Posted by
Bill Crawford on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:44:00 AM
This is an issue that gets more dangerous with each passing day. The request for extra troops made by Obama's hand-picked theater commander in Afghanistan still sits in his in box. Two months now, if I'm not mistaken.
And now word is coming out that a decision will be announced- after Election Day. You don't mean the runoff election in Afghanistan? No, I mean the ones in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
So our national security and the safety of our troops in harm's way are a lower priority than political considerations here. Do I have that right? Please, somebody chime in here and show me where I missed out in my reasoning. Educate me.
This is coming from someone who may have suspected that the whole Iraq war-bad, Afghanistan war-good thing was a political ploy last year- a wedge issue to beat over Bush and McCain and still stay away from the 'soft on security' problem. Suspected, but willing to give the benefit of the doubt because after the Iraq surge worked, pushing the terrorist elements towards the Pakistan border was a good thing to do. You can hide in the mountains, but you can't train there. Taking Afghanistan away was clearly the next step.
Why political motivation? Why would Obama request that the Bush Afghanistan report from the transition remain secret, and then send his Chief of Staff out to the talk shows to pretend that it didn't exist- and Afghanistan was just an untouched swamp that they were left to clean up? If you act that crassly, somebody is bound to call you on it and have it bite you back.
When it seems clearer by the day that you are holding up support for the troops so you have a better shot of getting your base out in a couple of elections here, the bite back will be that much harder.