Obama wants to give it a good shot, and then….
Call me a ditherer, but I wish I could muster the certainty that some Americans seem to have about the right course to take in Afghanistan. The consequences of staying and escalating seem to me as unknowable as the consequences of leaving.
So we’ll see what President Obama has to say about the matter. From what I can gather, he wants to give it a good shot — another 30,000 troops, which when combined to troops already committed amounts to a doubling of our manpower under his presidency — but he also wants to make it clear that it is a commitment with limits in time and manpower.
It’s the kind of approach that pleases nobody, but I can’t honestly pretend to offer a better one.
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248 comments Add your comment
RW-(the original)
December 1st, 2009
8:03 pm
At least he’s going with three prompters tonight.
Rightwing Troll
December 1st, 2009
8:04 pm
Don’t worry, after 8 years of bumbling about, the nut sacks have all the answers now…
T
December 1st, 2009
8:04 pm
D@ng I got some training tonight. So, I’ll youtube it later. Bless youtube.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 1st, 2009
8:05 pm
Hey Taliban, hang in there on the other side of the Pakistan border for a few years, it’s all yours!
Party like it’s 1399!
Normal
December 1st, 2009
8:05 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n03a7cLf0M
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 1st, 2009
8:08 pm
Suck it up, Code Pinko, suck it up.
getalife
December 1st, 2009
8:09 pm
He just gave “all troops out ” date.
Let the Marines get some then a training mission like Iraq.
Both occupations end by 2011.
Jay
December 1st, 2009
8:12 pm
I think he’s laying it on a bit thick about the previous administration’s failures there. Not arguing with the accuracy of it, only the propriety of it in a speech like this. He’s too defensive politically….
Dave R.
December 1st, 2009
8:13 pm
Does anyone else think that the Taliban can hold out for another 18 months until Hope & Change’s timetable is over?
Then what does he do?
Yeah, I thought so.
AmVet
December 1st, 2009
8:14 pm
Normal, you rock! Man, they sure sounded like the Fab Four didn’t they?
I’m not going to watch GWB II.
You guys tell me what the toy soldier has to say.
Sorry not you, conned. (That credibility issue and all…)
RW-(the original)
December 1st, 2009
8:14 pm
Iraq bad–check
Bush bad–check
I–check
I–check
I–check
I–check
pathetic
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
8:17 pm
I know Cadet Obama is on but I just can’t bear to watch.
It’s kind of like the San Diego Chicken giving a speech on how he is going to win the Super Bowl.
Dave R.
December 1st, 2009
8:22 pm
Thomas Sowell – “Stepping beyond your competence can be like stepping off a cliff. Too many people with brilliance and talent within some field do not realize how ignorant– or, worse yet, misinformed– they are when talking like philosopher-kings about other things.”
Pretty much sums up Hope & Change in one sentence.
mike
December 1st, 2009
8:28 pm
“It’s the kind of approach that pleases nobody, but I can’t honestly pretend to offer a better one.”
I love the newfound sympathy that many in the media are finding for the President. Did Jay think that Bush was offered a set of easy choices as he was being demonized incessantly?
Dave R.
December 1st, 2009
8:29 pm
Enter your comments here
Dave R.
December 1st, 2009
8:30 pm
Sorry, must remember to dial back the sensitivity on my touch pad!
citizen
December 1st, 2009
8:31 pm
The last hoorah for what is known as the great American military apparatus.
nemitha
December 1st, 2009
8:33 pm
Finally an expansion with an exit strategy!!!! The most basic concept, The Art of War actually includes a chapter on exit strategy, has finally come to Washington!!!!
Midori
December 1st, 2009
8:38 pm
basically Obama said that he didn’t start the fire, but he will give it a helluva try in putting it out, ad getting the eff out of there.
BRAVO!!!
josef nix
December 1st, 2009
8:39 pm
Not watching, but tell me, if my calculations are correct we probably need to subtract 3000 from that 30,000–DADT, you know…has Fierce Advocate said anything about them?
Jay–interesting comment above from you. You’ve got my respect there…
josef nix
December 1st, 2009
8:45 pm
PAUL–
In case you check in here…the Truman-Marshall Plan referenced downstairs…
Jay
December 1st, 2009
8:45 pm
The Fox News anchor just credited Obama for “Bush-like flourishes” in his speech. Quite a concept, that.
