Mr. Obama’s Afghan Surge: What Do You Think?
December 2, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
As I mentioned, I did not watch Mr. Obama’s speech last night; I did, however, read the speech (which you can find here). I have a quick post about it at my blog. Basically, I don’t think Mr. Obama made his case for another surge, and I’m still inclined to think the U.S. should withdraw (though I am open to being dissuaded).
That being said, I sincerely hope that Mr. Obama is right. I’d like to see as little death and suffering (in the long run) as possible. If this proves to be the way to achieve this, then I will be happy to have been proven wrong.
So, what do the readers of ThePolitic think? Is Mr. Obama’s plan a good one? Why or why not?
(For a few other interesting takes on the subject, check out Chris Dierkes, Nick Gillespie, Glenn Greenwald and Reihan Salam.)
I didn’t see it either – i don’t have to….It’s just not in the Democratic/liberal/socialist DNA to handle stuff like this decisively. Obama navel gazed for a whole frikkin year. ‘Winning a war is not fair, save the baby whales and stuff blah blah’. I fear for the Afghan outcome.
Say what u want about Bush but when his generals reccommended the surge – he went for it pedal to the metal against a universe of naysayers – Obama included.
Obama following in the same war-mongering footsteps of the Bush regime represents a revolutionary new era in American democracy.
I think the only good that can come out of the proposal of this latest surge is that all of the people who were yearing for Change(tm) and swooning a year ago at the election of the first black president are being hit with a reality stick. In other words, the presidency is a puppet’s role and the new boss is the same as the old boss.
During the next presidential election, there will be no excuse for being delusioned about image. All Americans will start to realize that whether they vote for Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum does not matter.
Charles,
Barack Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan should not pose a surprise to anyone. He even indicated that Pakistan should also be assisted militarily. He indicated during his campaign that the focus should be in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
July 15, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSWpe79MNI
Pay attention at around 17:30
It’s not pleasant news that more soldiers are going into harm’s way, but it was clearly mentioned during the campaign.