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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster
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To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (23003)12/3/2009 9:52:47 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof3 Recommendations  Read Replies (2) of 103300
 
Re: "Hhow is announcing that you're leaving the region in 18 months going to win the propaganda war?"

When the MAIN STAY of Taliban and al Qaeda's PROPAGANDA is that "America is a foreign OCCUPYING power", and every year longer that we stay in-country adds weight to that propaganda charge (we are already there now LONGER then the Soviets were... we are into the NINTH YEAR now), it seems pretty obvious why saying that we have "no intention to stay" would help to counter that (increasingly successful) propaganda charge that is driving Taliban recruitment.

Small point of order though --- no one said (the President did not say in his speech) that we were "leaving the region in 18 months".

What he said was that we would "start" to draw down our forces by then (but he, critically, PUT NO NUMBERS ON THAT).

By that point in time our combined forces in-country will be WELL OVER 100,000... but if he only sends just a few back home he will still be able to say that he has "started" drawing down. But at that point force structure will still be MUCH HIGHER then it is now, and MUCH HIGHER then it ever was under Bush's administration.

(Also, Sec. Def. Gates said the very next day that even that 'draw-down' would be conditional upon what is going on on the ground. So, it's really much more like a stated 'intention', not anything hard and fast.)
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