Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Does this comic have it right?

Click on the comic for full image

1 comment:

Dr. Smellgood said...

Let me get this straight. Eight years of poor policy that neglected Afghanistan and deflected attention to Iraq, and Obama is criticized for taking a month and a half or so to make a sober judgement? I applaud the logic (allow my sarcasm to simmer a bit).

Regardless of what you think should be done in Afghanistan, it is flat out foolish to think that the decision should be rushed. It's like children who can't wait to see what's under the Christmas tree. It's been about a month since General McChrystal asked for 40,000 additional troops, and it may be several weeks until we hear about any decision. It should be noted that dust is still settling from the storm of an election that took place in August. In fact, in the past 24 hours, President Karzai announced that he hopes to see the complete transition from U.S to Afghan forces within 5 years. Don't you think that might have some weight in Obama's decision to send more troops?

So the argument is that Obama appears to be a "ditherer" and his options become more constrained as time passes. Well, I'm going to assume that those calling him a ditherer wish to see the increase of 40,000 troops. So, the natural thing to do is to pressure him until he succumbs. Maybe those who are pressuring him to make a decision are worried that a sober judgement will yield the decision to NOT send the 40,000 troops.

Again, this is not a post arguing one way or the other on a troop increase. But if you're going to force it out of me, I'd say that 40,000 is not the way to go. However, I'm no 4 star general, so maybe "they" know something I don't.

Allow Obama to take his time in making a decision that will, no doubt, be one of the defining issues of his presidency. We've seen what lack of sobriety and quick decisions based on faulty information yields. I'll stick with the alternative...

But if you want the short answer to the question, NO, the comic does not have it right.