The Big Question: Will the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan on time?

Peter Navarro, professor of economics and public policy at U.C. Irvine, said:
Any damn fool can see the Taliban are consolidating their positions. We’ve become the British and the Russians … It’s just a matter of time.

Bernie Quigley, Pundits Blog Contributor, said:
No, but failure to meet the deadline will be acceptable to Americans. War changes people: Prior to the Mexican War, Americans north and south had quiet distain for one another. After, they were ready to fight over their differences. Likewise, Americans are a different people now than we were the day after 9/11. We have by now assimilated the mature position that safety means risk and responsible action. This is not Vietnam. McChrystal in is not Westmorland. He seems an honest man, and so does Secretary Gates. Their judgment deserves our support and so do our soldiers. When Wesley Clark was running for president in 2004, he told a small group of supporters including myself, “George Bush’s approach to the war in Iraq does not reflect America, but in five years it will.” Correct. Americans have assimilated a newer attitude, and there did need to be some correction. Liberals, particularly in the bush of Vermont and New Hampshire where I live, are still in Vietnam-era “anti war” status. Truth is they never left.

 
Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said:
It’s important to remember what the so-called “deadline” actually is – it’s just the start of a withdrawal of some forces, but there is no hard- and fast-defined deadline for a full withdrawal.  And at this stage, the onus on “responsibly” meeting anytime timelines should be on the shoulders of our Afghan partners – are they willing and able to stand up the institutions, establish good governance, and fight corruption?  That is the centerpiece of the struggle.  Our military, the finest fighting force this world has ever seen, can easily squash the Taliban insurgency like a bug. The real question is whether our Afghan partners are really with the program of building and holding. 

Justin Raimondo, editorial director of
Antiwar.com, said:

What deadline? Oh, you mean this

one, the
deadline-that-isn’t-a-deadline,the one that Washington

Post columnist Dana Milbank quipped “didn’t last the first 18 hours”
after its announcement?

Please. By June, 2011, we’ll
be so far into Pakistan, running after whoever sat next to Faisal
Shahzad
on a bus in Peshawar, that everyone will have forgotten about
Afghanistan,
anyway. 

Speaking of deadlines, remember

that we’re supposed to be out of Iraq by the end of August. Oh, but
wait – it looks

like we’re not
going to make that one, either. 

The problem is that there’s
no enforcement mechanism to make the President meet all these deadlines,

except, of course, for the ultimate and most effective one: the US
government
could be bankrupt by June, 2011, and that would mean we’d have
to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

John F. McManus, president of The John Birch Society, said:

Withdrawing from Afghanistan would certainly be the wise course for the U.S.  But the overall decision seems likely to be made, not by the U.S. commanders or by Barack Obama.  Our forces are in that country under authorization supplied by NATO, a United Nations “Regional Arrangement” established under Articles 52-54 of the UN Charter.  NATO, led by other than an American, will have much to say – likely final say – in this matter.
 
NATO was begun in 1949 ostensibly to protect Western Europe from additional Soviet conquests.  However, it was touted at the time of its creation as a step that would help in “strengthening the United Nations” by then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson.  All decisions made by NATO – and all decisions made by its companion SEATO under which the U.S. forces went to Vietnam – are subject to oversight and approval by the United Nations.
 
The U.S. Constitution requires a formal congressional declaration of war before America’s forces can be sent to war.  This has not been done since the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  All “wars” involving America’s forces since then have been authorized, and ultimately directed, by the UN or one of its subsidiaries.  It should come as no surprise that stalemate and defeat have been the results. 
 
The overriding issue that should be discussed is not when our troops exit Afghanistan.  It should be when will Congress withdraw our nation from the United Nations, bring our forces home, and pledge never again to engage them in hostilities without a formal congressional declaration of war.
 
In other words, All federal officials should honor the oath they took to adide by the provisions of the U.S. Constitution.