Opinion: Obama to pull 30,000 troops out of Afghanistan by next summer
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
President Obama will go against the wishes of his top defense advisor and pull 30,000 American troops out of Afghanistan by summer 2012, a variety of sources are reporting. There are over 100,000 U.S. personnel in the war-torn country.
Obama is expected to announce Wednesday night that he will withdraw about 5,000 troops next month and another 5,000 by the end of the year with the remainder of the ‘surge’ troops coming back home by the end of 2012.
The New York Times is reporting that Gen. David H. Petraeus did not endorse the decision and both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed off on it reluctantly.
Obama hopes the withdrawal will ease the minds of the majority of Americans who believe the troops should be brought home as soon as possible.
Yesterday Obama was successful in easing the crying of a youngster as seen below in the video. It will be interesting to see if tonight’s announcement will have a similar calming affect.
RELATED:
Five things to listen for in President Obama’s speech tonight
Obama to detail size, speed of Afghan troop withdrawal in speech Wednesday
-- Tony Pierce
twitter.com/busblog