Obama: I'm sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, maybe....I gotta look at it a little closer. You can't rush into these things...Normandy wasn't taken in a day (well, actually it was). No, I'm definitely sending the troops this time....maybe. No, I'm not sending the troops, I don't like any of the four options. I might change my mind...maybe not. I'm not...that's definite...a definite maybe.....I don't know, maybe I'll send them....maybe I won't.

Barack

It's called thoughtful deliberation...a concept completely foreign to you knee-jerk, reactionary, un-self-aware right wing buffoons; and a stark contrast to your hero Commander Flightsuit.

Haven't heard one mention in the last several days about how obvious it is the White House was testing the market. Looks to me like their true base went apeshit and didn't buy their own guy's spin: "We're not doing what the general asked, we're only sending 30,000 troops, er, 'plus some', and half of them might be for, uh, training, and not really what he wanted."

Meanwhile pundits from the right wonder about his "indecision and waffling" just as they did about Clinton, without really getting that indecision really is an option for such "leaders." They can let any military problem metastasize, with devastating consuquences to our soldiers' lives and even global stability, and get away with blaming the usual suspects when the time comes. Old trick. So tiring that it keeps working for them.

If Bush were waffling this long one can only imgaine what the media would be saying.

Meanwhile, people and the troops wait.

My guess is it isn't thoughtful deliberations so much but the fact that we don't have 30,000 additional troops to send anyway.

That's the fact of the matter.

And probably even less prospects of gaining more volunteers for service since pc rules allowed a known spewer of Muslim fanatical rhetoric to remain in their midst until he snapped and committed mass murder on our own troops ,from within.

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Mel did not make it....

JD: Normandy wasn't taken in a day

(well, actually it was).

No JD, actually, I believe it was not.

Normandy Campaign

It's called thoughtful deliberation

No, it's called not knowing what the fuck you are doing.

Jack

The truth is that Obama does not want to win that war. His people are on the other side.

Jack

The beaches were taken the first day. That's what I meant.

Jack

Obama should be as callous and irresponsible with the lives of soldiers under his command as Bush was. Send them... wherever because God told you to and hope that everything just kind of works itself out in the end because you're too busy reading your bible to plan an end game. I've heard that the troops really liked being treated that way. I'm sure if Obama was as callous that no one on the right would use it to make some kind of political point. Surely you wouldn't hear Jack saying "Obama is like Bush" or anything like that.

Just imagine what the world would look like right now if we had had thoughtful leadership for the eight years we didn't.

Most people who are overly critical of the President's desire to make smart, well-informed decisions have never been in charge of anything, much less a behemoth bureaucracy.

Apparently you didn't read what Colin Powell had to say (don't rush a decison). The retired 3-star General that is the current Ambassador in Kabul says no more troops.

Plus, Gen. McChrystal’s troop increase request is missing two key words: EXIT STRATEGY.

While polls show the public wanting Obama to listen to his General’s they are also saying no more troops for Afghanistan. Apparently the public wants Obama to hold fast on current troop levels but to let the General’s decide how to best use those troops. That seems like what is happening today, but with little success. The public has not been polled on how important it is to have an exit strategy and I have to wonder why.

What ever happened to the Biden plan? A compromise was once floated that was McChrystal in the large population areas and Biden in the countryside. While that sounded overly simplistic it seemed to make more sense than the plans on the table to increase troops anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000, especially since all of these plans are incomplete since they lack an exit strategy.

At a high level, this should not be rocket science. What is the goal. Is that goal achievable. How might it be achieved. What resources are required, both civilian and military. What are the chances for success. How might those chances for success be improved. When and how will we measure our level of success. How do we transition to Afghan control. How and when do we exit. Why have we not measured these items before. This war effort has been mismanaged from the beginning. Think not, why was bin Laden allowed to escape when cornered at Tora Bora.

Do you have any answers for these Jack? Or are you just dithering around.

Were it up to me, I would shut it down and pull the troops out. Afghanistan isn't worth one more drop of American blood.

Jack