Scratch Obama's Afghanistan Rhetoric

Wait a minute. Bush's whole problem was that he didn't keep enough troops in Afghanistan to literally scour the countryside for that evil bin laden because of Iraq, right?

Or not. Same as it ever was. Hopefully he has the sense to realize Afghanistan would make Iraq look like a cakewalk and his campaign rhetoric was "just words".

As he weighs his options, Obama will have to balance his calls during the campaign for intensified effort in Afghanistan against recent warnings by some of his senior advisers, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of the dangers of getting deeply engaged in a place that has a long and bloody history of resisting foreign occupations.

Obama has indicated in recent weeks that he favors the idea of setting limited objectives, including ensuring that Afghanistan "cannot be used as a base to launch attacks against the United States." He cited the need for "more effective military action" while warning of Afghan hostility to foreign troops. His "No. 1 goal" is to stop Al Qaida, he said.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

Unfortunately, it could have been foreseen that Obama would have a long and out of round learning curve to be placed in such a responsible position. Amateur mistakes:

--Providing no guidelines to Congressional Dems about writing a stimulus bill. It is a goofy and porky mess. For examples see http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/02/03/doorbells/
--Poor vetting and staying with bad, bad choices. In addition to the crooks who some of our fellow voters insist on returning to Congress, Obama is setting a new pace in placing crooks in his administration. Dumb...unless he wants advice on how to get crooked. Is there really no one qualified for HHS in the country except Daschle? Ditto Geithner at Treasury?
--Trying to appease Iran. They turned around and bit Obama's hand for petting them. What a disgrace for us.
--Implying that business profits are evil. Is he for real?
--Talking tough about Afghanistan in the campaign and starting to go wobbly now.
--Being just plain stubborn about denying his own fallibility.
--Picking Biden for VP.
--Allowing Michelle to wander around the Administration facilities asserting she is part of the Administration.

How many more major blunders can we expect from this unworldly philosopher now caught in the real world headlights? I wish him luck in quickly learning how to operate on planet Earth. It is too bad he had so much charm he landed himself in office unprepared.

[SacTownMan]

Oh come on Fred at least he hasn't voted "present" yet!

[Fred Beloit]

Hahaha, Sac, I'll just add this to bolster one of my points.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-overlooks-perils-of-reaching-out-to-iran/

[mark l.]

When barry tells the press that 'every american needs to pay their 'fair' share of taxes', 20 bucks sez not one of them laughs.

[Anthony]

In the end, I think the only solution to Afghanistan will be to draw an firewall across the country -- so long as the bad guys stay in the east, along with the tribal areas of Pakistan, we leave them alone. Come across the firewall -- get burned.

[CaptainVictory]

"His 'No. 1 goal' is to stop Al Qaida, he said."

Stop them? Or maybe cut a deal and hope they become our friends?

If the following assertion by Frank Gaffney is true (see http://tinyurl.com/bzzmfg ), our foreign policy is in big trouble:

"According to GeostrategyDirect.com, a newsletter published by The Washington Times' ace national security reporter Bill Gertz, 'Diplomatic sources said Barack Obama has engaged several Arab intermediaries to relay messages to and from al Qaeda in the months before his elections as the 44th U.S. president. The sources said al Qaeda has offered what they termed a truce in exchange for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. "For the last few months, Obama has been receiving and sending feelers to those close to al Qaeda on whether the group would end its terrorist campaign against the United States," a diplomatic source said. "Obama sees this as helpful to his plans to essentially withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq during his first term in office."'"

[Mark Buehner]

I thought we were going to pull all our troops from Iraq and invade Pakistan?

[comatus]

Fred, I feel you're being unfair to "unworldly philosophers."
Obama has never claimed to be one, he hasn't the credentials, and
I just don't see how he'd be welcome in our ranks.

Thank you.

[Fred Beloit]

Like a lefty, comatus, I apologize if your oversensitivity has allowed you to feel your own pain. Forgive and let's move on...to the next blunder.

[mark l.]

"Obama has indicated in recent weeks that he favors the idea of setting limited objectives, including ensuring that Afghanistan "cannot be used as a base to launch attacks against the United States."

actually, I thought the base of attacks against the US was Boston, New York, and Newark.

If the planes had been flown out of Afghnanistan, I would consider it the base of the attacks.

[BoneShaker]

The more failures and backtracking Obama has with foreign entanglements the more he will push for a win on the homefront. Each time he has to back down on his naive campaign rhetoric he will have to deliver something to placate the rabid socialists that form his original power base.

[GG]

The Afghanistan talk was only there so Obama wouldn't look like a total wimp, so he never really intended to do go there. Good for him; that place is a death-trap, and he would've looked ridiculous crticizing the success of Iraq then choosing failure in Afghanistan. He's going to get challenged hard by the Russians, Iranians and Chinese though, and I doubt he has the guts to stand up to anyone; he seems 100% risk averse and terrified someone may not love him.