President Obama's speech to the nation announcing a drawback of 33,000 troops by next summer, noticeably omitted the man most in Washington see as being responsible for containing the war in Afghanistan.
General David Petraeus, the face of American counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan and now nominated to lead the CIA, was not mentioned and he reportedly opposed a faster withdrawal. The president called to "nation building" at home.
Obama mentioned combat officers, including an unnamed SEAL who led the bin Laden raid.
"This officer -- like so many others I’ve met on bases, in Baghdad and Bagram, and at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital -– spoke with humility about how his unit worked together as one, depending on each other, and trusting one another, as a family might do in a time of peril,"Obama said.
Obama's speech seemed to underscore a growing sense among members of both parties that the nation is war-weary and that Petraeus's ambitious counterinsurgency is over.
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