Update with video:
JOIN 3 CHICS for live blogging!
President Obama will address the nation tonight at 8 p.m. EST/7 pm CT. You can watch the event live streaming here. or here.
The President’s address will last for approximately 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, please feel free to take some time and refresh your memories on President Obama’s December 1, 2009 address on Afghanistan.
You can read the full transcript of 12-1-09 address here.
And here’s the November 20, 2010 Troop withdrawal timeline
So all the GOP presidential circus clowns candidates, neocons, and fauxgressives can STFU. The president is following the plans he has laid out. We look forward to hearing from President Obama on the latest strategy for troop withdrawals.
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Obama Sides With Gates Over Petraeus
By Yochi J. Dreazen and Marc Ambinder
Updated: June 23, 2011 | 8:56 a.m.
June 23, 2011 | 6:52 a.m.
Senior White House officials wanted all of the 33,000 U.S. “surge” troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by next spring. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Kabul, was adamant they stay until the end of 2012. The deadlock was broken by outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who sold Obama and his top civilian aides on a compromise plan that will leave most of the reinforcements in Afghanistan through next September but ensure they’re back well before the November elections.
Obama’s prime-time address Wednesday night offered little indication of the heated behind-the-scenes battle over Afghanistan that consumed the president and his war cabinet for much of this past month. The debates pitted White House aides wary of the war’s high costs and uncertain progress against a high-profile general who brought Iraq back from the brink of defeat several years ago and was confident he could do the same in Afghanistan if given enough time. This account is based on interviews with multiple officials with direct knowledge of the internal deliberations.
http://nationaljournal.com/obama-sided-with-gates-over-petraeus-in-afghanistan-troop-decision-20110623
Read the entire speech here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/obamas-afghanistan-speech-full-text/2011/06/22/AGHdcUgH_blog.html?wpisrc=al_national
Posted at 08:11 PM ET, 06/22/2011
Obama’s Afghanistan speech: Full text
By Washington Post Staff
Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
On the Way Forward in Afghanistan
Washington, D.C.
June 22, 2011
Good evening. Nearly ten years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and signaled a new threat to our security – one in which the targets were no longer soldiers on a battlefield, but innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives.
In the days that followed, our nation was united as we struck at al Qaeda and routed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Then, our focus shifted. A second war was launched in Iraq, and we spent enormous blood and treasure to support a new government there. By the time I took office, the war in Afghanistan had entered its seventh year. But al Qaeda’s leaders had escaped into Pakistan and were plotting new attacks, while the Taliban had regrouped and gone on the offensive. Without a new strategy and decisive action, our military commanders warned that we could face a resurgent al Qaeda, and a Taliban taking over large parts of Afghanistan.
For this reason, in one of the most difficult decisions that I’ve made as President, I ordered an additional 30,000 American troops into Afghanistan. When I announced this surge at West Point, we set clear objectives: to refocus on al Qaeda; reverse the Taliban’s momentum; and train Afghan Security Forces to defend their own country. I also made it clear that our commitment would not be open-ended, and that we would begin to drawdown our forces this July.
Tonight, I can tell you that we are fulfilling that commitment. Thanks to our men and women in uniform, our civilian personnel, and our many coalition partners, we are meeting our goals. As a result, starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.
We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s leadership. And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11. One soldier summed it up well. “The message,” he said, “is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.”
Here comes Rachel trying to undermine what the President said.
I shut that noise off. I’m watching SYTYCD. LOL
OK break it down please…SYTYCD?
President Obama: It’s time to focus on nation building at home!
Set it up and remind the folks, POTUS.
That’s what I’m talking ’bout! Just in case folks have forgottten…
Awaiting PBO’s address to the nation. The MSM as usual are second guessing, throwing out polls, and attempting to dictate what the black guy should be doing.
Come out and shut these MOFOs down, Mr. President.
Amen!
By 2014 the mission will be complete. What these jokers don’t want to hear and understand is they don’t have privy to information that the POTUS has, so it’s easy for them to yell GET OUT!!!
Plus the GOP & Dems are feeling the heat, because President Obama is not just talking the talk, he’s walking the walk. Putting them to shame for the lackadasical attitude about doing their jobs to serve the American people.
