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[CaP'N GRuNGe]

Tells his people to go back to the drawing board. Wants clear plan to get in and get out.

 

I'm sure the uproar from some will be hugh on this one.

[WaterMan]

I say keep pumping troops in without a plan or equipment. If I was Bin Laden, I would have walked far away from Afghanistan in 8 years.

[Perchoutofwater]

He either needs to send in the troops McCrystal is asking for or he needs to start the withdraw. His indecision is putting a lot of brave men and women in harms way. At this point I don't care which he does (which may be why he has waited so long), I just want our men and women to have what they need or to come home.

[WaterMan]

He either needs to send in the troops McCrystal is asking for or he needs to start the withdraw. His indecision is putting a lot of brave men and women in harms way. At this point I don't care which he does (which may be why he has waited so long), I just want our men and women to have what they need or to come home.

 

I feel the same way. Let's load them up with what they need or bring them back. I'd hate to be there.

[Azazello1313]

LBJ redux, sweet.

 

Here's something to ponder...Kabul fell to US forces on11/14/01...65 days after 9/11. Mcchrystal delivered his war request to Obama on 8/30/09, 73 days ago and counting.

[evil_gop_liars]

Here's something to ponder...Kabul fell to US forces on11/14/01...65 days after 9/11. Mcchrystal delivered his war request to Obama on 8/30/09, 73 days ago and counting.

 

Did Polk get your log in info?

 

[TimC]

Can we surrender to Afghanistan and give those crappy 10 states that won't make it as reparations? I mean even real dirt crapholes like Michigan and California might look a little better than Kabul. Okay, maybe just California looks a little better.

[AtomicCEO]

LBJ redux, sweet.

 

Here's something to ponder...Kabul fell to US forces on11/14/01...65 days after 9/11. Mcchrystal delivered his war request to Obama on 8/30/09, 73 days ago and counting.

 

You're saying Obama should have Afganistan brewing Budweiser and watching NASCAR by now?

 

Lets say this drags on for another 80 days without implementing a new strategy. We're still making the awesome level of progress that we made for the 7 years after 11/14/01 under Bush, correct?

[bpwallace49]

Lets say this drags on for another 80 days without implementing a new strategy. We're still making the awesome level of progress that we made for the 7 years after 11/14/01 under Bush, correct?

 

Yep. It is ridiculous that we havent had a clear plan of action for the Afghan war well . . . since it began. First plan was to get Bin Laden, which obviously hasnt worked. WT Hell are we doing?

 

That goes for Bush and Obama. I boggles the mind how the US can have an armed conflict without any real structured plan or clear objectives. What a disservice to our troops.

[Savage Beatings]

Did the Bush administration have an actual goal for our troops to achieve in Afghanistan? Something like catch and kill BinLaden? If he did, what was it? Similarly does Obama have a goal for our troops to achieve there? When he campaigned he seemed to be saying that he would really concentrate our efforts there. I'm not sure what the right move is. I thought that we would be handing Iraq over to the Iraqis and then moving some of those troops into Afghan... whatever happened to that idea?

[bpwallace49]

Did the Bush administration have an actual goal for our troops to achieve in Afghanistan? Something like catch and kill BinLaden? If he did, what was it? Similarly does Obama have a goal for our troops to achieve there? When he campaigned he seemed to be saying that he would really concentrate our efforts there. I'm not sure what the right move is. I thought that we would be handing Iraq over to the Iraqis and then moving some of those troops into Afghan... whatever happened to that idea?

 

I think that the focus is now Afghanistan vs Iraq, but either way there is a HUGE lack of dirction from the current and the last CIC on these subjects.

 

Iraq was a collective pile of crap once we destroyed their gubmnet and infrastructure without and real "plan" after that. Afghanistan seems to be in a holding pattern after we started to screw around in Iraq. remember how quickly we advanced in Afghanistan directly after 9-11? After we started Iraq, it seems we lost focus on what the objectives are/were.

 

Although health care is importnat to address, we can wait for the right to submarine the efforts later. Resolving the military action should be first priority. Hell, think of all the money that could be saved by NOT continung to support Iraq! Bad choice by the Dems to do the health care stuff NOW when we coulda been out of Iraq by now.

[bushwacked]

His indecision is putting a lot of brave men and women in harms way.

 

? Everything I'm reading from military officials is that his indecision isn't effecting anything as of yet; troops can't be deployed for another 1.5 months.

 

Similarly does Obama have a goal for our troops to achieve there?

 

If he does he surely hasn't clarified it very well; not yet anyways.

[Qdaddyo]

 

Here's a take on this subject from popular blogger Andrew Sullivan that is really interesting.

[isleseeya]

He either needs to send in the troops McCrystal is asking for or he needs to start the withdraw. His indecision is putting a lot of brave men and women in harms way. At this point I don't care which he does (which may be why he has waited so long), I just want our men and women to have what they need or to come home.

 

 

well said

[bpwallace49]

Here's a take on this subject from popular blogger Andrew Sullivan that is really interesting.

 

VERY well reasoned.

 

Here is the text . . .

 

The news that Obama has refused to sign off on any of the four major options presented to him in Afghanistan reminds me of why he was elected president. This critical decision - arguably the most critical of his young presidency - is one that will not be rushed the way such decisions often are. His insistence that the civilian branch truly control policy there and that empire not be passively accepted as a fait accompli are real signs of strength in the struggle to recalibrate American foreign policy. Can you imagine Bush ever holding out like this on the military? Or for these reasons:

 

Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.

