For the past several weeks, the usual suspects have been attacking President Obama for not making a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan quickly enough for their warmongering taste. And despite the fact that whatever the ultimate decision is, additional troops won't be deployed until next spring, they continue to insist that a decision must be made now.
Here are just a few examples from the WMD-mushroom cloud-cakewalk-in-Iraq crowd: we have the "dithering" seven deferments Dick Cheney suddenly concerned about our troops being in danger.
John "President Wannabe" McCain still wanting to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb something, and Charles Krauthammer who has taken it upon himself to decide how a president must act -- which would presumably fall somewhere between himself and Attila the Hun.
And in a class(less) by himself is Bill Kristol the lead cheerleader for the war in Iraq, who unbelievably says:
... what the White House thinks in the sense that they think it's an excrutiating decision, it's very tough. I think that's pathetic ... why is this a tough call?
Why is this a tough call? As we have learned over the past six years, there are thousands of reasons.
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3 comments:
War decisions are indeed grave and deserving of thoughtful deliberation. But, what the Obama defenders of the protracted deliberation are convieniently ignoring is that candidate Obama declared the Afghanistan war to be the war worth fighting, the "central front" in the war on terror. Those were his positions during the campaign. In March 2009 he ordered more troops to Afghanistan. We are in our 8th year of war there; it isn't like this is a new conflict. Obama previously derided Bush for not following through on the war in Afghanistan (he took his eye off the ball, was the Obama/Biden refrain, oft repeated). Fast forward to fall 2009, and Obama is now uncertain of the worthiness of the war itself, whether the war is against AQ or Taliban or both, and what strategy and troop level to implement. Candidate Obama said he'd listen to the commanders in the field; in fall 2009, he's two-plus months from receiving the commander's recommendation and can't make the decision. Just because deployment takes months, doesn't mean the decision making needs to take months.
Jeff
Good points but I have no problem with things said in campains without full knowledge and then reconsidering.You are right we have been there 8 years next question> I wish they would have reconsidered Viet Nam more instead of "we have to win" or look bad. Which one of us really thinks Afghanistan is going to be a partner in peace, a partner in world trade? I would ask all of us is this war worth it? Let's nation build right here, with jobs, infrastructure.
When you manage an enterprise one of the things you learn is that good decisions are made on time. Decide too early and you run the risk of not having the best information. Decide too late and your plan, even if it a good one, is doomed because you're too late. Easy concepts to grasp.
McChrystal's recommendations are specifically related to time. He reported that we are losing ground and we need to get additional resources there quickly to implement the winning strategy before it is too late. Obama is waiting too long.
Jeff also makes the excellent distinction between Candidate Obama and President Obama. Both Obamas are very clever guys. And Candidate Obama was right, in my opinion, when he said it is important not to allow Afghanistan to become AQ's safe harbor.
President Obama is demonstrating the weakness that many of us feared. He has never been responsible for any outcome other than a political campaign. He has never done a hard thing in the real world. Now he gets to, and it is no fun. He is about to own the Afghan outcome and there are no really good choices. Welcome to the real world.
Academicians should stay in the tower. Theory is greatly admired there, and everything else is simply implementation. War isn't like that.
Hags
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