NO WAY TO DO IT - AT 6:29 P.M. ET:   We are getting a disturbing report about what the president will say tonight.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to announce Tuesday night that he will begin to transition American forces out of Afghanistan beginning in July 2011, setting the first time frame to begin reducing troop levels there nearly a decade after the United States first sent soldiers in to topple the Taliban government, senior administration officials said.

Mr. Obama will set the drawdown goal even as he orders another 30,000 troops to deploy to Afghanistan over the next six months in an effort to reverse the momentum of Taliban insurgents fighting to regain control of the country. By expediting the flow of reinforcements, officials said Mr. Obama hopes to create urgency for the government in Kabul to match the American surge with one using its own forces.

Oh, no, no, no.  It appears that Obama has caved to his left wing.  What is nuttier than announcing your withdrawal date when you're in the middle of combat?  What if, in 1943, President Roosevelt had announced, "I'm sending more troops to the Pacific, but we'll wind it up in early 1945"?

The tribes of Asia think in terms of decades, and centuries.  Now we have gifted them with a schedule.  They simply have to hold out another two years, and things will be fine.  This is not a strategy for victory.  It's a strategy for pleasing the California House delegation, with the Massachusetts crowd thrown in.

John McCain gets it right:

Senator John McCain on Tuesday expressed support for the plan to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, but said he objected to setting a date for an exit strategy to begin as early as 2011.

“Dates for withdrawal are dictated by conditions,” Mr. McCain told reporters on Capitol Hill. “The way that you win wars is to break the enemy’s will, not to announce dates that you are leaving.”

He is correct.  He could have been president.  But we were sold a lemon by the establishment press, and the sale went through because of a suspiciously timed economic collapse, right in the middle of a presidential campaign. 

There are people in national politics who want us to lose in Afghanistan.  They are the same people who opposed the surge in Iraq.  And they are, in some cases, older versions of the same people who wanted us to lose in Vietnam.  They think it's good for us.  And they don't think 9-11 was a big deal.

December 1, 2009