This gets ever more painful to watch:
President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
To translate: “Obama doesn’t want to make a decision to send or deny the troops, but he needed a plausible excuse to spin things out a while longer – Eikenberry provided it”.
Meanwhile, however, people are still dying there – and our troops have got to wonder ever more often if they’ll be given a clear mission and proper support from the politicians back home.
The truth of the matter is that Karzai may be a lot of things, but the ability of his government to assert control over all of Afghanistan rides on our efforts – and it would be the same no matter who was in charge of Afghanistan. Its not for us to settle Afghanistan’s political issues – it is for us to provide the safe haven where Afghans of good will can work it out, just as Iraqis of good will worked out Iraq’s future under the shield of American arms. Most Afghans, like most of the people in the world, just want to be left alone to get on with their lives – right now, the Taliban is making Afghans wonder if it will be Americans or Taliban they’ll have to deal with in the long run. We have to convince the Afghans that we are the power which will stay, not the Taliban. We do that, and we’ll get our Afghan version of the “Anbar awakening”.
What Obama is doing is playing right in to the enemy’s hands – he’s being irresolute. Someone pointed out that the time between 9/11 and fall of Kabul in 2001 was a shorter time than between presentation of the plan and Obama’s continued refusal to makea choice. Our political leaders in Washington must make it clear to President Obama that he must decide – one way or the other, and right away. No more time for thinking it over – it is time to act.
UPDATE: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, DITHERING IS STRENGTH.
Blogs For Victory 