Despite the fact that I find this comic pretty funny, I have to admit that it does make me feel better that Obama was actually listening to people and doing research when coming to the decision about what to do in Afghanistan. Could you imagine the same thing from the previous occupant?
And considering that most of us gave Dubya the benefit of the doubt when he invaded Afghanistan and created this mess in the first place, it seems only fair to give Obama an equal chance to screw up. But as people have pointed out, this decision officially makes this Obama’s war now (it doesn’t matter that he didn’t start it, just like LBJ didn’t start VietNam). If things aren’t looking up by 2011, then he will at the very least have to share the blame with Dubya.
UPDATE: Here’s a comic that pretty much sums up how I feel about Obama’s plan for Afghanistan:
UPDATE 2: Here is a provocative view of what is wrong with our approach to Afghanistan, and what we can do to fix it.
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I find it interesting that people think its Obama’s war and he is responsible if Afghanistan continues to deteriorate because he increased the number of US troops there. What would people’s reaction be if he pulled out and the Taliban overran Afghanistan and then caused havoc in Pakistan which has nuclear weapons? Whose war would that be? If that happened would Obama still be blamed? If yes then he was between a rock and a hard place and he didn’t have a choice.
This was the same argument that kept us in VietNam all those years. The infamous “Domino Theory” that if we left VietNam to the communists, then one nearby country after another would go commie. Well, it didn’t turn out that way. In fact, the Vietnamese kicked the (horribly evil) communist Khmer Rouge out of Cambodia (whom the US had been funding because they were enemies of our enemy the Vietnamese).
So yes, if Obama pulls out of Afghanistan and then the Taliban somehow manages to overrun Pakistan (does anyone actually think this is remotely likely?) then perhaps Obama will get (unfairly) blamed for that. If this is your only reason for having a surge in Afghanistan, then that’s a pretty piss poor reason.
But note that I was not talking about whether or not it was fair that this is now Obama’s war. But just as LBJ did not start the war in VietNam but it became his war, likewise Afghanistan will now become Obama’s war.
And for now, I’m willing to support Obama’s decision. After all, he has far more information and smart advisors than I do. We gave Bush the benefit of the doubt for almost seven years and two wars. I can give the same to Obama for two more years.
1)The Vietnamese were never our enemy. Our enemy were the Vietcong and communists. That war is known as the “American War” by the Vietnamese.
2) we already know the answer (twice) on what happens if we abandon Afghanistan. We hired Al Quada in the 80s to get rid of the Russians and left Al Quada there to evolve into the Taliban.
Bush then went in and “got rid” of the Taliban and gave the Afghan people their freedom that they had before the Taliban. He abandoned the efforts and there was a resurge.
We created the mess in the 1980s. We have to do what we can do to fix it. Afghanistan will always be at war and corrupt. Nature of the beast.
Stats on Education in Afghanistan. During the Taliban control, 900,000 had education, all male. Now 6 million male and female are trying to get an education with “5.3 million children wait in the wings, held back by cultural or security reasons.”