ObamaAlaskaTroops.jpg

He will be discussing the new Afghanistan strategy—the one top officials have been privately arguing about for months. The speech is at 5 pm on the West Coast. We’ll be following along on Slog.

The photo above is of Obama speaking to troops at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska on November 12, 2009, from the White House flickr photostream.

Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer...

15 replies on “The President’s Speech Tonight”

  2. The speech Obama *should* give tonight is interesting and skimmable:

    http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1…)

    “Given that, let me say as bluntly as I can that I have decided to send no more troops to Afghanistan. Beyond that, I believe it is in the national interest of the American people that this war, like the Iraq War, be drawn down. Over time, our troops and resources will be brought home in an orderly fashion, while we ensure that we provide adequate security for the men and women of our Armed Forces. Ours will be an administration that will stand or fall, as of today, on this essential position: that we ended, rather than extended, two wars.”

  3. Well, can we arrest Obama for war crimes too? I mean after we arrest Bush and Cheney?

    Obama at this point makes me sick to my stomach: and that’s after I voted for him, rang door bells for him and fucking gave him money in 2008 !!!!

    There are two things behind this, either he’s doing this as a political calculation to show he’s tough, in which case he’s sick. Or he’s delusional in thinking this is going to work in which case he has mental illness.

  4. OK, every time President Johnson says this is a limited engagement which won’t last long, take a drink.

    I’ll be hammered within 15 minutes.

  5. All the criticism from the new turncoats rings hollow, the President has been honest and clear with the American public way before he took office.

    “If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned,” he said in a speech in Washington. “And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.”

    “It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large,” he said. “Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia.”

    “As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy — one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi”

    http://www.boston.com/news/politics/poli…

  6. the russians faced a proxy army funded by the US of goddamn A. NATO does not face the same.

    perhaps the strategy now involves a civil component; bribery, outbidding druglords for poppy crops &/or heroin, and a hearts and minds & jobs campaign.

    or maybe not.

  8. @6 – how naive you are.

    You really don’t get where the funding and volunteers are coming from, do you?

    For example, do you know who’s paying to supply the Taliban?

    You. By buying drugs. By sending your tax dollars to Pakistan. Both are their primary supply.

    Please, if you’re going to play this game, understand that charitable donations by well-meaning muslims fuel a lot of terrorist acts – some of it intentional, some of it misdirected or stolen, some of it indirect.

    Heck, every time you gas up your car, al-Qaeda gets to buy a bullet.

    You probably don’t even get that embedded messages in images sent over US-owned Net firms are how they communicate …

  9. Actually, Will, the United States military is paying the Taliban. NYT just did a story on how the US military is paying the Taliban for the use of roads.

    Al-Qaeda doesn’t own any oil fields. US corporations do, though.

    Are you absolutely fucking retarded? Or do you get a sexual kick from regurgitating bullshit you hear real retarded people saying?

  11. ‘Obama at this point makes me sick to my stomach: and that’s after I voted for him, rang door bells for him and fucking gave him money in 2008 !!!!”

    Well, you’re obviously a fucking moron then because anyone who listened to him during the campaign and knew his political history could tell he was a centrist and not a radical leftist.

    Of course, maybe you didn’t realize you were a useful idiot that would be tossed overboard as soon as the election was over so you could swim back to Loony Left island.

  12. The only reason his strategy is “new” is because first he poo-poohed Bush’s strategy and now he’s re-adopted it!

  15. Russia went bankrupt because of the amount of money they were spending on the military. We know have two wars going and are funneling billions of dollars a month to military contractors- billions of taxpayer’s money. We can’t afford universal healthcare, but we can afford to invade 2 other countries?

    No country has ever been able to control Afghanistan- ever. We won’t be able to either. Stupid, just stupid to waste the money.

    I expected Bush to be a miserable failure. And while I knew Obama was not a liberal and was a corporate conservative, I really did not think he would be this much of a failure.

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