He sent 17,000 in February.
Fox News is predictably pissing all over it. Their talking point from GOP headquarters appears to be to say that it “wasn’t the kind of speech Churchill would have given” (how many of those did Bush give?), and to whine and carp that he set up a timetable.
I’m watching MSNBC and they’re pissing all over it. Predictably?
I’m underwhelmed. Good luck in getting anything done in 18 months. I’m left wondering what took him so long to make this decision.
It took him 4 months to make a decision. He can fly to DEN to sign legislation nobody read but he can’t listen to the people he hired to do the job correctly.
So you think its a bad decision, but you wish he had made it sooner?
Where did I say I wished he made it sooner?
Maybe he actually wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing? Three months is not a long time to make a decision like this, especially since he already sent 17,000 troops earlier this year, and since there was no request for any more troops to be sent before next year.
We’ve seen what happens when brain pickled cowboys make decisions from the “gut.” There’s nothing wrong with a President actually trying to take the time to understand what the fuck he’s doing.
False dichotomy. I don’t see anything creative in this decision. McKristal asks for 40k and he gives him 30k. Brilliant!! This is what most people have been predicting for months.
What does “creative” have to do with anything? The issue isn’t being "creative, the issue is making a decision between A, B and C, and, more importantly, making sure the decision is correct. That’s not something that can be determined without a lot of research, discussion and thought.
If he had come up with something creative, I could understand why it took so long. This is management 101-- give your people a little less than what they ask for since you know they sandbagged a bit in their request. I’m underwhelmed.
Once again, why is “creativity” a criterion? It wasn’t a fucking art project. He wasn’t asked to create anything. It was basically a yes or no decision, and it wasn’t a decision to be made lightly. He wasn’t ordering salad dressing. It required some extremely complex analysis.
I think this could work on the timetable set if the objective was only a section of Afghanistan. The speech was pitch perfect, as usual. I think he said all the things that needed to be said.
I’m glad he made the point of the fiscal impact of this endeavour. A trillion dollars already spent and now another 30 billion per year. Wars are expensive.
I’m just sort of middling whelmed, if that. And I cannot depend on judging just how much of that is a deep-seated bias against war as a solution. But just for starters, I much prefer to hear such news in tones of gravity and somber necessity, without the traditional trumpets and drums. I’m sick to death of hearing those goddam! drums…
And I don’t wonder what took so long, I figure he was thinking. A refreshing change.
You’re right. It took a lot of extremely complex analysis to make the decision everyone knew he would make from day 1.
I want creativity from my president. I want him to think outside the box. And I don’t know why you’re cheering this, since you didn’t even want to invade Afghanistan in the first place.
:rolleyes: Didn’t we have more than enough of that from BushCo?
It’s not like it would be an immediate, instant withdrawal in 18 months, by the way. Just the beginning of a graduated draw down that would be spaced (if I recall correctly) over another 5 years.
Killing foreigners: IOKIYAD
Ooh, does this mean we get to flip it all around? When do we get to start calling people chickenhawks and keyboard warriors again? Why doesn’t Obama send his two daughters over there? etc. I’m so excited.
Are the rules of engagement being modified, or are we just sending 30,000 more targets?
So what’s the betting on when McChrystal comes back asking for the next 30-40,000, next summer?
We now have to marandize them before shooting.