Continued discussion about Afghanistan

with James Rubin, Martha Raddatz and Peter Baker
in Current Affairs
on Thursday, October 8, 2009 * * * * *

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Continued discussion about Afghanistan with Martha Raddatz of ABC News, Peter Baker of The New York Times and James Rubin, adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs

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Keywords:
World
politics
Afghanistan
Middle East
Obama
Iraq

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    1. REMant  01/13/2010 02:39 AM Report

      If the Dems in Congress are opposed to expanding this war, at least it shows that there is a limit to their liberalism. They are undoubtedly influencing the president, as is the guns vs butter issue. If the president hasn't read anything significant about the Vietnam war I don't suppose he is alone, since it was swept under the rug after 1975, indeed, after about 1970. It might also be that he sees Gordon Brown exiting shortly and a Conservative prime minister in the wings who yesterday declared for something less than making over the country. Even so 40,000 troops only part of which will be fighting men are certainly not enough to win even with the strategy they are proposing of just concentrating on population centers, and it appears from reporting of meetings that the brass are now willing to admit that. It seems to me they not only lowballed the estimate, they offered up the community organizer's option, as Martha indicated. Personally, I really don't think they had the best interest of the country or the troops in mind when they did this. While I don't think they are necessarily disingenuous - the military wants to fight wars, and the aid people, want to aid people - but it is hard not to see it as an example of bureaucratic aggrandizing, and nobody wants to be out of a job at the moment either, so it must be up to somebody, somewhere else to make an objective assessment about costs and benefits.

      Today's announcement of the Peace Prize (they have to give the things to somebody) will certainly put some more pressure on him to back off on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but I'm not sure that will be a good thing. It could just result in a protracted and more costly struggle. I notice, btw, they didn't wake HIM up at 4 AM.