What is Obama supposed to do?

I understand that Obama is now our president and he can't keep blaming the previous administration but the war in Afghanistan and Iraq are not his fault. He was put in a position where he couldn't please anyone, especially the right, no matter what he did. And here we are, sticking it out in Afghanistan, sending 30,000 troops and now the comparisons to Vietnam are flying everywhere.

But let me be the first one (and I'm sure I'm the first one to do this) to agree with Obama's move. By reinforcing troops in Afghanistan, he's hoping to stop the decline of conditions in that country. However, this "winning" and "losing" concept by most Americans is completely ridiculous and unrealistic. In occupation wars such as the war on terror, troops are on the ground but there's no clearly defined battle lines or signs of progress except for the stability of the country itself. If Obama were to leave the same number of troops or pull out immediately, the destabilizing effects it would have in the region would be disastrous. So those that say "why are we wasting more American lives? Why are we risking more troops!?" are off base since a complete withdrawal would have basically been nixing the sacrifices that the military has made since the initial invasion of the country.

And it's funny how fundamental and value-based the Republicans are, and then they flip-flop, now questioning a war that they basically started. Saying it was a war we can not win. Calling it hopeless and a waste of American troops. Saying that it's just Obama pushing an agenda.

Sound familair? It's what the left said about Iraq a few years ago. Funny how things have changed.

And funny how things have changed in Iraq, where violence is down and US forces are slowly reducing their numbers. But you won't hear anything positive about that, definitely not from the right. Apparently staying the course is fine when Bush is in office, but not when Obama is. Nevermind that the troop increase in Afghanistan may create the same result in Iraq. Yeah, there's no possibility that it's going to happen.

What is he supposed to do?

Full withdrawal may be years away, it may not be an option at all. I know Obama has set a time table but doesn't everyone realize that it could change regarding conditions. If things improve I'd imagine that troops coming home would happen. If they don't... we'll probably stick it out.

You know, that thing Bush did in Iraq, regardless of public opinion. And now look what is finally happening there.

Funny. Same philosophy. Different faces. Same criticism.

US can't win in Afghanistan, says Gorbachev

And he would certainly know a thing or two about that since the Soviet Union invaded and was in a murky war in Afghanistan for much of the 1980s... something that has been long considered that country's version of Vietnam. His diagnosis was basically that Afghanistan is too scattered and too much of a clan culture to be controlled militarily.

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, drawing on his experience of military failure in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said the U.S. can’t win the conflict there and should begin pulling out its soldiers.

Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are battling a Taliban-led insurgency, is too fragmented between clans to be controlled militarily, Gorbachev, 78, said in an interview today in Berlin. While he said President Barack Obama would be unlikely to take his advice, Gorbachev said he saw no chance of success even with more U.S. troops.

“I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution,” Gorbachev said in Russian through a translator. “What we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society -- and they should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops.” 

Considering how much the Afghan war hurt the Soviet Union, the United States might want to take a look at these statements and the similarities between the invasion by the USSR and the current occupation by the US. 

More losses in Afghanistan

President Obama has a hot potato he's going to have to address now as things aren't going well in Aghanistan war for US forces.

KABUL – Roadside bombs — the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers — claimed eight more American lives Tuesday, driving the U.S. death toll to a record level for the third time in four months as President Barack Obama nears a decision on a new strategy for the troubled war.

The homemade bombs, also called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, are responsible for between 70 percent and 80 percent of the casualties among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and have become a weapon of "strategic influence," said Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz in Washington.

The attacks Tuesday followed one of the deadliest days for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan — grim milestones likely to fuel the debate in the United States over whether the conflict is worth the sacrifice.

Obama has nearly finished gathering information on whether to send tens of thousands more American forces to quell the deepening insurgency, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. A meeting Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be among the last events in the decision-making process, Gibbs said.

Do you pull out the troops? Reinforce them? One thing Obama is going to have to do is SOMETHING, becuase right now it looks like he's just sitting and waiting while people lose their lives. His thinking is probably more along the lines of waiting to make an informed decision, rather than the knee jerk reaction that got America in that country in the first place - but people aren't going to be very patient with his apparent indecisiveness.

Decision time.

Al Qaeda doesn't need a home base, does it?

There has been talk about whether or not the war in Afghanistan has disturbed Al Qaeda and prevented them from being as powerful as they could be without a suitable home base in a "lawless" country. Some say that Al Qaeda is still a major threat whether or not we're in Afghanistan - basically nixing the purpose of the war - and others say that it has severely reduced their capability to strike America. Jim Arkedis is one of the latter people, as he explains the following...

I spent five years as a counterterrorism analyst for the Pentagon and rigorously studied plots from Madrid to London to 9/11. The above arguments may have merit in a piecemeal or abstract sense, but fall apart in the specific case of what we all dread: a large-scale, al Qaeda operation aimed at the United States.

It is certainly true, for example, that terrorist groups can accomplish much online. Individuals can maintain contact with groups via chat rooms, money can be transferred over the Web (if done with extreme caution), and plotters can download items like instruction manuals for bomb-making, photographs of potential targets, and even blueprints for particular buildings.

But all the e-mail accounts, chat rooms, and social media available will never account for the human touch. There is simply no substitute for the trust and confidence built by physically meeting, jointly conceiving, and then training together for a large-scale, complex operation on the other side of the world.

Basically, it's a lot easier for you to train to do something very bad when you have an entire country to roam around in. When you have to hide and constantly dodge attacks, getting these large-scale terrorist attacks are much more difficult.

Despite the difficulties in Afghanistan, one would have to say its better to have Al Qaeda on the run rather than having them lining us up in their gun-sights.