GOP & Dems are feeling the heat, because President Obama is not just talking the talk, he’s walking the walk.
That’s why they’re mad.
“candidates, neocons, and fauxgressives can STFU”
I agree STFU!!
June 22, 2011
Obama Opts for Faster Afghan Pullout
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/world/asia/23prexy.html?_r=2&emc=na&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 “surge,” by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision. These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public.
The president is scheduled to speak about the Afghanistan war from the White House at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
Mr. Obama’s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the American military engagement in Afghanistan. But it is a setback for his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who helped write the Army’s field book on counterinsurgency policy, and who is returning to Washington to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
Two administration officials said General Petraeus did not endorse the decision, though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is retiring, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reluctantly accepted it. General Petraeus had recommended limiting initial withdrawals and leaving in place as many combat forces for as long as possible, to hold on to fragile gains made in recent combat.
In announcing the withdrawals, which represent about 30 percent of current American troop strength in the country, Mr. Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in December 2009. At that time, he coupled the deployment of 30,000 additional troops with a promise to begin winding down America’s engagement by the middle of this year. Still, the speed and scope of this plan is striking.
It amounts to a broad rethinking of the military’s troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy that Mr. Obama adopted 18 months ago after a painstaking review. Officials have indicated that the administration now plans to place more emphasis on focused counterterrorism operations of the kind that killed Osama bin Laden — which the president is expected to cite as Exhibit A for a substantial American drawdown.
About 68,000 American troops would be left in Afghanistan after the withdrawals, roughly twice the number who were there when Mr. Obama took office.
Administration officials have said an intense campaign of drone strikes and other covert operations in Pakistan had crippled Al Qaeda’s original network in the region, leaving its leaders either dead or pinned down in the rugged region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Of 30 top Al Qaeda leaders indentified by American intelligence, 20 have been killed in the last year and a half, the officials said.
But the withdrawal of the entire surge force by the end of next summer — before the fighting season ends in Afghanistan — would change the way the United States wages war in Afghanistan. Analysts said the administration may have concluded that it can no longer achieve its grandest ambitions for the nearly-decade-long military campaign in Afghanistan.
In 2009, speaking to an audience at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., Mr. Obama laid out a broad range of goals that included defeating Al Qaeda and stopping the Taliban, but also giving Afghanistan the breathing space to build up its own security forces and a functioning government.
Even as the president eschewed the grand nation-building of the Bush administration, he authorized a “civilian surge” of diplomats and aid workers to help Afghans build local ministries and farmers to switch to healthier crops.
The decision also reflects the rapidly changing domestic political landscape. Mr. Obama faces a sagging economy, intense budget pressures and a war-weary Congress and public as he looks ahead to his reelection campaign.
Leading Republican hopefuls like Mitt Romney are demanding a swifter withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Democrats on Capitol Hill and elsewhere complain that the cost of the war — $120 billion this year alone — is siphoning money away from efforts to build roads and create jobs in the United States.
“From a fiscal standpoint, we’re spending too much money on Iraq and Afghanistan,” a senior administration official said. “There’s a belief from a fiscal standpoint that this is cannibalizing too much of our spending.”
For some reason I’ve been unable to access this blog until now. Our First Lady did us proud in Soweto today. I sure wish blogs here had shown people spontaneously standing and singing to her before her speech, which is the African way when people are both moved and engaged. This is why she seemed so teary at the beginning of her speech, which was stellar, imho.
She is just such an amazing woman and a great ambassador for our country. I am so loving this!
I’m so sorry you had problems accessing the blog, Aquagranny! I tried to find videos of the Choir singing but was unsuccessful. I’ll keep looking. I know it was just beautiful.
Not just the choir but people in the audience standing spontaneously to sing and honor her. I will try to get some links for you if I can. She was so moved by this. You could see that when she began her speech.
Her speech was a model of Nelson Mandela’s long ago call for the concept of “ubuntu” which means, “what hurts you, hurts me, hurts everyone and this earth we share” What each person does is important, no matter how small it may seem. “We are all part of the interconnected web of existence.” She spoke directly to the soul of Africa. This will not ever be forgotten there.
I agree Granny!
FLOTUS” speech was moving and sooooo inspirational.
I especially loved the end, call and response African tradition
YES. WE. CAN. !!!