Opinion Forum

Judgment Day

December 1st, 2009

Today our President has promised to deliver his very long-awaited decision on how his Administration will conduct the war in Afghanistan. Owing to his lack of experience in this area of policy making, he would be smart to throw in the towel.

The cost in life and resources makes on-the-job training for this one-time community organizer just too expensive. I’m hoping the President’s handlers have enough intelligence to not let him do something terribly wrong.

Most of the real experts in this type of situation agree that Obama has waited too long to effect either a withdrawal or a so-called “surge” strategy to gain control of the Afghan war. I predict he will chose the one that produces the best political outcome. The fear of looking less than able to do the job has been one of the underlying reason for all the delays.

The Administration’s domestic agenda took precedence over Afghanistan. Now they will learn why wars don’t wait.

The second-hand notion of withdrawing our troops back to the areas of concentrated civilian population sounds a lot like the early stages of the war in Vietnam.

The cost in human life in this little Afghan war is approaching eight hundred and fifty killed in action. The “surge,” if used again, will certainly raise the toll to one thousand or more. The terrorists have used Obama’s indecisiveness of four months to train and equip a bigger army. This, along with the fact that the Taliban has seized back many areas in northern Afghanistan during this same slow-down of the war.

Cost in money and political capitol has started to get beyond Obama’s control. His handling of the war has sunk along with his popularity. War is expensive. The only way we will ever pay for it and all the other Obama Administration spending is to add even more taxes to the ones we’re bridled with now.

For more information:

Obama faces a hard sell as costs and deaths mount, The Guardian (UK)

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, strategy
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

4 Responses to “Judgment Day”

Tom | December 1st, 2009 at 10:28 am

When you refer to Obama’s “lack of experience in this area of policy making” you’re referring to making decisions regarding military strategy and committing the U.S. military to combat operations overseas. I’d be curious to know what kind of experience you think would prepare someone to make these kinds of decisions. Do you think that presidents should all be former secretaries of defense or former generals/admirals? And by the way, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were better qualified than Obama in this respect, and look how they bungled Iraq.

You’re right that war is expensive. If Obama wants to continue fighting this one, I hope he has the guts to raise taxes (of whatever kind) to pay for it. If the people don’t want to pay for the war, then they should vote out of office anyone who supports it. That would include, by the way, virtually every Republican now in Congress.

larry | December 1st, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Aw Tom
There you go again. Convince me that Obama is better suited than Rumsfeld or myself to run this war. I kidding about me but Donald Rumsfeld is by my estimation the more savvy of the two. Lets face it we haven’t produced any genuine military generals in years except for maybe Tommy Franks and Norman Schwartzkopf. To many top brass military are now just political hacks trying to stay ahead of the hatchet men in Washington. Do you think that Obamas years as an Acorn lawyer makes him the best we can field.

Sure war is an expensive proposition but the taxpayers have always got stuck paying for it. You make it sound like its an unheard of practice. The problem we have is a President that enjoys taxing and spending all the money we’re going to have for the next ten generations. The last thing he wants is to spend it on making war. I have no doubt that he will purpose some solution that generates him some political capitol. Obamas always gonna take care of Obama.

Tom | December 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm

“…we haven’t produced any genuine military generals in years except for maybe Tommy Franks and Norman Schwartzkopf…. To(o) many top brass military are now just political hacks trying to stay ahead of the hatchet men in Washington.” Utter nonsense, Larry. You don’t have a clue.