Deadlines

Yesterday Lindsay Graham was on Meet The Press. Though he later surprised me with his revelation that he is now some kind of enviromentalist, who seeks to get off of foreign oil, he didn't surprise me with his comments on deadlines.
Dusting off some Republican talking points as to why we couldn't announce our time table in Iraq, Graham went into why we shouldn't do the same thing for Afghanistan.
Lindsay Graham is a well groomed proper boy with a girl's name, so maybe he doesn't have the relationship with deadlines most of us do. Most of us need deadlines.
I try to put a blog up every day by 10AM. That is just a general guide that no one but me (as far as I know) cares about. The baby really doesn't care about it. So I often take more time than I really need on either the blog or projects I put ahead of the blog. But when I was in art school, and had deadlines I was always taking on these huge projects and turning them in on time (Or early).
Deadlines keep us honest. Not only does it mean we will finish in a (arguably) timely manor, it means that we will set realistic expectations. Politicians tend to overpromise when there is no deadline.
It is better to surprise pesimist by exceeding their expectations than to disappoint optimist by falling short. If we set the bar low and get out, the people of Afghanistan will be much more likely to look favorably upon us, than if we continue to stay there raising the bar.
I know there are probably generals who say we need more time, but half the kids in my class would say the same thing. People tend to ask for more than what they need. That's how it works.
The deadline for withdrawl in Afghanistan will have a great affect on morale. For our troops it'll raise morale because they get to go home. For insurgents it'll lower morale because they can't claim we're imperialist pigs who want the Arkansas of the middle east.
Or better yet the 'terrorist' will try to wait us out. They'll tell themselves they're just going to lay low for a while until we leave and then they'll really show us. But most of them won't set any kind of deadline for how soon after we leave that they'll do it, so they'll just never get around to it.