(liberty) ,Killed and wounded which is enough to allow the Pakistani to wipe out the Taliban in Pakistan and not have any more of them leak back into Afghanistan. We're staying long enough to teach the Afghans on how to kill people and break things on command. The things that distinguish a mob from a army then we are leaving.
As much as I hate the WWII analogy from Pearl harbor we ramped up a huge fighting force in what a year? As my father has said on any number of occasions you go into a penny ante poker game with a million bucks you're gonna break the bank. We ramp up the Afghan army to for sake of example a million men. You throw a million men at 12,000 Taliban. 12,000 Taliban are going to get ground into hamburger.
So the metric is not conditions on the ground. The metric is how fast can we ramp up the Afghan Army and set them loose. As I said Mate in 3.
Thoughts?