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December 02, 2009

Comments

Geoff Brown

As an American and a former servicemember, I hope your assessment is correct. I'm inclined to agree with it. I realize that, if His Hopeful Changeness succeeds, he will claim to have snatched victory with his own hand from the jaws of defeat where George Bush left it. I can live with that if it means a safer US and a stable Afghanistan on the road to peace and prosperity. After all, I know that he is simply extending Bush's policies.
Afghanistan's government is better now than any it has had since British rule, possibly better than under British rule. Same for Iraq. Both nations have long rows to hoe yet, but they have a real chance of success.
We have never been "losing" the campaigns in either location. There has been far more violence than any civilized person wanted and far more Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed than any decent person wanted. Certainly our own sacrifices have been significant -- that is, those of our soldiers. The Taliban, the Baathists and Al Quaed have been disruptive to us but they have not regained any territory. They do not run either Iraq or Afghanistan. The cost has been a sorrowful one, not in dollars but in lives. But the lives lost are part of war, and a reason to use warfare only when we must.

Tom Bowler

...he will claim to have snatched victory with his own hand from the jaws of defeat where George Bush left it.

No doubt. How laughable that he loftily urges that we put aside partisanship, then in the next breath blames all of his problems on the Bush administration.

Obama is motivated by political advantage, or in this case the avoidance of political disaster. It's my guess that those months of dithering had a purpose, which was to allow popular opinion to turn decidedly against the war. Then Obama would bow to the will of the people and let Afghanistan go. I imagine he was dismayed to find himself between a rock and a hard place when that didn't happen. He is stuck with winning this war.

It's worth taking the time to write to our senators and congressmen to remind them that George Bush is the prime example of a successful commander-in-chief, which he demonstrated to us and to Obama by ordering the surge that ultimately turned the tide in Iraq. Obama can follow that example and win, or suffer the consequences of losing.

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