Posted on 03/05/2009 3:08:24 PM PST by Dawnsblood
On the Friday after he was inaugurated, Barack Obama held a full-scale National Security Council meeting about the most serious foreign policy crisis he is facing — the deteriorating war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "It was a pretty alarming meeting," said one senior Administration official. "The President was extremely cool and in control," said another participant. "But some people, especially political aides like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod who hadn't been briefed on the situation, walked out of that meeting stunned." The general feeling was expressed by one person who said at the very end, "Holy s___."
The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan has only gotten worse since then. Both countries are suddenly boggled by constitutional crises; both Presidents — Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari — lead governments teetering on the edge of chaos. And the war is going badly on both sides of the border. The Pakistani Taliban has taken over the Swat Valley, a mere 100 miles (160 km) from Islamabad, and has wreaked havoc with NATO supply lines into Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass; the Afghan Taliban staged a dramatic terrorist attack in downtown Kabul. In his first major decision as Commander in Chief, Obama promised an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, but he still hasn't fully defined the U.S. goal there, even though he repeatedly insisted during the campaign that this war — the war that began as an effort to find Osama bin Laden and dismantle al-Qaeda — was in the national interest and had to be won.
A policy review is under way — a fourth policy review; Obama was greeted by three when he took office, but none was entirely satisfactory.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/afghanistan-is-better-than-you-think-15096
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but...the more the MSM paints Afghanistan as a mess and a Bush failure, the more they can talk up Obama in 3.9 years as the Afghani savior.
0 can’t be trusted with our military.
You know how difficult multi-front wars are to fight. Looks like he is shaping up to start a mighty big one right here in the motherland.
I would love to call it his Quagmire now, but its our boys lives he’s playing with.
Aren't we just creating more terrorists with this escalation?
No.
You’ve got it all wrong.
Obama is Peter Griffin; CLINTON is Quagmire.
Operation Rushbo quickly turned into a quagmire once Rush requested a debate without preconditions. How is Obama going to handle a real war? Obama will surrender of coarse.
Hell, No.
Afghanistan: Where Empires Go To Die.
Not worth our blood and treasure.
“The President was extremely cool and in control,”
Could it be because he doesn’t have a clue? Could he be another Chance, th gardner?
“Afghanistan”, “Quagmire” and “Obama” in the same sentence?
SWEET!!
1600 PA Ave must be furious with TIME.
I guess this means Joe Klein of off the Christmas...er...Kwanza card list?
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