Ronald Wilson Reagan“Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem”
Barack Hussein OBAMA“Let RUSH HealthCare Reform but take our time helping the TROOPS when asked.”
When On Earth Will Obama Make Decision on Troops?
By Iain Martin
On May 27 1964, President Johnson confided in an aide on a subject that was already starting to become a preoccupation. “The more I stayed awake last night thinking about this thing, the more… It looks like to me we’re gettin’ in to another Korea,” Robert Dallek quotes Johnson saying in Flawed Giant. “And I don’t think it’s worth fighting for and I don’t think we can get out. And it’s just the biggest damn mess… What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me… What is it worth to this country?”
Johnson’s agonies over Vietnam were to get much worse. At that point he had yet to commit U.S. ground troops and when he did the resulting war overshadowed his next four years in power. It is said that it is Johnson’s fate that the current President seeks to avoid in Afghanistan, as though this is an adequate explanation of why he is declining to make a clear call about the next stage of the war.
Again, last night, a decision on what to do was put off by Obama. The shape of a possible surge will now not be decided for another few weeks - after Thanksgiving, we are told. Foreign leaders had expected news of American plans after the widely trailed war council in Washington on Wednesday.
Gordon Brown even let slip in the House of Commons that Britain thought it would hear in the next few days. What is causing the delay? It looks suspiciously like presidential prevarication. But Afghanistan is not Vietnam; they are not the same.
Johnson inherited a pledge to prop up a south east Asian government from communist aggression and his predecessor had sent mainly military advisors and aid. Obama inherits a war with 68,000 Americans already on the ground, and other NATO troops alongside. It has been running since 2001, for two years longer than the second world war. The 2003 NATO deployment is now six years old.
Johnson, in contrast, was confronted by a multi-dimensional threat in a war which the U.S. had not yet joined properly. There was Communist China to concern him and a Soviet Russia looking for signs of weakness which it could then exploit in other parts of the world.
Obama’s challenge is different - not easy, but not as complicated either. The unstable region is home to a terrorist threat which threatens western security. How is that best confronted? As I blogged recently, he has several choices.
If he thinks the war can be won conventionally then McChrystal’s plan for 40,000 more troops (modelled on the successful Iraq surge) looks like the way to go. If he thinks it can’t be won like this, then he can start to scale back, abandon the illusion of a democratic Afghanistan, choose which tribes to back with special forces and air power support and end the NATO mission as currently constituted.
But time is getting on. He has been President for 10 months now and still the world waits. What will eventually emerge? The semi-surge of 30,000 troops with full deployment not for at least a year looks like his favoured option. Or at least it did when it seemed he was going to make a long overdue decision. Now? Who knows?
The danger is that this drift erodes allied confidence and strengthens the hand of those who want America and Britain defeated in Afghanistan. Enemies such as the Taliban are able to smell weakness, and so are America’s allies. In Britain the war effort is misfiring, as the public grows disenchanted over casualties. A strong lead from the U.S. might still change the situation, but one starts to doubt it after this latest delay.
As Obama continues to ponder what next, it may well be that he is so worried about being the next LBJ that he forgets the record of another Democrat president. One who could not grasp why being seen as weak abroad leads to so many problems. Who didn’t understand how to respond to aggression and made poor diplomatic decisions. Perhaps it’s not Johnson he should be worried about being compared to, but Jimmy Carter.
Why are we in a rush to get more of our people killed in a perhaps meaningless effort? I for one am glad as hell that we have a President that doesn't take Bush's "ready-aim-shoot" approach to international events.
Not sending the troops needed gets troops KILLED Idiot……….
BS. Utter BS.
And if you're convinced it's not BS, then we ought to pull all of our people ouut of there ASAP.
Though you may wanna deny it cause you dont wanna see whats happening. More and More Troops are dying in Afghanistan. The Top Commander requested more troops to STOP this from happening and so the mission could be accomplished without it happening.
This request was HOW LONG AGO ???
