Commentary By Ron Beasley
I am beginning to think that Obama's main problem is he gives the impression that he doesn't really know what he wants to do. Steve covered Andrew Bacevich's five questions that Obama must answer but isn't. Well McClatchy's Nancy Youssef points out that Obama has yet to define U.S. objectives in Afghanistan.
As the Obama administration and Congress begin a heated debate about
how many more American troops to send to Afghanistan, military
observers, soldiers on the ground there and some top Pentagon officials
are warning that dispatching even tens of thousands more soldiers and
Marines might not ensure success.Some even fear that
deploying more U.S. troops, especially in the wake of a U.S. airstrike
last week that killed and wounded scores of Afghan civilians, would
convince more Afghans that the Americans are occupiers rather than
allies and relieve the pressure on the Afghan government to improve its
own security forces.The
heart of the problem, soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and some
officials in Washington told McClatchy, is that neither Barack Obama's
White House nor the Pentagon has clearly defined America's mission in
Afghanistan. As a result, some soldiers in the field said, they aren't
sure what their objectives are.
So how can he convince people to let you lead if you don't know or don't tell them where you expect to go. And how can those you send off to war do their job if they don't know what that job is. We were critical of George W. Bush for leading from his gut - leading from indecision is just as dangerous.
And this is no longer an acceptable excuse:
Obama, of course, inherited a war without a strategy. George H.W. Bush
turned his back on Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew; Bill
Clinton never confronted the growing al Qaida threat there despite a
series of terrorist attacks; and George W. Bush chose to invade Iraq
rather than concentrate on the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan.
It's now Obama's war and it's time for him to answer those questions and tell us what he wants to do and how he plans to do it..
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