To: koan who wrote (527721 ) 11/11/2009 12:57:59 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to Obama campaigned on escalating the war in Afghanistan, taking it into Pakistan as necessary. He sent more troops in the spring and now he'll soon be sending more. Its always been a foregone conclusion Obama will do essentially what the generals advise with only modest changes. First, he doesn't know what else to do. Second, the ONLY thing Obama and the WH gang care about are political concerns. If they manifestly do something different than the generals advise and something bad happens there'd be hell to pay politically. “President Barack Obama on Wednesday will consider a new compromise plan for adding troops to Afghanistan that would deploy 30,000 to 35,000 new forces , including as many as 10,000 military trainers, over the next year or more.”The White House continues to haggle with the military (Make it 37,500!), which suggests that this is a PR battle to cast the president’s final decision as something other than mere acceptance of McChrystal’s recommendation. After all, if Obama simply, albeit belatedly, approved McChrystal’s plan, people might wonder why we’ve wasted all this time. And the Left might realize that all their squawking and foot-stomping got them nowhere. national-security decisions are held hostage to political considerations. Obama’s dawdling has upset our allies, emboldened our foes, and frustrated our military. On a political level, his delay only infuriated conservatives and embarrassed his own supporters. Most of all, we’ve left troops in the field without the support and strategy they need for a prolonged — unnecessarily so — period of time. And for what? Apparently so Obama could flex his muscles and declare he wasn’t going to be told what to do by his generals.commentarymagazine.com
