58 Days and Still Waiting: When Will Obama Make a Decision about Afghanistan?

US Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment and Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers conduct a security patrol in the Nawa district of Helmand province, Afhganistan. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Phillip Elgie. From The Long War Journal

The White House is still sending its minions around, today again to the Sunday shows, lying about what they "inherited" from George W. Bush, spreading lies about the Bush Administration's Afghan policy after ObamaTeam was graciously offered classified advice on the situation. Today one of them said that ObamaTeam was given a briefing that lasted "about an hour" including a one-page written briefing on Afghanistan. This goes along with what Rahm "Dead Fish" Emanuel said last week about having to make it up as they go along in Afghanistan because they weren't briefed, or some such thing.

A man by the name of Kristofer Harrison served as the Chief of Staff to the Counselor of the Secretary of State during the Bush administration. He was there during the briefings.

Harrison writes: I was involved in the the Bush administration's 2008 Afghanistan review and it was every bit as in depth and serious as the one several years earlier for Iraq. It involved many of the same people who helped conduct Gen. McChrystal's recent review and included Democrats, Republicans, our British allies, Afghans, etc. The strategy put forward was sound and competent, and carbon-copy similar to the one that President Obama announced in March.

It is also true that Obama's transition team asked us to hold the Afghanistan review findings, a request to which President Bush acquiesced because (as it was relayed to me) he did not want to box the new president into a narrow set of options. In March, when Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, I did not notice a single change from the new plan that we had given him...only Obama did not resource it with enough troops.

The Chicago mob's behavior is unbelievably unseemly. Here they were given an immense amount of material, a complete strategic review and plan with the author's heading left blank. President Bush felt it was his duty to do so. And all Obama can do is smear president Bush, even after he filled his own name into the author's column.

Obama seems not to understand that it is not President Bush who is suffering here. Rather, it is our under-resourced soldiers in Afghanistan who are suffering. Obama has had his hands on this plan for a full year now, and he's done virtually nothing except play politics. He needs to give our soldiers the resources to succeed, and then help create the political atmosphere so that they have time to succeed. It seems he has the intestinal fortitude to do neither. Weak, weak, weak.

Thank you, Mr. Harrison. You can read the whole thing here, although I've posted most of it.

Update: Monday, Oct. 26. Obama to troops: "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way." You have to wonder how the troops in the field feel about Obama's definition of "rush," since we're already at about day 60 on the dithering calendar. It's not like the troops will show up in Afghanistan the day after this tool finally makes his "solemn decision." The question that HotAir asks, asked a thousand times over: Why wasn't the strategic reassessment begun when he replaced Gen. McKiernan with Gen. McChrystal in May of this year?

Honestly, I simply cannot abide this posturing fool as our President. I don't know how I'm going to stand this for another three years. He spoke to the troops today at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida on the same day that 14 Americans were killed in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan. God bless these sailors for their service. . . however, Obama went to Jacksonville today to tell non-deployed servicemembers--"I won't put you into combat without careful deliberation." I'd like to see him go to Afghanistan and tell our deployed troops why he's taking so long to make a decision about the way forward in this war.

More money for defense, blah blah, "spend our defense dollars wisely," blah blah, "make sure we have the right force structure," as if he would know anything about that, blah blah, "I also promise you this," blah blah, how many promises has this tool broken in the past nine months, blah blah, "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt," blah blah. Yes, he actually said that. We'll back you up to the hilt unless of course you're already in harm's way in Afghanistan, in which case I'm awfully busy with golf every Sunday, pick-up basketball dates with my homies in the hood, and date night every week with Lady Michelle. Oh, and of course Afghanistan strategizing can't get in the way of my almost-weekly appearances to put money in my own war chest for 2012. So it may take awhile, but "I promise" we be backin' you-all to the hilt.



Sounded like he got a real enthusiastic *golf clap* from those sailors. Wonder what he'd get from the troops in Afghanistan? Just askin'.

Barack Hussein Obama: still voting "present." We'll hear from this tool eventually. Count on his decision to be some sort of bastardized compromise that doesn't work for anyone--sort of like The One himself.

Update #2: It can't be good for ObamaTeam that The One is now being referred to as "Hamlet on the Potomac."

Update #3: Fascinating, the YouTube video of Obama speaking to the troops has been "removed." Could it be because of the less-than-enthusiastic response he got from the Sailors? They were respectful, but "restrained" would be the polite way of describing their response. Not a smile in the bunch of the carefully chosen group standing in back of Commander-in-Chief. I couldn't help contrasting that with Bush's big smile and the way he would put his arm around the troops--he did it so genuinely, just couldn't seem to help himself.