Thinkin’bout Stuff

A sad reminder of the cost of indecision:

This is not to say that casualties of war will end when a decision is made; but keeping troops in Afghanistan with insufficient resources and support to adequately defend themselves will lead to more casualties.

As a result of the President Obama’s now obvious reluctance to make a decision, the loss of lives, whether related to the president’s extended agonizing over a decision or not, is now coupled with a loss of confidence in our president’s ability to lead.

As stated at Thinkin’Bout Stuff on October 30th:

But the question before President Obama requires a decision to be made in the best interest of our country.  If the President does not believe that this war is worth the loss of any lives, then he needs to pull out all of the troops now.

Because if we do not plan to fight to win, if we do not plan to provide enough resources and support for the troops who are already engaged, if the President is hesitating to send more troops because of experiences such as this, he will need to explain to the folks who lose a loved one tomorrow, next week, next month, why their son or daughter died waiting for him to make a decision.

Is pulling out the right decision?  Should he send more troops into harms way?  Ignore the advice of generals and just stay the course?  Frankly I don’t know… that’s above my pay grade, but not above President Obama’s.

Time to stop deliberating like a senator, campaigning like a candidate and reading press clippings… time to start leading like a president.

Time to decide Mr. President.

For someone who supposedly came into office with Afghanistan high on his list of priorities, he really seems to be just now giving it some thought.   Two months ago, an exceptionally long time in the age of modern warfare, we were wondering when he would make a decision:

President Obama is waiting until he has ALL POSSIBLE DATA before making a decision.   That works well in the academia world of hypothetical wars, but waiting to make a decision is a decision to continue on the current path.  If that is the right answer, then say so.  If we need to pull out, say so.  If we need to send more troops, say so.

Leaders do not have the luxury of waiting until all possible data has been gathered before making a decision… the rest of the world keeps moving forward and opportunities, and potentially lives, are lost.

If the correct military strategy and solution is to send more troops into the arena, why are we waiting to consult the civilian, diplomatic and development side; why does it matter what the result of the election is; why do we need to consult everyone before deciding to do the right thing militarily?

Mr. President, this is not about putting the cart before the horse…  the horse is already out there.  Our men and women are already engaged with the enemy, and if you are saying that eight months into your presidency you still do not have a strategy in place for Afghanistan, you still don’t know whether we should send more troops, you still have not even had an opportunity to consult all of the folks you believe you need to consult…  you do realize keeping our country safe is your top priority as president, don’t you?

Maybe you need to set aside your social engineering agenda for a couple of days and take the time you need to make a decision here.  Health care “reform” can wait…

Time to decide Mr. President.

Nearly Three  months ago, an eternity, we were waiting for a decision:

So, is the war worth fighting? If not, great, pull everyone out and move on.  But if yes, isn’t it the president’s job to explain that to the American people? To explain why it is critical to our national security?

Isn’t this the war the Democrats said we should have been fighting all along?  But now that a poll says it’s unpopular, we should just keep it on life support and not provide the necessary resources to win, just to lose slowly?

If it’s all about the polls, guess we can end all of this debate over the Obama’s big plans to take over health care… we don’t want it.

Are Obama and Biden leaders or politicians (silly question)… Biden is concerned about how Americans would respond to sending more troops?  Frankly, we wouldn’t like it, especially if Obama can not explain why, can not explain the path to victory, can not even tell us what victory looks like.  But that doesn’t mean the answer is to not send troops or even discuss the option publicly… the answer is to do your job as commander in chief and tell us what needs to be done and why.

Time to decide Mr. President.

Mr. President… no more academic study, no more polling, no more waiting for something to happen… something is happening every day.

It is time to decide.

President Obama spoke today about the potential for sending reinforcements into Afghanistan:

Transcribed from the video:

When I came in I had to make a series of immediate decisions about sending additional troops to ensure that the election could take place during the fighting season but I was crystal clear at the time that post-election we were gonna need to do an additional assessment.

General McChrystal has carried out his own assessment on the military strategy but its important that we also do an assessment on the civilian side, the diplomatic side, the development side, that we analyze the results of the election and then make further decisions moving forward.

My determination is to get this right and that means broad consultation not only inside the US government but also with our ISAF partners and our NATO allies and I’m going to take a very deliberate process in making those decisions.

So I just wanna be absolutely clear, because there’s a lot, been a lot of discussion in the press about this, that there is no immediate decision pending on resources because one of the things that I’m absolutely clear about is you have to get the strategy right and then make determinations about resources, you don’t make determinations about resources and certainly you don’t make determinations about sending young men and women into battle without having absolute clarity about what the strategy is gonna be.

So we are gonna proceed and make sure that we don’t put the cart before the horse.

Don’t we already have men and women in Afghanistan?  I could see if this was a decision about whether we should be entering into a war in Afghanistan in the first place, but we already have boots on the ground.  Are we placing these men and women at risk by not providing the necessary support as requested by General McChrystal?

But President Obama hasn’t said no; he hasn’t said yes either;  for now, Obama is voting “present”.

He says we need to have a strategy first?

Wait… you have been president for how long?  And you are just now getting around to thinking maybe you need a strategy for Afghanistan?  And this is number what on your to-do list?

In June 2008, candidate Obama said (From HotAir):

“… it is my job as president, it would be my job as commander in chief, to set the mission, to make the strategic decisions in light of the problems that we’re having in Afghanistan, in light of the problems that we are having in Pakistan, the fact that Al Qaida is strengthening, as our national intelligence estimates have indicated, since 2001.”

So he clearly knew it was his job, so why hasn’t he done it?

President Obama is waiting until he has ALL POSSIBLE DATA before making a decision.   That works well in the academia world of hypothetical wars, but waiting to make a decision is a decision to continue on the current path.  If that is the right answer, then say so.  If we need to pull out, say so.  If we need to send more troops, say so.

Leaders do not have the luxury of waiting until all possible data has been gathered before making a decision… the rest of the world keeps moving forward and opportunities, and potentially lives, are lost.

If the correct military strategy and solution is to send more troops into the arena, why are we waiting to consult the civilian, diplomatic and development side; why does it matter what the result of the election is; why do we need to consult everyone before deciding to do the right thing militarily?

Mr. President, this is not about putting the cart before the horse…  the horse is already out there.  Our men and women are already engaged with the enemy, and if you are saying that eight months into your presidency you still do not have a strategy in place for Afghanistan, you still don’t know whether we should send more troops, you still have not even had an opportunity to consult all of the folks you believe you need to consult…  you do realize keeping our country safe is your top priority as president, don’t you?

Maybe you need to set aside your social engineering agenda for a couple of days and take the time you need to make a decision here.  Health care “reform” can wait…