How Long must the Troops continue to DIE at the rate they are now before YOUR Messiah decides to do something and do what the General request…How many must DIE while he travels the world and BOWS to other leaders ?? HOW MANY ?????????????
Well, doofus, remember that , as you said yourself, General McChrystal REQUESTED the increase. he doesn't get to make that call. No general officer does. That's the way our system is quite intentionally designed; the military doesn't get to make major policy decisions, the civilian leadership does.
And THOUGHTFUL civilian leadership very carefully assesses its options before making a decision. I know, you're not usd to that, since George didn't and couldn't exercise much thought before Cheney told him what decision to make, but Obama's methodology is the way thoughtful people decide things. And, while it's a shame that ANYBODDY is dying over in Afghanistan, whatever the number is, it's less than what Obama will put in jeopardy if he arbitrarily gives in to McChrystal and the rightwingnuts.
I'm glad as hell we have a President who's more than willing to think before putting our young military folks at risk.
And now we know why you arent in the military. The surge your messiah was against in Iraq worked and he has eaten his words ever since.
Now we need that same surge in Afghanistan and he made a promise he knew nothing about and thats ending these Wars. He made a promise to the American people he knew nothing about and now he is torn to uphold a BS people or give the military what they have requested to SAVE lives of US soldiers in combat.
Did you ever stop for a rightwingnnut millisecond to think about the lives that Obama may be saving by not recklessly sending them to Afghanistan? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the best way to save American lives is to pull troops OUT of Afghanistan, instead of sending more troops in to possibly meet an unnecessary death?
Nawwww…….. the ready-shoot-aim mentality of the chicken hawks is always the answer.
Pulling out isnt an option and your MESSIAH said that HIMSELF. But since we are doing nothing more then passing problems on to the future generations why not one more right ??
We're not fighting Afghanistan, and we're sure as hell not conquering and/or "fixing" Afghanistan. We're fighting Al Qaeda… and Al Qaeda is no longer IN Afghanistan. So why ISN'T pulling out an option? Why leave our forces there to act as a magnet for anybody with a beef against the United States?
See, when you see the world in black and white, through your 1950s TV, nothing ever changes. But the REAL world is all sorts of shades in between. Circumstances have changed since Obama said what he said, so what he said months ago may bo longer be applicable today. Didn't you learn ANYTHING from Bush's disastrous regime? How the unwillingness to back off any decision, even when he should have, was catastrophic?
WIthdrawal doesn't equate to losing. There are times when one can leave when the job is done. Afghanistan is probably one of them.
So I guess its changed since YESTERDAY also correct ??? He says we will FINISH the JOB…
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/25/living-t...
I don't care if it's Obama or a rightwingnut blogger. I'm waiting for an answer:
What IS the job? What WILL constitute a "win" in your opinion? What will it look like?
Go ahead and answer those questions. You've got a few days before Obama will answer them for the nation. Let's see how smart and analytical you are.
WOW you hate it when your PROVED wrong huh ?? That link just sent you over the edge……LOL And if it was up to me Afghanistan would be Lake America already.
Actually, I didn't bother reading what you linked. You never provide anything worthwhile on your blog, so I figured anything you'd link to was worse.
And if your idea of "winning" is turning Afghanistan into Lake America, it merely shows why so many foreigners hate America. Afghanistan isn't our enemy. The Afghani people aren't our enemy. But, because you're too stupid to understand the differences in people, you're willing to blow up the whole lot of 'em and let God decide.
If we COULD turn Afghanistan into Lake America (and that's doubtful to anybody who's even glanced at a map of that area) it'd be the absolute worst thing we could do. Why? Well, you see, Simpleton, a whole lot of people worldwide might decide we deserve punishment for being so stupid and so incredibly arrogant. First we invade Iraq, and now we destroy a nearby country because.. we can?
Thank God you live in some backwater Missouri town and you don't have a position with any sort of responsibility. Just keep practicing: "You want fries with that?" and you'll surely get a promotion soon.