On the website Just Foreign Policy, Robert Naiman comments, in short statements and in outlines/excerpts, on articles that report on important issues regarding the Middle East and Central Asia (e.g., Afghanistan). You can find three of his items after my observations from today's list.
The first item reports on a public opinion polls that find (1) a growing percentage (48%) of those polled think ending the war is more important than winning it, and (2) 53% now disapprove of how Obama is managing the war
The second item reports on Rep. Nancy Pelosi's insistence that there will be "a serious drawdown" of [our] forces in Afghanistan by July 2011. She is skeptical about the occupation's effectiveness and says that we need to use the money now spent on the Afghanistan occupation for domestic programs.
The third item reports on General Patreus' testimony before a Senate Committee, in which the general makes three important points on the issue of withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. (1) The Afghan army won't be ready to manage on their own for years. (2) The overal "security" situation in Afghanistan is "tenuous." (3) The start of the drawdown of troops in July 2011 is only the beginning.
The key implication of these items is that there is disagreement not so much about the beginning of a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, but about just how many troops will be brought home then. If Pelosi's views prevail, a large number of troops will be withdrawn in July and in the not-many-months that follow. If Patreus' views prevail, there will only be a few US troops pulled out in July 2011, and only a small number will be leave Afghanistan in subsequent months. The implication is that, according to Patreus' preferences (speaking for the US armed forces), there will be a large number of US troops stationed in Afghanistan, even after some additional years.
Perhaps the decisive factor in determining whether there is a substantial withdrawal of US troop or just a trickle of troops coming home is the state of public opinion. If opinion continues to go against the occupation and the president, Pelosi's views may win out. Though, of course, the US military-industrial complex is a ferocious and very influential opponent when it comes to defending its preferred goals.
U.S./Top News (selected from Robert Naiman, on Just Foreign Policy, on July 1, 2010 - http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/
1) Quagmire? Nine years on, Americans grow weary of war in AfghanistanBrad Knickerbocker, Christian Science Monitor, June 26, 2010 http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0626/Quagmire-Nine-years-on-Americans-grow-weary-of-war-in-Afghanistan%20
Americans approve of Gen. David Petraeus as the new US commander in Afghanistan. But after nine years and with mounting US casualties, support for the war itself is waning.
Until recently, the nine-year conflict in Afghanistan had become "the forgotten war" for many Americans - a complaint increasingly heard among US troops there.
But this week's sacking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as US commander puts Afghanistan - and especially how the fight against the Taliban is going - squarely back into public thought and concern.
Most Americans agree with Obama that McChrystal had to go, polls show. But they're far less supportive of the conflict itself, weary of what's become the longest war in US history.
A recent Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters finds that just 41 percent "now believe it is possible for the United States to win the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan." More to the point, a plurality of 48 percent now say ending the war in Afghanistan is a more important goal than winning it.
Meanwhile, 53 percent of those polled by Newsweek disapprove of how Obama is managing the war - a sharp reversal since February when 55 percent supported Obama on Afghanistan and just 27 percent did not. (Put another way, the percentage of Americans who disapprove of Obama's Afghan policy has nearly doubled in four months.)
The same Newsweek poll finds that "46 percent of respondents think America is losing the war in Afghanistan (26 percent say the military is winning).
[...]
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan predicts that conservatives may "start to peel off" as well. "Not Washington policy intellectuals but people on the ground in America," she wrote this week. "There are many reasons for this. Their sons and nephews have come back from repeat tours full of doubts as to the possibility of victory, 'whatever that is,' as we all now say.
"Noonan continued: "The other day Sen. Lindsey Graham, in ostensibly supportive remarks, said that Gen. David Petraeus … 'is our only hope.' If he can't pull it out, 'nobody can.' That's not all that optimistic a statement."
2) Pelosi: There Will Be 'A Serious Drawdown' From Afghanistan In July 2011Sam Stein, Huffington Post, June 28, 2010http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/28/pelosi-there-will-be-a-se_n_628130.html
In some of the strongest terms she has used to date, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared last Friday that the United States will see "a serious drawdown" of forces in Afghanistan by July 2011 and that the House may use the power of the purse to ensure the drawdown takes place.
In an exclusive interview with the Huffington Post, Pelosi made clear that while recent talk has hinted that the administration's stated goal of a June 2011 start date for a troop drawdown may be open to change, her commitment to it remains firm. "I think we'll have a serious drawdown, I don't think it'll be, as [the president] said, turning out the lights," said Pelosi.
Asked point-blank whether she thinks troops will be pulled out of the country in July 2011, Pelosi replied: "I do. And everything I saw there before, for all the bad things there that I saw in terms of [corruption and money wasted] ... I did consistently hear that the timetable was on schedule to have serious drawdown."
[...]
Pelosi, likewise, said that the president should be afforded the time and support to see his plan through, though her insistence on seeing some troops withdrawn in July 2011 suggests that she views the drawdown as part of the plan. The issue at hand, she notes, is not simply whether it made smart military policy to keep a troop presence in Afghanistan, but also if it was economically feasible for the United States to do so."It just can't be that we have a domestic agenda that is half the size of the defense budget," she said. "If you take away entitlements, the domestic discretionary non-defense budget is about half the defense budget, and maybe that's what we need to protect the American people. But in terms of the war now in Afghanistan, which is a growing part of it, that we have to say how can we carry this and can we carry this on the backs of children's nutrition. I'm not even talking about unemployment, there's so much else that is at stake.
"3) Petraeus warns it could be years before Afghan troops manage on their own
Obama's July 2011 withdrawal date 'only start of the process'; general tells Senate tough fighting will continueIan Black, The Guardian, Wednesday 30 June 2010http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/david-petraeus-obama-afghanistan
Barack Obama's candidate to run the war in Afghanistan yesterday pledged America's "enduring" commitment to the country, described its security as "tenuous" and called the presidential deadline for starting withdrawals next summer only "the beginning of a process".
[...]
Petraeus, head of US central command, endorsed July 2011 as the start of troop drawdowns, but insisted it was not the date when America "heads for the exits"; he warned it would be "a number of years" before Afghan forces could manage on their own. The pace of withdrawals would have to be responsible, he told a packed session of the armed services committee, as protesters in the audience held up signs reading: "New General, Old War."Petraeus confirmed that the military had not recommended setting that date.
June has been the most deadly month of the nine-year conflict, with more than 100 Nato troops killed, adding to an intensifying debate in the US and Britain on the prosecution of the war. Eleven UK personnel have died in the last 10 days alone.
Petraeus's careful language appeared designed to manage strains between the military and the administration, where some key figures are pressing for speedier disengagement from a war which has now been going on for longer than Vietnam in terms of US combat troop deployment.
[...]
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