Now that he's comfortably in office, President Obama seems to be pursuing a policy of open-ended procrastination and delay in Afghanistan. The ultimate "goal" of this "strategy" seems to be to slow Obama's slide in the polls, thus enabling him to get his domestic agenda passed.
The problem is, Obama's dithering is turning Afghanistan - and even nearby Pakistan and Iran - into a giant, chaotic mess.
President Barack Obama is betting his presidency on the success of his health-care bill. The politics of health care may now be costing troops their lives in Afghanistan.And this is not a new development. Obama's procrastination has been apparent for weeks, even to left-leaning columnists like Mort Kondracke:It may be that Obama wasn’t serious during the campaign when he committed to victory in Afghanistan. But, even if true, that can’t explain delay. If he wants to surrender, then he needs to order a retreat before men and women lose their lives needlessly. Indeed, he should have done so already.
But if he is serious about winning, then he should have acted already. How can he be stuck in the middle for so long with so much at stake? The answer may well be that the high stakes health-care debate has come between the troops and their reinforcements.
Source:
"ObamaCare Debate Risks Lives of More U.S. Troops"
Kevin Hassett
October 19, 2009
More and more, it looks as though President Barack Obama is going to adopt a ``split the difference'' policy on Afghanistan that will basically continue current strategy - and likely lead to catastrophe.The Obama Administration is now setting us up for more delays... and they are laying the blame on Afghanistan's disputed elections:
Source:
"Current Afghanistan Strategy a Failure"
Morton Kondracke
Indianapolis Star, October 12, 2009
The White House signaled Sunday that President Obama would postpone any decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan until the disputed election there had been settled and resulted in a government that could work with the United States.
The question at the heart of the matter, said President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services that the Afghan people need?” He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Source:
Decision on Afghan Troops May Wait
The New York Times
October 18, 2009
Nice try, Rahm. Especially since Obama appointee Richard Holbrooke has been overseeing Afghanistan's elections and warning of a "muddled result" for months:
“There’ll be disputes, as there are in American elections. We only picked a senator from Minnesota just a few weeks ago after rather lengthy delay,” Richard Holbrooke said during a panel discussion at a Washington think tank. “We aren’t going to know on the evening of Aug. 20 who won. CNN is not going to call this election. ... All 41 candidates may call it. The process will take a while.”
Source: Politico
