Afghanistan News: Obama says NO to everything!

[DGuller]

My concern is that Obama gives off the perception of being indecisive, which is very damaging just by itself, regardless of how justified that perception is.

[KRonn]

My concern is that Obama gives off the perception of being indecisive, which is very damaging just by itself, regardless of how justified that perception is.

Good point. And political foes will try to make him seem that way too.

[Tamas]

My concern is that Obama gives off the perception of being indecisive, which is very damaging just by itself, regardless of how justified that perception is.

Yep. Watching from afar, indecision is the only thing I have seen from him so far.

[The Brain]

You guys are racists.

[Valmy]

My concern is that Obama gives off the perception of being indecisive, which is very damaging just by itself, regardless of how justified that perception is.

Yep. Watching from afar, indecision is the only thing I have seen from him so far.

Nothing wrong with that at all.  Being decisive usually means being a fool.

[DGuller]

Nothing wrong with that at all.  Being decisive usually means being a fool.

Like in most things, there is a happy medium.  Being either rash or indecisive is bad, especially in matters of war.

[The Brain]

Nothing wrong with that at all.  Being decisive usually means being a fool.

Like in most things, there is a happy medium.  Being either rash or indecisive is bad, especially in matters of war.

Irrelevant. He won the Peace Prize, not the War Prize.

[Valmy]

Like in most things, there is a happy medium.  Being either rash or indecisive is bad, especially in matters of war.

True true.

I vastly prefer Presidents who are overcautious than those who make idiotic decisions in a misguided attempt to be a "strong leader" or whatever.

[Viking]

Obama is voting "present" on Afghanistan.

I hate it when Hansmeister's snarky anti-Obamaism makes perfect sense.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Obama is looking for a way to "manage" Afghanistan.  He can't openly advocate a cut-and-run because he knows he'll be blasted for "losing the war."  He can't openly advocate a higher troop commitment without being blamed for "expanding the war."

Ultimately this is a live grenade for his Presidency because I don't think he or his people fully understand how it will affect him politically.

His strategy on health care reform has essentially been to push as much of it off onto Congress so that they take the worst of the beating.  With health care reform he knows if he gets anything out he can placate any part of his base that feels the plan didn't "do enough" by pointing to Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats as reasons for it not being as robust as the far left would like.  On the flip side people "in the middle" will probably end up with something that isn't so odious it's a deal breaker on voting for him again.  He already knows he won't get the far right so (correctly) he isn't too concerned with them. 

Unfortunately as Commander-in-Chief he can't distribute the blame to a bunch of suits in Congress and there isn't really a huge list of various alternatives.  Sure there is a huge list of various alternatives but in reality and to the public there are two options:  "slowly draw back" or "expand the conflict."  Doesn't matter how many different shades those two options are colored in, those are the only two options possible and both have the potential to cause an immense uproar from Americans.

Ideally for Obama Afghanistan just continues to simmer on the back burner and isn't a big issue in the next election (there's a genuine potential for this), the danger is he makes a decision and then things get "big" and then whatever decision he makes is going to be used against him.

[Admiral Yi]

Nothing wrong with that at all.  Being decisive usually means being a fool.

Being decisive often means recognizing that you are choosing the lesser of two evils and that deferring that decision for later only makes the outcomes worse.  If he decides to withdraw a year from now the dead soldiers will have died for nothing.  If he decides to increase troops in a year the Taliban will be that much stronger when we engage them.

[alfred russel]

Maybe Obama realizes that the whole campaign is pointless, but he has to reconcile that with his campaign strategy of running as a Afghanistan hawk (probably to appear centrist while running as a dove on the more topical issue of Iraq).

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe Obama realizes that the whole campaign is pointless, but he has to reconcile that with his campaign strategy of running as a Afghanistan hawk (probably to appear centrist while running as a dove on the more topical issue of Iraq).

He has reconciled his campaign rhetoric a number of times.  I think the difference this time is that his pollsters are telling him any real choice will have real negative political consequences for him.  If he cuts and runs the right will flay him mercilessly and the center could get upset about the consequences of Taliban rule in (at least the Pashtun areas of) Afghanistan.  If he ups the ante the left will blubber and the center will have a limited attention span to wait for positive results.

[Fate]

The left isn't going to bolt over an expansion of the Afghanistan war. It's too far away and involves too few individuals to produce anything similar to a Vietnam era liberal revolt.

I suppose the center may have little tolerance for increased causalities without short term results. But the alternative would be a Republican who advocates the same thing?

[Admiral Yi]

The left isn't going to bolt over an expansion of the Afghanistan war. It's too far away and involves too few individuals to produce anything similar to a Vietnam era liberal revolt.

I suppose the center may have little tolerance for increased causalities without short term results. But the alternative would be a Republican who advocates the same thing?

There are political consequences short of voting for the opposition.