Remember 20 minutes ago when our new war president Barack O-bomb-a said that U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan by mid-2011? Well, I know this is going to be a real shocker (like that $800 billion health care plan that is now over $1.1 trillion), but:

GATES: 'NO DEADLINES' ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL

The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, scheduled to begin in July 2011, will "probably" take two or three years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, although he added that "there are no deadlines in terms of when our troops will all be out." The Pentagon, meanwhile, quietly acknowledged slippage on the front end of the 30,000-troop deployment that President Obama authorized for the first half of 2010.

"They are not all going to be there in six months," a senior military official said. The current thinking, the official said, is that the Pentagon will be able to push about 20,000 to 25,000 troops into the country by late summer, but that the final brigade -- about 5,000 troops -- will probably not arrive until early fall.

"July 2011, the time at which the president said the United States will begin to draw down our forces, will be the beginning of a process," Gates said. "But the pace and character of that drawdown, which districts and provinces are turned over and when, will be determined by conditions on the ground. It will be a gradual but inexorable process."

Well, at least the government is consistent in its perpetual practice of lying to the sheeple.

UPDATE: Andrew Sirkis sent this confirmation of the latest U.S. government lie:

“The United States has no intention of leaving Afghanistan in the near future, certainly not in 2011,” US National Security Advisor General (Retd) James Jones told reporters in response to a question that President Obama’s statement on withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would start from July 2011 has created confusion in the region.