Obama's Promises Have Expiration Dates (Episode #3,849)

Obama spoke for 38 minutes on Tuesday night about Afghanistan, never once using the word "victory." He did, in effect, tell our enemies to simply hold out until 2011, when Obama will lose interest in the war and focus full time on re-election. In light of this, please review what Obama said about Afghanistan on March 27, when he last announced a new Afghanistan strategy:

Many people in the United States--and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much--have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? And they deserve a straightforward answer.

So let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies--the terrorist who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks--are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged--that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan. In the nearly eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier. … For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.

As President, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people. We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and our allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to have suffered the most at the hand of violent extremists.

So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That’s the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you.