As a youth, my civil studies teacher patiently explained that in war, a person publishing (as the means to send to the enemy) the scheduled sailing dates for our troop transport ships had committed treason. Making public such war fighting plans empowered the enemy to alter its own war making plans in order to counter our now known military intentions.
Now, slow down U-all, in no way, explicit or implicit, am I accusing the President of any kind of war crime. Nonetheless, I am seeking greater insight into what national security interest is advanced by telling the Taliban how long they need to hide out in Pakistan before its safe to return to again terrorize Afghanistan.
Also, be assured that were I to be the President, we would have left Afghanistan in 2002, after having accomplished the only vital national security objective permissible in the use of lethal military power - terminating with extreme prejudice the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the 911 attacks and their territorial protectors. Now, a decade later, a half a trillion dollars of national treasure spent and the loss of thousands of young American military service personnel, all in the name of the nation building chimera, we are left with but two questions: (1) - what is the name of the last Afghan villager who will cooperate with the remaining (short term visiting only) American troops before being the first murdered by the Taliban as our guys wave from their departing helicopter, and (2) - what is the name of the American military person, now in high school or in basic training, who will be the last combat casualty in this debacle, now scheduled publicly to grind on until 2014/15. Both the Afghanistan populace and our American military heroes deserve better than this bitter pill of the false promise of nation building where only warring tribes have existed for ten thousand years.