Blogs For Victory

And the soldiers need to know what they are fighting for. Krauthammer via NRO’s The Corner:

Well, I think what’s really important here are two dates. The first is August 30. That’s when the McChrystal report was sent to Washington. That is three weeks ago. Obama has had a single meeting [on that report] since then.

He says he hasn’t reached a conclusion — I suppose because he is spending all his time preparing for Letterman and speeches to schoolchildren — to focus on a war in which our soldiers are in the field getting shot at and, as the president himself is saying, without a strategy.

Now, the other date is the 27th of March, when Obama gave a speech in the White House flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State, in which he said, and I will read you this, because it is as if it never happened, “Today I’m announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

So we for six months have been living under the new Obama strategy, of which he says today we have none. And his next sentence is, again in March, “This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review” — not the beginning, the end of the policy review.

So it has been his policy, and now he tells us we don’t have a cart and we don’t have a horse…

…You either can act on that or not. It’s not a complicated idea. Obama is not stalling because he’s studying all this. Obama is stalling because a) he doesn’t know and b) he doesn’t want to go politically against his own party.

Our soldiers have an absolute right to know that the orders which send them in to battle – which may send them in to grave wounds or death – are animated by firm plan. As it stands, Obama – by his own admission – doesn’t know what he wants the troops to do, and isn’t even close to figuring out what he wants to accomplish. The soldiers have been fighting with incredible bravery and with some success even in this deteriorating situation…their Commander in Chief has just told them that he’s got other things on his plate more important than figuring out what we’re going to do in Afghanistan.

I realize that Obama probably needed to be coached in order to know who outranks whom among his military aides; that Obama probably couldn’t tell anyone what a CIWS is; that when a soldier says “flank”, he’s not talking about a type of steak; that, in short, President Obama has zero military experience and zero knowledge of military affairs and history. That’s ok – a President doesn’t have to be a Napoleon to be an effective Commander in Chief. It helps to have a fund of knowledge in order to better correct and challenge the generals, but its not a requirement – especially when you have a first class Secretary of Defense like Gates. But Obama is the only man who can make a decision and ignorance of military affairs does not excuse him from the requirement to both make decisions, and make them swiftly when lives are at stake.

If we are to ask an American soldier to spill the blood of an enemy and risk his own life in so doing, then we must ensure that he’s got a clear mission with a decided goal. With President Obama, our soldiers have neither. My biggest fear is that Obama is simply afraid to make a decision – that he’s afraid to either risk lives or risk his political prospects, and thus remains caught in a web of indecision. But he must be made to move – pressure must be brought on Obama to force him to choose. One way or the other – in or out; fight or withdraw…no more hesitation and waffling. Choose.