Nathan Scandella (personal)

Who's Running the Show, Anyway?

In a recent interview, President Obama said that he wants an exit strategy for Afghanistan, so that it doesn't wind up like Iraq. Great idea, Barack. Aren't you the guy who should be crafting that? And shouldn't you have had one before you decided to ramp up the war there? Obama admitted that he decided to send 17,000 more troops in Afghanistan before his own analysis on the conflict was even completed. Are you kidding?

It's bad enough that the American public seem to have forgotten that we don't live in a military dictatorship. We have elected leaders, civilians, making the decisions about whether to enter into wars, or not. Only the technical details of how to carry out the battles are supposed to be left to military commanders. Obama seems to imply that it's not his decision to make, with respect to formulating an exit strategy. Which leads me to the other outrageous part of his Middle East policy: Iraq.

If Obama does understand that he is Commander in Chief, and the military leaders work for him, then he flat-out lied about his intentions regarding ending the war in Iraq. He's not sticking to his campaign timeline (withdrawal in sixteen months), and he's not ending the war after that period, either (up to 50,000 troops will remain). If he doesn't understand that these are his decisions - and his alone - to make, then Afghanistan is going to become an even bigger quagmire, because no exit strategies are coming out of our boys on the ground.

Even George W. Bush understood that he was The Decider. It's pretty bad when you understand your job even less well than George Bush did.

Posted at 02:18AM Mar 23, 2009 by Nathan in Politics  |  Comments[0]