by Oliver North
WASHINGTON -- The commander in chief's Dec. 1 lecture at the U.S.Military Academy has to go down in history as one of the strangestpresentations ever offered by a wartime president. The roboticallydelivered address is defended by administration officials as theculmination of a carefully thought-out "strategy review," in which Mr.Obama proffered the "rationale" for deploying additional troops andexplained "The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Unfortunately,it failed to do any of this.
Though he was standing before West Point's Corps of Cadets, thepresident's remarks were devoid of strategic vision, lacking anydefinition of victory and empty of the rhetoric elected leaders employto rally democratic people to a cause requiring the sacrifice of bloodand treasure. The speech did, however, provide another Obama "first."Giving the enemy a timetable for withdrawing American troops whilecommitting additional combat forces to a war zone is unprecedented. Nocommander in chief has done such a thing before -- because it makes nosense from a political or military perspective.
To his credit, Mr. Obama said, "I have determined that it isin our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troopsto Afghanistan." These additional troops, trainers and mobility assetsare needed desperately. But he offered no rationale for how he arrivedat a number that is 25 percent less than what his hand-pickedcommander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested. Then he devoted fiveadditional passages to defending his statement that "after 18 months,our troops will begin to come home."
Since Tuesday, Mr. Obama has stopped talking about the war inAfghanistan and moved on to "creating jobs," a topic he raised fourtimes in his West Point speech. He left Defense Secretary Robert Gates,Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Adm. Mike Mullen, who ischairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a host of nameless"administration spokesmen" to explain the extraordinary announcementthat we will "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan inJuly of 2011."
The contortions required to support this statement wereparticularly evident in congressional testimony this week, particularlyfor Gates. When the defense secretary appeared before the House ForeignAffairs Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said to him,"You said in April 2007, with regard to Iraq, 'I've been pretty clearthat I think the enactment of specific deadlines would be a badmistake.'"
Pence summed up the good sense of most Americans by noting,"I'm someone who believes it never makes sense to tell the enemy whenyou're going to quit fighting in a war. ... Mr. Secretary ... what'schanged in your view here? What am I missing?"
The defense secretary's response offers a glimpse into thedeceptive double-think so prevalent in the Obama administration: "Firstof all, I have adamantly opposed deadlines; I opposed them in Iraq, andI opposed deadlines in Afghanistan." Gates continued: "But what thepresident has announced is the beginning of a process, not the end of aprocess, and it is clear that this will be a gradual process and -- ashe said last night -- based on conditions on the ground. So there is nodeadline for the withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan."
The following day, in testimony before the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, Gates said, "July 2011 ... will be the beginning of aprocess -- an inflection point, if you will -- of transition for Afghanforces as they begin to assume greater responsibility for security."
Thus, a publicly announced "troop withdrawal timeline" and a"time frame for our transition to Afghan responsibility" won't tell theTaliban and al-Qaida how long they have to go to ground or hide out.According to the O-Team, July 2011 is just "the beginning of aprocess," an "inflection point." If that's what administrationofficials really believe, they aren't just trying to mislead us; theyare deceiving themselves.
Finally, Mr. Obama's self-centered West Point remarks -- hereferred to himself no fewer than 57 times -- also prove that he andhis speechwriters don't know history, either. He claimed thatAfghanistan will not become "another Vietnam" because "unlike Vietnam,we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency." Whoever wrotethose words is simply wrong.
The Republic of Vietnam wasn't lost to a "popular insurgency."By April 1969, the Viet Cong had been eliminated as a military threat.The frail, flawed democratic government in Saigon collapsed in April1975 -- three years after the last American combat troops werewithdrawn -- because in December 1974, the country was invaded andsubsequently conquered by a hostile neighbor -- North Vietnam -- onlyafter the U.S. Congress rebuffed President Gerald Ford's request for$522 million in emergency aid.
A head of state who distorts the lessons of history is aperil. A leader who tries to deceive himself and his people isdangerous. We can only pray that this commander in chief isn'tcommitting 100,000 young Americans to a mission impossible in theshadows of the Hindu Kush.
Oliver North is the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance and author of The Assassins .