Washington
(Sunatimes) The White House says President Barack Obama will announce his
decision on the size and pace of a U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan on
Wednesday. It will come amid intensified national war-weariness and concern
about the lives lost, and strains on the U.S. economy.
At Arlington National Cemetery this past Memorial
Day, President Obama, after laying a wreath at the Tomb of Unknowns, stopped at
Section 60, containing graves of U.S. troops killed most recently in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
It was a reminder of the grim backdrop to the
decision on how many of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to begin
withdrawing in July.
Mr. Obama announced the July start for the
withdrawal when he presented his overall strategy for Afghanistan in December
2009.
Even as the president and military commanders
point to successes in pushing back Taliban control in key areas, military
commanders are worried about climbing casualty figures.
Like other presidents who have directed unpopular
wars, Mr. Obama has has no shortage of advice from members of Congress.
Democrat John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said, "While the United States has genuine national
security interests in Afghanistan, our current commitment, in troops and in
dollars, is neither proportional to our interests or sustainable in my
judgment."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham last week called
the current U.S. and NATO model in Afghanistan "the ticket home" for
U.S. troops.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press"
program, he cautioned against any accelerated U.S. withdrawal despite rising
anti-war sentiment in the U.S. Congress. "If we accelerate withdrawal
right now because we are war weary, we're going to lose this war," he
said.
Another Republican, Senator Richard Lugar, urges
Mr. Obama to provide Americans with a new overall plan that includes a
definition of success. "The more important question is whether we have an
efficient strategy for protecting our vital interests that does not involve
massive open-ended expenditures and does not require us to have more faith than
is justified in Afghan institutions," he said.
President Obama's decision comes amid intensifying
public dissatisfaction with the Afghanistan war.
In Baltimore, Maryland, the U.S. Conference of
Mayors approved a resolution urging that billions in monthly war costs be
directed to needs at home.
At the Pentagon recently, outgoing Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates addressed the question of Americans' impatience.
"This unhappiness, and certainly the war weariness after a decade, rests
heavily on all of us, I think. And the key is how do we complete our mission,
as we have largely done in Iraq, in a way that protects American national
security interests and the American people and contributes to stability,"
he said.
Besides incoming defense Secretary Leon Panetta,
civilian and military leaders who will implement President Obama's decision are
to be in place soon.
They include Marine Lieutenant General John Allen,
the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, along with Ryan Crocker, the new U.S.
ambassador in Kabul.
By Abdulkadir Mohamed
Bariga Afrika
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Obama to announce Afghanistan Troops Withdrawal today
It was a reminder of the grim backdrop to the decision on how many of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to begin withdrawing in July