The big campaign speeches and oodles of rhetoric during the 2008 campaign are encapsulated in this speech…
Demonstrating that “Judgment to Lead,” and following up on all that lofty “we will do this and that” type stuff, the President has done…
Precisely…
Nothing…
If the war on terrorism is best fought in Afghanistan, then why aren’t we sending troops there, Mr. President?
The president was considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government’s small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table Wednesday were ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.
The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.
Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.
In other words, he isn’t sending troops for an indefinite period of time. Okay, I get that. That’s fair.
But when you run on a platform of criticizing the guy before you for fighting the wrong war, it shouldn’t take you a year to commit to properly fighting the right one. In the end, however, this is just more hollow campaign rhetoric from a guy who has no idea what it means to keep a campaign promise.