 

The stunning honesty of Eikenberry has undoubtedly concentrated minds on the core pillar of any counter-insurgency strategy: the Karzai government. But, of course, no options have been closed off yet:

 

The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.

 

Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.

 

What we are seeing here, I suspect, is what we see everywhere with Obama: a relentless empiricism in pursuit of a particular objective and a willingness to let the process take its time. The very process itself can reveal - not just to Obama, but to everyone - what exactly the precise options are. Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is "tough" or "weak", we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored. He is, moreover, not taking the decision process outside the public arena. He is allowing it to unfold within the public arena. Others, moreover, are allowed to take the lead: McChrystal, or Netanyahu, or Pelosi, in the case of Af-Pak, Israel-Palestine and health insurance, respectively. Obama encourages the process but hangs back, broadly - and persistently - pursuing certain objectives without tipping his hand on specifics or timing.

 

So the troop question is rather like the public option question.

 

 

Obama's position - almost a year into his presidency - is yet to be revealed. The president waits, prods, allows the parties to reveal their hands, and keeps his final detailed position to himself. By allowing the debate to continue in public, he also tries to get the public more, rather than less, involved. So we too get to show our hand as the debate continues. And the polls show Americans pretty evenly - and understandably - divided on the excruciating and ultimately prudential question of what to do next.

 

What strikes me about this is the enormous self-confidence this reveals. Here is a young president, prepared to allow himself to be portrayed as "weak" or "dithering" in the slow and meticulous arrival at public policy. He is trusting the reality to help expose what we need to do. He is allowing the debate - however messy and confusing and emotional - to take its time and reveal the real choices in front of us. This is politically risky, of course. Those who treat politics as a contact-sport, whose insistence is on the "game" of who wins which news cycle, or who can spin each moment in a political storm as a harbinger of whatever, will pounce and shriek and try to bounce the president into a decision. And those who believe that what matters in war is charging ahead regardless at all times will also grandstand against the president's insistence on prudence.

 

But he won't be bounced and his concern seems to be genuinely to do the right and the most sustainable thing. Which is a kind of strength we haven't seen in a president since Reagan

[Azazello1313]

I think/hope this is a move to mollify the left before he essentially follows the recommendations of his generals and experts.

[AtomicCEO]

I think/hope this is a move to mollify the left before he essentially follows the recommendations of his generals and experts.

 

I think if you ask the guys with the hammers how to fix the problem, they are going to say it needs to be hit with a heavy blunt object.

 

I'm hoping that the Afganistan planning takes into account other opinions than just military ones.

Edited November 13, 2009 by AtomicCEO

[Savage Beatings]

It's hard to tell you how I feel without hurting you

So try to think about yourself the way that I see you

Your life revolves around a force of oppression

And I won't deal with true blue devils of correction

 

Got no flowers for your gun, no hippychick

Won't make love to change your mind, no hippychick

No hippychick, no hip hip hip hip hip

[WaterMan]

I think if you ask the guys with the hammers how to fix the problem, they are going to say it needs to be hit with a heavy blunt object.

 

I'm hoping that the Afganistan planning takes into account other opinions than just military ones.

 

Or Haliburton's

[nuke'em ttg]

we're fightin the Taliban/Al-Qaeda right....Special Forces should be givin free reign ta fight this fight where ever ....get off the World War III strategy and just kill the sneaky basstuds

[Ursa Majoris]

we're fightin the Taliban/Al-Qaeda right....Special Forces should be givin free reign ta fight this fight where ever ....get off the World War III strategy and just kill the sneaky basstuds

Nuke is wise (in this case).

 

Special forces, surveillance and proper intelligence gathering is where it's at. This problem needs a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

[Clubfoothead]

He either needs to send in the troops McCrystal is asking for or he needs to start the withdraw. His indecision is putting a lot of brave men and women in harms way. At this point I don't care which he does (which may be why he has waited so long), I just want our men and women to have what they need or to come home.

 

 

LBJ redux, sweet.

 

Here's something to ponder...Kabul fell to US forces on11/14/01...65 days after 9/11. Mcchrystal delivered his war request to Obama on 8/30/09, 73 days ago and counting.

 

You guys are such turds.

 

All of a sudden, after 8 years of not criticizing the strategy in Afganistan, you now have a problem with the current plan. Obama tells the military that none of the 4 plans on the table will achieve our objectives so we stick with the current plan until they come up with a better one? Now to you two the current strategy is a failure resultingin the needless deaths of American troops? That's political hackery and nothing else. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. McCrystal is only calling for in 2009 what skins was clamoring for back in 2001, which is a proper troop level to crush the Taliban and al queda, something we've never had there because the former Coward-in-Chief was too busy invading, occupying and rebuilding the wrong country.

 

Perch just pukes out whatever Sean Hannity and Glen Beck tell him to but I certainly expect more out of you, Az. Perch says he doesn't care what Obama does then goes on to whine about what Obama has chosen to do. If the admins are going to allow this type of drivel, why not let skins back in?

[nuke'em ttg]

not sure it's the drugs but i thought Miller's Crossin sucked.....was that one of yer cleverly constructed burn jobs Chavez or was i spoosed ta like it

[Clubfoothead]

not sure it's the drugs but i thought Miller's Crossin sucked.....was that one of yer cleverly constructed burn jobs Chavez or was i spoosed ta like it

 

 

You should have liked Miller's Crossing.

 

[AtomicCEO]

not sure it's the drugs but i thought Miller's Crossin sucked.....was that one of yer cleverly constructed burn jobs Chavez or was i spoosed ta like it

 

I watched it last week. Good stuff.

 

Also, wrong thread.