Cut and run faster

The Washington Post reports that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin doesn’t think that the President’s plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan doesn’t cut and run fast enough;

In a statement, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called the plan a “positive development, although in my view the conditions on the ground justify an even larger drawdown of U.S. troops.”

Of course, Levin doesn’t take into account that our allies in Afghanistan are pulling out their troops exponentially to the US withdrawal;

Obama’s plan will also influence U.S. allies in Afghanistan, which supply about 40,000 troops — about 30 percent of the international forces there. Some European leaders are as eager as Obama to end their expensive and politically unpopular commitments to the Afghanistan war effort, and they welcomed the president’s announcement.

On Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France will pull its 4,000 troops out of Afghanistan on the same staggered timetable as the U.S. withdrawal. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his country wants to reduce the German contingent of 4,900 troops by the end of 2011–but has not yet formulated a withdrawal plan.

So who the hell will be left? Will our troops be depending on the Afghanistan Army to protect their trains and for resupply? A fool’s errand at the least.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Politics, Terror War