The White House: Full Text of the Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress. The speech I found was missing a realism, on the one hand the President wants to cut the budget while on the other hand he wants to do another Great Society, at the end of day it didn't much help LBJ. The main interest for me was the section on Iraq and Afghanistan, the President stated the following, " We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.
And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism. Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away. " From the leaked reports it seems that the Obama Administration will leave Iraq over a nineteen month period but leaving over fifty thousand troops in country to train the Iraq Army and Police and to fight the terrorists. In Afghanistan the Obama Administration is stuck, its the War the President wanted, he wants a half way house, he has sent seventeen thousand troops in to Afghanistan but the Defence Department wanted thirty thousand troops. One can see Obama following the LBJ model when it comes to Afghanistan, more troops and more troops, with no clear plan. The West in Afghanistan faces the same problem that LBJ found in Vietnam, as long as the terrorists can get their men from Pakistan, the war will never end, if the USA goes in to Pakistan the government will fall, the West cant have a nuclear armed Pakistan in the hands of the terrorists. Thus this never ending war is Obama's War, as Iraq did to Bush 43, Afghanistan will do to President Obama.
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