I don’t know that the Obama plan for PakAf is quite the same as the one Bush had. The “bet” he’s placed is simply different. The Dem party said we should go over there and deal with Al Qaeda. Have we done that? Forget Bush. Has this gov’t done the job?

Staying without a reason would be as moronic as anything Bush did. Do we want that?

What is “OK” wrt Afghanistan? Well, we needed to crush Al Qaeda. Have we achieved that? We would like to capture & question bin Laden (if alive) and al Zawahiri. We would also like to help Zardari fight the Taliban, get some Justice for the assassination of Bhutto, push the Taliban away from the decent population of Pakistan and push the Taliban away from the nukes. Have we done those things?

How well or how much of that we’ve done can be judged by whomever has the numbers on our performance there.

There may be some other reasons for staying in Afghanistan, but making it a great country isn’t one of them. Wasting lives & money forever isn’t one either. If somebody thinks we should stay there THEY have to show why and with lots of convincing color pictures & graphs & stuff. The public won’t stand for wasting our military on garbage.

What’s ideal in Afghanistan? What do we really really want for it? Take any route and you will probably still end up at what you ‘really really want’. Of course, most people appreciate a shorter less painful trip if it can be achieved.

This is why I said it was useful for Pres. Obama to set broad goals for healthcare reform and just stick to that. I think, whatever means we get to, those goals will largely be achieved. It just might not be the legislation we had originally envisioned.

But, as I said, it is a practical matter; if you are President, and something goes down on your watch, no matter the prior history, you get blamed for it.

Got some evidence to back up that assertion? Because I find that a) Nixon didn’t get blamed for Vietnam; b) Eisenhower did not get blamed for Korea; and most recently, c) W. didn’t even get blamed for 9/11 (see the 2004 election).

– Ground Zero
– New Orleans
– Gitmo / Abu Ghraib

Not to mention every home that lies empty because of CEO Bush’s economic stewardship… every headstone in Arlington from Iraq & Afghanistan… and every mansion and private jet bought with the trillions of our tax dollars handed over to war profiteers. Heckuva job, you betcha!

Victory (Success) occurs daily as the Military Industrial Complex drains our supply of worthless paper money (success). Crunch all you want, Helecopter Ben will print more (success). No money for us working fools. We think we can do more with less (success). Pretty soon, we won’t even need social security. We can give it to Wall Street (success).

All this daily success is a sign of Victory. Victory in Afghanistan. Vistory in Iraq. Victory for the victors. To the victors go the spoils. We get shit. No jobs. Jobless “recovery”.

Obama is a mastermind.