fareedr - Obama and Afghanistan

Comments (View) December 11, 2009 22 notes

Obama and Afghanistan

I realize that:

I’ve been idle on Tumblr for months.
This is about 2 weeks too late in internet time.

But I think it’s still worth commenting on.

How is this a betrayal? Obama made it very clear during the campaign that he would begin withdrawing from Iraq in order to focus on Afghanistan - a war he considered just. I may not agree - but I’m incredibly frustrated with the “left” continuously projecting their own beliefs on Obama, and castigating him when he “betrays” them. Obama the Candidate and Obama the President are not the same person as Obama the Savior Of The Left - the latter is a figment of our collective imagination.

Worst case scenario - we are in Afghanistan another 10 years. Best case - Obama ends both wars, honorably, before the end of his first term. I still have Hope.

langer:

“If we had wanted Bush’s wars, and contractors, and corruption, we could have voted for John McCain. At least we would have seen our foe facing us, not felt him at our back, as now we do. The Republicans are given a great boon by this new war. They can use its cost to say that domestic needs are too expensive to be met—health care, education, infrastructure. They can say that military recruitments from the poor make job creation unnecessary. They can call it Obama’s war when it is really theirs. They can attack it and support it at the same time, with equal advantage.I cannot vote for any Republican. But Obama will not get another penny from me, or another word of praise, after this betrayal. And in all this I know that my disappointment does not matter. What really matters are the lives of the young men and women he is sending off to senseless deaths.”

—

Garry Wills, NYRblog: Afghanistan: The Betrayal