As President Obama prepares to deliver his West Point address tonight, most indications are positive — surprisingly so, given the public hand-wringing from the White House that has characterized this debate over the past three months. Barring a last-minute change of heart, the president will announce the dispatch of at least 30,000 troops to Afghanistan along with the expectation that our allies will provide at least 5,000 more. According to this New York Times article, Obama “has decided to expedite the deployment … over the next six months, in an effort to reverse the momentum of Taliban gains and create urgency for the government in Kabul to match the American surge with one using its own forces.” It may not be logistically possible to dispatch 30,000 extra troops by the summer of 2010, but it’s a good sign that Obama is setting this as a goal. It means he is taking to heart the warnings from General McChrystal that “success will require a discrete ‘jump’ to gain the initiative, demonstrate progress in the short term, and secure long-term support.”
The key question now is, how much resolve will Obama signal in the address itself? If he spends too much time talking about “off-ramps” (i.e., situations under which reinforcements might be canceled), “benchmarks” that the Karzai government must meet “or else,” or “exit strategies,” he will undo some of the positive impact of his courageous decision to substantially increase the number of American troops on the ground.
Thus, it is worrisome to read in another Times leak that Obama will announce “that he will begin to transition American forces out of Afghanistan beginning in July 2011″ — a curious message to send while announcing a major increase in our war effort. That gives the troops who will be arriving only a year to get the job done, which may or may not be enough time. A far better time line would be “performance-based,” as it was in the case of the Iraq surge: Obama should announce that the troops will stay as long as necessary to get the job done. Even if he has already settled on a time line for withdrawal, he should keep it quiet, lest he encourage the Taliban to simply wait us out.
Nevertheless, despite that disturbing detail, it sounds as if it will be a policy that all those who see the need to prevail in this important war effort can and should support. I will, of course, stay tuned for the speech itself and report back with an initial reaction once I’ve had a chance to hear the president’s words. But I imagine that the nuances won’t become apparent until a few days after the administration has performed its background briefings and Secretary of Defense Gates, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Mullen, and other key leaders have testified on Capitol Hill.
Exactly. Thank you.
I concur. It was strange to be governed by a Constitution since the 1930s that was never ratified by the people, and that stifled democratic governance whenever 9 lawyers in robes felt that their personal policy preferences were not being instituted. The new conservative majority appears to be focused on what the Constitution actually means, rather than what they feel it should mean.
“When (and where) guns are banned only criminals will have them.” Still true. Has murder ceased in gun-ban Toronto? London? DC? The Second Amendment is still our most precious.
The legal theories of people like Stephen Breyer are plainly idiotic. They don’t make a bit of sense. One either interprets the U.S. Constitution in an originalist manner—or we will ultimately return to savagery. Only a “dead” constitution is of any value. A “living” one can be constantly reinterpreted and leave us vulnerable to those possessing power at the present moment.
Stephen Breyer’s stuff is pure garbage—but many people are too easily impressed with his Harvard University credentials. They naively assume that his association with this vastly overrated institution is a guarantee of intellectual brilliance. It’s time that more of us play the role of the child who points out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.
“When (and where) guns are banned only criminals will have them.” A rather nasty crack to make about the police.
David, if you’re going to point out Stephen Breyer’s Harvard credentials, then you should note those of the conservatives:
John Roberts — Harvard undergrad and Law
Antonin Scalia — Harvard Law
Clarence Thomas — Yale Law
Samuel Alito — Princeton undergrad, Yale Law
The swing vote these days is usually Anthony Kennedy, Harvard Law.
“David, if you’re going to point out Stephen Breyer’s Harvard credentials, then you should note those of the conservatives”
There are admittedly many bright people who graduated from Harvard University. Still, the less brilliant can often hide behind the protection of its ivy walls. Many people are deceived by their association with Harvard. Another superb example is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr who wrote a lot of garbage. It was his Harvard credentials which helped him to get away with his shabby work regarding FDR and the New Deal.
David, here’s the rest of the Supreme Court:
David Souter — Harvard undergrad and Law
Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Cornell undergrad, initially Harvard Law, then transferred to Columbia Law when her husband got a job in New York (three Ivies!)
John Paul Stevens — Chicago undergrad, Northwestern Law (how did he sneak in?)
The next President, whoever it is, will probably appoint graduates of Harvard or Yale Law. But that doesn’t tell you much about what kind of Justices they’ll be.
Larry levin,
do you disagree with the assertion that many people are too easily impressed with Stephen Breyer’s Harvard University credentials? If not, then Thompson has a good point.
Ziggy, I believe that people, including Supreme Court Justices, should be judged on their merits, not their university degrees. But in the case of the Supreme Court, almost every Justice has Harvard or Yale credentials, so to single out Breyer, but not the Justices with whom one might agree, seems to make very little point.
Some people are too easily impressed with a Harvard degree, but that’s not corrected by selectively disparaging those who have one.
Larry,
I don’t think Thompson would disagree with you. I know I don’t.
Breyer’s spin isn’t contemptible because he’s a Harvard grad. It’s contemptible because he’s a virulent anti-American @$$hole.
I think we both acknowledge that pertinent fact.
Ziggy, I don’t like Breyer, either, although I don’t know that I’d put it quite like you do. But we’re agreed on the point that the Harvard degree doesn’t determine whether he’s a Justice whose views we like or dislike.
I don’t disagree that there are people with Ivy League degrees who do public harm. But this blog is going to get tedious if we review everyone’s academic background when we comment. And if we do that, we have to acknowledge that while there are bad Ivy Leaguers, there are also people like David Petraeus, who has a PhD from Princeton.