Comments on: Obama plans to announce troop decision on Afghanistan next week

By: Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:50:04 +0000

“The administration’s plan contains “off-ramps,” points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or “begin looking very quickly at exiting” the country…”

Gosh, out of those three alternatives, I wonder which one Zero will most likely favor up front?

By: Joseph Brown

Joseph Brown — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:54:31 +0000

The “wrong lessons” on VN came about because Washington thought micro-managing the war was the right way to go. Mcnamara had the Edsel built. ‘Nuff said?
Obama is about as smart on military matters as Mcnamara and less than your standard issue E5.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:38:47 +0000

Ed’s right. “Off-ramps” (an “exit strategy” by any other name) weakens the plan before it even gets started, because the enemy knows what our conditions for quitting are. People we need to have rely on us won’t, because they’ll understandably be afraid of what will happen after we hit that exit ramp.

This is the kind of half-hearted, half-##### effort I’d expect from a party that still obsesses over the (wrong) lessons from Vietnam.

And it’s moments like these that I really miss Dubya.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:22:45 +0000

It seems like we’ve been hearing a decision is coming in the next few weeks for months now. No doubt Obama has been hoping the soldiers already in Afghanistan would have been defeated by the Taliban by now so he could have a good excuse to declare the war lost to satisfy his anti-American Liberal political base. I’m sure the thinking from the WH is “if we wait one more week maybe the Taliban will finally achieve their victory”.

Notice that even if he finally makes his decision to send more troops it won’t even begin until March, giving the Taliban another 4 months to achieve their goal. And oh by the way, let’s make sure you let the enemy know you are willing to guarantee their victory, even if you have a troop surge, by including a “cut and run” strategy in the surge plan if there is the slightest challenge during the surge. Brilliant!