My sister, who isn't nearly as political as I am, watched the speech live and told me, "Wow, the President is an amazing speaker. I can't believe he memorized that entire speech." Needless to say, we had a fun conversation about how teleprompters work.

Teleprompters or not, the President did give a great speech and I wish members of his own party would take his advice and unite behind his plan. Republicans, including myself, are already on board. I only have two problems with the speech itself.

First, timing. This speech should have been delivered months ago when the President first received the request for additional troops. By considering the feelings of the radical anti-war movement within his own party (Speaker Nancy Pelosi), he kept military leaders waiting to find out what they would get instead of planning on what they would do with exactly what they were scheduled to get. I really hope he learned a lesson from dealing with those idiots over matters of national security. At least he did the right thing at the end of the day and listened to the military.

Second, he told the terrorists the goal was to be out by July 2011. Look, I don't have any problem with deadlines, but the NEED to be kept in-house. Muhammad Ali was so good that he could tell his opponent that he would punch him in the face with his left hand and be so quick that he could get away with punching him in the face with a left. Well, the Global War on Terrorism isn't a boxing match and Barack Obama isn't Muhammad Ali. If the terrorists know when we're leaving, they can simply hang out and grow poppy for the next 18 months and then as the deadline approaches, start a very short offensive using car bombs and mortars. If the President decides to leave on schedule, the terrorists will declare they have driven the Americans out. If the President decides to keep the troops there, the terrorists will declare they have derailed the plans of the United States. What's more, if the troops have to stay past the President's deadline, it hurts morale. Our men and women are tough and they can deal with it, but if they are expecting to be home for Christmas in 2011 and they're still over there when the time comes, they're going to be really disappointed.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, good comes from telling your adversary when you want to pull out.

One thing that I haven't hear analysts talk about is the apparent contradiction between the President's decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan and his vision for the future, which involves a more limited and "nimble" use of our military in the future. The current situation in Afghanistan cannot be dealt with unless we have a very large and significant troop presence in the country. However, at the same time, Obama appears to be taking a page from the book of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld - who had what sounds like a similar vision for the military with what was called a "smaller, lighter footprint."

The "smaller, lighter footprint" came back to bite us in the butt when de-Baathification created a power vacuum in Iraq and let Islamic extremists take arms and sectarian divisions explode. The rest of the world has seen us struggle to handle and control terrorism and it's probably causing a lot of them to re-write their play books for how to deal with us in the event we ever go to war with them. That means we haven't seen the last of insurgent tactics and guerrilla warfare. So, if the only way to prevent and fill the vacuums that formed in Afghanistan and Iraq is to send more troops in, why in the world would the President think that Rumsfeld's long term strategy was a good one? Especially considering that a conventional war, as likely or unlikely as another one will be, will also require a strong military to be a LARGE military.

Granted, the President didn't offer a lot of details about this last point. It's possible that he meant more limited and nimble in a financial sense where we wouldn't have to spend as much in future insurgent wars like this. He was very honest when he spoke about the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I was glad he came right out and said the cost of the troop surge in Afghanistan would cost an approximate $30 Billion tax dollars ($1 Million per Additional Soldier). I think in hindsight, we'll be able to look back on this and see a lot of inefficiencies in how we spent the money allocated for this war.

And speaking of hindsight, it also appears that President Obama not only was willing to take ownership of the Global War on Terrorism tonight, something he had not previously done; but he also seemed determined to end the Global War on Terrorism during his Presidency. That was also refreshing. He sounded convinced that we would never be able to completely destroy al-Qaida (he'd be right) and that we should maintain vigilance in the event al-Qaida ever tries to establish a new foothold in any other part of the world (also right), but that our massive military presences in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot go on forever. That's kind of what I attribute his declaration of a July 2011 deadline to, rather than him caving into pressure from the anti-war left. It was still ill-advised, but his intentions were probably good.

Either way, the President gave a great speech tonight and I applaud him for taking the right course of action by finally signing onto the troop surge. Behind the scenes here at ktracy.com, we often discuss matters of international conflict using the "Team America" lexicon. With the President's speech tonight, President Obama declared his intention to keep alive America's tradition of being a "dick" in the world.

Watch the video below for an explanation of this. Just as a warning, the puppets seen in this video use insanely vulgar language. On the other hand, they put liberal activist Alec Baldwin in his place. As offensive as the language may be, the point being made is actually much more legitimate than what one might expect from a swearing puppet.

VIDEO REMOVED

Kind of makes you want in on our behind the scenes discussions on international relations, doesn't it? We wouldn't be involved with politics if we weren't having fun.