On the other hand, GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma offered a reasonable response on Fox to the speech, making sense and sounding rational. More of that, please.
AmVet
December 1st, 2009
8:49 pm
Has ennui set in yet?
danjonglee
December 1st, 2009
8:50 pm
Bush’s fault…..
Hillbilly Deluxe
December 1st, 2009
8:51 pm
Josef
I wasn’t aware of Truman’s family background. Those of us who know our family histories realize full well how we are shaped by them.
On MacArthur: I think his behavior during the Bonus Army marches was despicable. Not only that but his actions were in violation of a direct order. There’s a very good book on the subject, “The Bonus Army: An American Epic” by Paul Dickson and Thomas B Allen.
There’s a great quote in there by a Bonus Marcher, Benjamin B Shepherd, “When I marched off to war in 1917, I remember a Civil War veteran, over seventy years old, telling me, “Son, you are all heroes now. But someday they’ll treat you like dogs.”
I’m not watching the speech either; I’ll just read the transcript later. I know who on here will think it was a great speech and who’ll think it was awful already though.
Normal
December 1st, 2009
8:53 pm
President Obama is still a brilliant speech maker but his words ring hollow. I do not support and I will not support an escalation in Afghanistan. I do not believe that the fate of our nation depends on what happens in a backward country as is Afghanistan. We, as a nation, need to step back and take care of our own. We need to repair, cure, heal, what is wrong within our borders first. Then we can present those results as an example of what can be done to the rest of the world. President Obama is wrong to believe that Afghanistan can be more than it already is. We need to leave. We need to secure and protect our own. We need to step up and do to ourselves what we would have others to to them. We need not waste American lives for a country that does not have the will to save itself. Bring our troops home to protect our home. We cannot save the world. We must save ourselves first. We must present an example of what is possible, but we must present it to ourselves first.
Mr. president, you are wrong. Bring our troops home now. They are needed here more than they are there. Show the world what can be, but show it from within. Make us the example. Make us the way. Any other way is false. Be a leader, do the right thing. Stop the escalation. Bring our troops home. Now!
Jay
December 1st, 2009
8:55 pm
That same news anchor just observed that today’s Democratic Party is nothing like the bold anti-commie party of the JFK era.
Fair and balanced, you know.
Torn
December 1st, 2009
8:55 pm
This is tough. We’ve long fought this war with one eye on the battlefield and one on the poles. I truely believe that you cannot fight a war without both eyes on the battlefield and the intent to destroy the enemy wholey and completely. War is not pretty, but we have the technology, resources and manpower to win at will. Politics is getting the way and OUR own short attention span. Unless we are willing to go “ALL IN”, “No Holds Bared”, we make our own quicksand. I struggle to believe our military of what 100K+ is currently on it’s knees by 15k Taliban. Remove the short term politics, shoot to kill and aim to win and the long term political benefits of victory and success will pave the way. Might not appease the pacifists or the humanitarians, but the longer we tie one arm behind our backs with “don’t shoot” if there are civilians, the longer we’ll be there in the same situation.
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
8:55 pm
To Mike @ your 8:28:
Exactly. If McCain has made the exact same speech the libs. on here would be going absolutely bassistic. Their hypocrisy is knows no bounds.
Midori
December 1st, 2009
8:56 pm
Jay,
don’t you know that watching that garbage will rot your brains?
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
8:58 pm
Does anyone remember the last helicopter leaving from the embassy roof in Saigon?
It happened that way because the U.S. Congress chickened out …………..
Stay tuned …………..
SomaliDawg
December 1st, 2009
8:58 pm
هٔ افراد بشر آزاد به دنیا میآیند و از دید حیثیت و حقوق با هم بر
Barry has somalian blood. The ears show this.
افراد بشر آزاد به دنیا میآیند و از دید حیثیت و حقوق با هم برابرند، همه دارای اندیشه و وجدان هستند و باید در برابر یکدیگر با روح
Need more baggy pants.
?Why no bling?
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
8:59 pm
Excuse me: ballistic !
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
December 1st, 2009
9:00 pm
Look at the little schoolgirlies, all a twitter over the WORDS of big schoolgirly.
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Just a Thought
December 1st, 2009
9:01 pm
What I’d like to know is when he’s going to take the reigns and stop with the “well, the last administration” excuse. When things get tough he continually pulls out, “well, the last administration”. That’s all we’ve heard the past 10 months. He’s the damn President, and needs to have some backbone. Last I heard, George Bush is no longer President. I don’t need him to explain every decision he makes in a national news conference, I just want him do the GD job I voted for him to do.
