23 June 2011 midday

Workout notes 2200 yds; the shoulder got a bit fatigued (not painful):
10 x (25 kick (side, front, side), 25 swim) 13:30
5 x (25 free, 25 back, 25 breast, 25 free) on the 2:20
1000 alternating 100 free, 100 pull (pushed by a math colleague who is 6 foot, 6 inches tall (1.98 meters)
18:53 total
4 x 50 butterfly kick with fins (kick only!)

Note: I had some butt/piriformis pain “just walking around slowly” but only a few tingles while swimming. This morning I didn’t have it but I had some back stiffness. It is healing but is right now in its “take its pound of flesh out of you” phase.

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Many of my friends (myself included) thought that the time-table for withdrawal was too slow. But evidently it is fast enough to pose some risk:

he U.S. military’s top officer told Congress on Thursday that President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw up to 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer is riskier than he originally was prepared to endorse.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House hearing that he supports the president’s plans. But Mullen said they are “more aggressive and incur more risk” than he had considered prudent.

“More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course,” Mullen said. “But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so.”

Obama announced Wednesday evening that the U.S. and its allies had achieved enough in Afghanistan to merit a drawdown of forces beginning this summer. Obama said 10,000 troops would come home by the end of this year, to be followed by as many as 23,000 next summer. That will leave about 68,000 U.S. troops there.

Mullen, who is retiring Oct. 1, was blunt in testifying about the risks and potential rewards of Obama’s decision.

“No commander ever wants to sacrifice fighting power in the middle of a war,” Mullen said. “And no decision to demand that sacrifice is ever without risk. This is particularly true in a counterinsurgency, where success is achieved not solely by technological prowess or conventional superiority, but by the wit and the wisdom of our people as they pursue terrorists and engage the local populace on a daily basis. In a counterinsurgency, firepower is manpower.”

On the other hand, Mullen said, taking the safer course would have entailed other kinds of risks, such as increasing the Afghan government’s dependence on the U.S.

These decisions are never easy.

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