Remember when "doing nothing" was "not an option?" At least that was the rhetoric when it came to the stimulus package and health care reform.
Ah, but what about Afghanistan? By Obama's own actions, doing nothing is perfectly OK, apparently. It has been almost three months since General McChrystal informed President Obama that they had 12 months to win this war and needed 40,000 troops to make it happen. Obama has done absolutely nothing during that time and the result has been more dead soldiers and a war effort that is slipping away. Our brave men and women in Afghanistan are being hung out to dry by this president. In a piece accurately titled "Obama's Killing Time" over at Red State, Haystack details the cost of Obama's indecisiveness:
Four more US Soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday as we continued to wait anxiously for Obama to make up his mind about how to respond to General McChrystal's report. During the pre-surge days in Iraq, 4 dead soldiers was enough for every major news outlet to scream from the rooftops about the costs of war. Now? Hardly a whisper.
Why is it so hard, Mr. President, to DO something about Afghanistan-even if you have to adjust your strategy again later-given that doing NOTHING has only gained you more fallen heroes? Since taking office, YOUR casualty count is nearly DOUBLE that of George Bush's worst year as Commander in Chief. Why? Since receiving McChrystal's assessment back in late August, your casualty count is rapidly approaching half of the entire year's total. Again, Mr. President, WHY?
The president's response to criticism on his lack of a decision has been that he's taking his time to "get it right" and won't rush the process. Funny how that wasn't the case with the dash to pass the stimulus and health care reform, where getting "it right" wasn't all that important, I guess. Anyway, there is more to this than meets the eye and Haystack shares his own theory:
It's becoming increasingly obvious that Obama is taking all this time because he's still muddling through just exactly HOW to lose and leave and make it Bush's fault. Changing the words, and re-defining the purpose, and downsizing the goal from victory to success to withdrawal takes time. The loss of Soldiers along the way, sadly, appears to be just the collateral damage of bad politics and bad policy and poor leadership.
The bottom line? Obama has never been into winning wars and has looked at Iraq and Afghanistan as distractions to his never ending campaign presidency and expansive domestic agenda. The man is simply not focused on, or even mildly concerned about, our military, the threat of terror or the defense of this nation. He is Jimmy Carter in an empty suit and all that stuff needs to take a backseat to his big government master plan.
Just imagine if we did achieve victory in Afghanistan – Obama would, no doubt, find it necessary to go there and give a speech to the Taliban apologizing for America's actions. God forbid we offend some Muslims that want to kill us after all.
