I think I know what is humiliating the country, and it ain't "retreat".

It's not easy to get both feet into one pants leg, but if it'll save America then Obama should be willing to give it a try.

As if Bush had any qualities.

submitter: Obama will need some Bushian qualities

He should start a wardistraction in some random country?

Man, it's almost as though Bush knew what he was doing, and not your average freshman-poli-sci-major-Obama-zealot.

You mean that Obama should lower expectations beyond all previously conceived thresholds, then spend several more years lowering them even more, and then finally leave the office in disgrace and the country in shambles?

That just might work!

unclejimbo827: Man, it's almost as though Bush knew what he was doing, and not your average freshman-poli-sci-major-Obama-zealot.

I'm not saying Obama's doing a great job, but it'd be pretty goddamned hard to f*ck things up worse than Bush did.

He had over seven years to capture bin Laden. He failed to do so. Instead of focusing on Afghanistan or Pakistan, he shifted focus to Iraq over what was either a colossal mistake or a terrible lie.

Talk is cheap.

And Obama's a millionaire on it.

sigdiamond2000: Isn't it amazing how NRO always knows exactly what Obama should be doing?

I like how they critique Obama but were pretty damn silent during the Bush years.

What an NRO turd.

There's a reason Afghanistan's slogan is "Graveyard of empires."

"Obama will need some Bushian qualities if he is to spare his country a humiliating retreat"

All it would take is a Bible and a lobotomy.

shivashakti: He had over seven years to capture bin Laden. He failed to do so. Instead of focusing on Afghanistan or Pakistan, he shifted focus to Iraq over what was either a colossal mistake or a terrible lie.

So if only Bin Laden were captured, the war would be over? Wow, why didn't we think of that before! Like it or not you can't destroy Al Qaeda just by capturing their leader, and especially not by martyring their leader as he wants the US to do.

And the war in Iraq was justified. Just because no WMDs were found doesn't mean that we didn't have a moral obligation to bring peace to that area. And I'm still not 100% convinced that they did find WMDs but it was covered up by vindictive US Military personnel to make President Bush look bad.

"Bushian" qualities? So are they saying that Obama should just do enough to try to and barely keep a lid on things and pass of the problem on the next guy?

The author's only half right. Obama should either

A) Fully engage and treat the war in Afghanistan like a war, and do everything in our power to win it (author's POV) or

B) quit and GTFO

The C) approach of middle-of-the-road halfassery is the worst possible way to run a war. Not saying that that's the approach we're necessarily using, just that the author has a point.

No more of this "stand behind your president in a time of war". The right are turning peacenik very fast. Damn you George Will. The calls for Obama to pull out will cascade from everywhere. Alongside faded magnetic ribbons supporting the troops will be new magnets saying "bring them home". Maybe turning Afghanistan in to Yemen was too much to hope for. I hope at least we can turn Kabul and Kandahar into Fallujah and Mosul. At least give the CIA and the Dept of State a place to dig in.

Obama's too busy campaigning for his health insurance panacea to be bothered with a war.

Lionel Mandrake: RockIsDead: Talk is cheap.

And Obama's a millionaire on it.

Another intelligent post.

Yeah, thanks for quoting so the ignore list assholes get a read.

NRO is now proven to be full of shiat. This is essentially taking an article from The Atlantic but with a shot of conservative bullshiat. The Atlantic article is much more intelligent and actually makes non-partisan points. For shame NRO, not surprising convervatives are unable to come up with their own ideas.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200908u/obama-bush

What a bunch of farking douches. NRO = bullshiat

GameSprocket: All it would take is a Bible and a lobotomy.

Obama already has that - remember Reverend Wright and his hate-filled diatribes about how Whitey was keeping people down? "God Damn America"?

As for the lobotomy, well, I think he had one when he took the oath of office. He's forgotten every promise he made on the campaign trail and fallen into the same quagmire as the rest of Washington.

Obama = Bush III.

bberg: shivashakti: He had over seven years to capture bin Laden. He failed to do so. Instead of focusing on Afghanistan or Pakistan, he shifted focus to Iraq over what was either a colossal mistake or a terrible lie.

So if only Bin Laden were captured, the war would be over? Wow, why didn't we think of that before! Like it or not you can't destroy Al Qaeda just by capturing their leader, and especially not by martyring their leader as he wants the US to do.

And the war in Iraq was justified. Just because no WMDs were found doesn't mean that we didn't have a moral obligation to bring peace to that area. And I'm still not 100% convinced that they did find WMDs but it was covered up by vindictive US Military personnel to make President Bush look bad.

