Mattis: Withdrawal plan gives enemy hope, sends wrong message to allies

Mattis: Withdrawal plan gives enemy hope, sends wrong message to allies

WASHINGTON — Taxpayers and troops will receive something of a peace dividend under White House plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.

The new strategy reflects Americans’ weariness of war.

“The bigger backdrop is that the public does not support large troop deployments in Afghanistan or elsewhere,” said Gordon Adams, a former Pentagon budget official who teaches at American University. “This means budget attention has shifted to jobs, immigration, health, deficits and less on defense.”

But James Mattis, a retired Marine four-star general who led U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said announcing a lower U.S. troop number and setting a specific withdrawal date “sends a message” to U.S. allies that it is not fully committed to the fight against the Taliban. SOURCE

Gen. Mattis, Sir; with ALL due respect, our military, through NO fault of their own, has not been committed to fighting and destroying the Taliban and al-Qaida in a very long time.

Our military, as Gen. Mattis is fully aware I am sure, has been saddled with the most ridiculous Rules of Engagement for several years now in the Global War on Terror, or, as the Zero in Chief calls it, an Overseas Contingency Operation.

Our troops have been asked to do more, and do it with LESS than at ANY time in modern history, to the point of even being cut from 3 meals a day to 2 meals a day.

The warfighting abilities of Barack Hussein Obama and George W. Bush leave much to be desired; actual ability being first and foremost.

“Why does the U.S. government have to level the playing field for the enemy?” Mattis said.

In MY opinion it is being done because of the utter incompetence of the current POTUS; I am fully convinced that Obama doesn’t give a DAMN about U.S. troops, their health, their welfare and the conditions and restrictions they must operate under.

The President, and his disgusting excuse for a wife, HATE the U.S. military and our Law Enforcement Officers too, but this is about the military, so let me show you a picture of Michelle Obama at a Memorial Day service a few days ago where she has a look of total disgust on her face and her arms CROSSED over her chest as the Pledge of Allegiance is spoken.

At least Barack Hussein Obama goes through the motions, but his wife, the so-called First Lady of the United States stands there looking like the American HATER I am so convinced that she is.

When all the game playing was taking place during the withdrawal from Iraq I made my opinion well known via this blog. I stated; ‘Once we are OUT of Iraq the whole place is going to devolve into a civil war and open insurrection’.

I was correct in that assessment and I will be proven correct in this assessment as well; once we are out of Afghanistan all HELL will break loose and Hamid Karzai will have a big target on his chest and back. The only thing keeping that polished up, arrogant Afghani War Lord alive today is the presence of the American military.

If I am not mistaken our mission in Afghanistan was not *Operation Afghani Freedom* nor was it to ensure the safety of Karzai, it was to KILL Osama bin Laden for his part in masterminding the attacks of Sept. 11th.

Osama bin Laden is dead, or, at least that’s what we have been told, so, the mission was a successful one and we should have been gone from Afghanistan immediately after.

The mission to Iraq was a faux pas from the start, the mission to Iraq is the reason it took so long to find and supposedly kill bin Laden. George W. Bush took his eye off of the ball when he moved most of the American fighting force to go after Saddam and he was told by many advisers that it was a VERY BAD move, but he did it anyway.

Once Saddam was in custody and turned over to Iraqi officials, we should have then said those famous words, *Mission Accomplished* and either gone back to Afghanistan to finish our original mission and to do so in force, or we should have brought the troops home.

“We asked for 13,600 troops several years ago,” Mattis said.

“We want to crush the enemy’s hope to win through violence,” Mattis said. “Yet we have now given the enemy hope that if they hang on until our announced withdrawal date they can perhaps come back.”

As said above, our military, through NO fault of their own, has not been committed to fighting and destroying the Taliban and al-Qaida in a very long time because of political bungling and the incompetence and inability to lead that is so well known regarding the currently sitting President.

Our military, our men and women, will go anywhere we send them, break everything that needs to be broken, kill everything big enough to die, win a decisive victory and come home with smiles on their faces. They have done exactly that every time they were tasked with a mission and ALLOWED to DO the job that they are intended to do.

They would do it again if allowed to, but when you have a POTUS that is clueless and gutless, and one that won’t allow the military to *loose the dogs of war*, you place an entire nation in serious jeopardy. WE are that nation.

That is the disgraceful legacy of Barack Hussein Obama.