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
9:02 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6gZefW4yEA&feature=related
Paul
December 1st, 2009
9:02 pm
Jay – first comment: yeah. Second: I watched on NBC. After I turned to Fox for commentary and got… BOR….sigh.. so predictable.
All: did you catch the parts in the speech about apprehending AQ terrorists here who had been sent from Afg and Pak? And the other references about their efforts to acquire horrendous weapons and use them? Those daily intel briefs’ll turn your hair gray real quick. The office is different from the inside.
He threads the needle well. But I did not get the sense this was a political threading; rather, I saw a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, who is aware of the gravity of the threats facing us seriously, and who will do what he sees as necessary to defend America’s interests.
He very obviously sees the current AQ, with their twisted religious ideology, as a graver threat to America than some here do.
So I can support him on this. He laid out the alternatives, stated his objections and his reasons for going with his decision. As he said, we’ll need those forces. For Yemen. And Sudan. And lots of places elsewhere. Even Pakistan. And I disagree with those, like Sen McCain, who said it’s a mistake to announce a withdrawal timetable. Our enemy is not exactly tied into the same conventional military thinking we are. They’re religious fanatics. One year, two, ten, a hundred: they look far down the road. So two years or twenty is irrelevant.
Paul
December 1st, 2009
9:04 pm
Hi Midori!
Just a Thought
December 1st, 2009
9:06 pm
” And I disagree with those, like Sen McCain, who said it’s a mistake to announce a withdrawal timetable. Our enemy is not exactly tied into the same conventional military thinking we are. They’re religious fanatics. One year, two, ten, a hundred: they look far down the road. So two years or twenty is irrelevant.”
That’s exactly the point John McCain was making you moron. All they have to do is wait us out.
electrician
December 1st, 2009
9:07 pm
midori..cnbc and cnn are shredding Obama too
Jay…watch out for the subliminal messages there
"refero quattuor"
December 1st, 2009
9:08 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VktJNNKm3B0&feature=related
Just a Thought
December 1st, 2009
9:09 pm
Electrician,
We all know that CNN & CNBC are the bastions of truth and integrity. Never biased whatsoever.
Dusty
December 1st, 2009
9:09 pm
Well, I haven’t heard the speech but the contents were leaked over and over. Nobody knows whether Obama is right or wrong so I might as do the usual thing and quote somebody: ” Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.” Or maybe “Full surge ahead.”
So there. I support the troops who are over there fighting for us in a place a snake couldn’t love. I’ll support them until every one of them comes home. If you disparage them, I’ll return the favor.
So back to earth oh windy ones. Did I miss NCIS??
————
Oh Truman! One of my favorites. I knew he was a ” son of a gun” but had not heard about the links to the Confederacy.. Not surprised though. A strong man in every way. Figures!!
Taxpayer
December 1st, 2009
9:10 pm
I’m sticking with my original assessment. Three years and not a day longer.
Paul
December 1st, 2009
9:13 pm
Just a thought
So you offer what? We stay in Afg as long as Taliban/AQ and wait them out?
Your idea is to do what, exactly?
larry
December 1st, 2009
9:13 pm
I support the president and this should have been done a long time ago. Like Sept. 12, 2001. No, we got bumbling and dithering and trying to blame Iraq. I worry about Pakastan, that goverment is on shaky ground again.And they have nuclear warheads. Me, as anyone else, would love to have our troops home. But we need to finish the unfinished business.
electrician
December 1st, 2009
9:14 pm
just a thought..my point exactly..not that much difference between any of them..who do YOU trust?
Dave R.
December 1st, 2009
9:14 pm
Did Hope & Change utter the word “terrorist” or “terrorism” once?
josef nix
December 1st, 2009
9:15 pm
JAY–Tom Cole? Do tell. And for those who doubt your “objectivity,” self-included on some topics, your comments should take some steam out of their argument….
PAUL–will keep your comments in mind as I watch in re-run…
JUST A THOUGHT–pretty much my sentiments overall, haven’t read the speech, so can’t say how tonight struck me…
md
December 1st, 2009
9:15 pm
I’m glad he referenced Article 5 of NATO. Now, can someone point out in the NATO charter where it says the US will provide the bulk of the troops.