ROFLMAO! You should really think about doing comedy.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
OBAMA IS WATCHING YOU.

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AdolfOliverPanties: Rich Lowry is a farking moran. He should just stay home and masturbate to tapes of Sarah Palin debating Joe Biden.

Is it time for these again?

Backbone.

Because Bush did so well on Afghanistan in the 7 years we were there during his term, didn't he?

Yeah, staying in a war we started for a good reason is exactly the same as staying in one we started for a BS reason that indicated the leadership was at best naive.

That being said, once we went into Iraq we were more or less stuck. To pull out just because it was hard and it turned out our reasons were dumb would be doubly unfair to the Iraqis. We at least owed it to them to make sure they had a stable government that could defend itself before we left. We'll see over the next few years whether we accomplished that goal.

But Afghanistan, if we leave, will go back to what it was before and pose the exact same problem it did before. Saddam didn't actually threaten us, the groups given sanctuary by Afghanistan did. Not as much as people said (the threat of terrorism is vastly overblown), but at least there was some threat.

bberg: Just because no WMDs were found doesn't mean that we didn't have a moral obligation to bring peace to that area.

An interesting conversation could take place here, where we discuss other hotspots around the world and the obligation dictated by morals that dictates our need for intervention. We could look at the former Yugoslavia in the 90s and see who said Milosevic would never raise a white flag (he did) and any servicemen deaths in combat would be the fault of the President (there were no combat deaths). That's just an example I can bring to the table. Let's see what you can bring.

And I'm still not 100% convinced that they did find WMDs but it was covered up by vindictive US Military personnel to make President Bush look bad.



Oh my. Excuse me, won't you?

joegekko: AdolfOliverPanties: Rich Lowry is a farking moran. He should just stay home and masturbate to tapes of Sarah Palin debating Joe Biden.

Is it time for these again?

Ha! I have never seen that one. One of the few funny ones. Good jorb.

If by "Bushian qualities" we mean "muting the Dick Cheney channel," then yes.

Jaakobi: ROFLMAO! You should really think about doing comedy.

Right, laugh it off just like you laugh off the 9/11 Truthers. But when you look at all the evidence, all the intelligence gathered before we liberated Iraq you'll see that they had mobile chemical weapon factories - remember Colin Powell's presentation to the UN? You think Saddam Insane didn't watch those hearings too? He immediately hid those mobile weapons factories in the desert, possibly even in Syria, so that the US would look bad when we couldn't find the needle in the proverbial haystack.

50 years from now when there is peace in the Middle East, liberating Iraq will be seen as one of the most charitable, benevolent, and Blessed things the USA has ever done. Mark my words.

Jackpot777: the obligation dictated by morals that dictates indicates our need for intervention.

Redundancy Department Of Redundancy. ftfm

So...

What Would Bush Do?
If he wants to prevail in Afghanistan, Barack Obama needs a Bush moment.

Start a war somewhere else and hope no one pays too much attention to the first one?

...Obama will need three especially Bushian qualities if he is to spare his country a humiliating retreat or an underresourced, inconclusive slog in Afghanistan: sincerity, perseverance, and courage.

Sincerity? We got bamboozled into an additional war when being 'sincere' did nothing to address a war already in progress and only further eroded the impression that we could believe our own leader's claims.
Perseverance? Well, I'll grant that one to a degree.
Courage? The men and women serving know courage in each other. Obama, Bush, and probably most of us here don't appreciate the depth of meaning 'Courage' has.

Too much of the article doesn't lay nearly enough fault at the feet of the administration for bungling the entire situation in the first place. To Obama's credit, he inherited a shiat situation. In a few years, we'll be well within our arm-chair rights to criticize him on the merits and successes of his own choices as Commander in Chief.

bberg: Jaakobi: ROFLMAO! You should really think about doing comedy.

Right, laugh it off just like you laugh off the 9/11 Truthers. But when you look at all the evidence, all the intelligence gathered before we liberated Iraq you'll see that they had mobile chemical weapon factories - remember Colin Powell's presentation to the UN? You think Saddam Insane didn't watch those hearings too? He immediately hid those mobile weapons factories in the desert, possibly even in Syria, so that the US would look bad when we couldn't find the needle in the proverbial haystack.

50 years from now when there is peace in the Middle East, liberating Iraq will be seen as one of the most charitable, benevolent, and Blessed things the USA has ever done. Mark my words.

Those were chocolate chip factories.