Obama dithering? How many years was it that Cheney (oh yes, don’t let me forget his hand puppet 'W') had to sort out the Af/Pak war? While Obama obviously is playing for time as he runs smack into the political realities of making decisions about a complex theater of operations, the Cheney/Bush team went into a seven-year apathetic stupor. The Cheney/Bush Afghanistan policy seemed to be ‘if we ignore it then maybe it goes away’. Talk about dithering and carelessness.

Dither = to act irresolutely; vacillate.

Bush and Co. were nothing if not resolute, whereas The One announces one policy in the spring, only to irresolutely reconsider it before it is even resourced and implemented in any meaningful way. That is dithering.

Let the Bush/Cheney thing go, Tom. There is enough to worry about with today's crises.

Isn't it nice to have such a solid "validity" check for ideas? Take the Cheney/Rove perspective and do the opposite, and you'll generally be doing the right thing.

In testimony to Congress this week about our Iraq policy, T. Boone Pickens mentioned the hydrocarbon-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.

What do my fellow brainiacs here think of Pepe Escobar’s thesis that the interest of the powers-that-be in Af/Pak is not terrorism, democracy, or the status of women, but pipeline routes?

could be..

I didn't see anyone post General Eaton's comments (on the Huffington Post, sorry tom) about Cheney and their "dithering", General Eaton says, "The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters.

They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it.

While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11."

The general has more to say concerning why Obama is where he is and that Cheney should be the last person to comment...

above via: http://www.editurl.com/49m

Agreed, anytime Cheney agrees with you, a serious review of one's thought process is in order. But glad to see you recognize that. I've put together a couple of reasons why I think Obama is doing exactly the right thing by taking his time and ensuring that the decision he makes is the right one--a decision I think can only be made once the run-off election has taken place and we know how legitimate/illegitimate the next Afghan government will be.

http://itinerantideas.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-obama-should-take-his-time.html

This isn't WW II and a "surge" or whatever you want to call it in Afghanistan is not the same thing as deciding whether to invade a continent. To an extent - there are plenty of arguments about how much - national security is at stake, but comparing this to major decisions that had to be made regarding the proper strategy to defeat the Nazis just isn't in the same league.

If Chaney wants to blather on about this stuff, well, his 1st amendment rights are the same as anyone else's. But his level of credibility is a different matter altogether.

And TOm - given the company you are now in, might it not be time to stop hyperventilating about this stuff? Obama is waiting to see how the run-off turns out and whether or not we can work with Karzi. History might look a whole lot different if LBJ had spent any time at all thinking about whether we could work with Thieu and Ky.

Let us know what you conclude. I agree that a prompt decision is called for, but only when due consideration is completed -- exactly what you wrote in your Daily Beast piece, as a matter of fact. But that has not at all been your position here. I'd say you have some 'splaining to do. (And yes, what you say matters, maybe more than what Cheney says.)

You may be looking at this backwards. It's not that you agree with Dick Cheney and Carl Rove. It's that they now agree with you!

You came to your conclusions based on what you know of the country and the situation there. Cheney and Rove both looked at the same information and probably more and came to much the same conclusion you had. I am actually a bit of a fan of Cheney, but read your blog to try to get the other sides view. I figure you could at least give a couple of broken clocks credit for being right twice a day.

My favorite part of Cheney's critique is that Obama is dithering DESPITE the Bush Administration's exhaustive review of the problem at the end of 2008. Are we supposed to applaud that they did a policy review after 7 years of their own dithering and incessant self-congratulation? I think two false declarations of victory pretty much takes away your right to criticize war policy. Seriously, how does this guy have the balls? I would resort to flaying myself if I had failed so miserably. It is clear now that we never should have invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban were not a threat at the time, although they likely are today. We should have acted like Israelis and hunted down the known members of this group one by one. Considering the amount of money we spent in two wars, I seriously doubt that the problem of finding natives and Pashto or Arabic speakers could have stopped the CIA if we had put all the resources in their hands. Unfortunately, the Taliban presents a threat to both us and the entire region at this point, and Obama is going to expend all of his political capital by escalating. Another presidency lost to war. By the way, that picture captures Cheney's haughtiness perfectly.

Having no post war strategy in Iraq and invading under false pretenses? Billions of dollars, 4,000 US casualties, 80,000 Iraqi civilians, and civil war

Falling asleep at the wheel while Afghanistan was falling apart? Billions of dollars

Letting Osama bin Laden escape certain death? A tool of justification to continuously scare the American people and the international community to accept your twisted agenda.

Distracting the world with an unnecessary war which led to the emergence of a powerful Iran while never completing the actual war of necessity? Blood, a potential nuclear Iran, a potential Israeli attack on Iran, a potential Taliban takeover of an already nuclear armed Pakistan, and a potentially destabilized Middle East. (And did I mention trillions of dollars?)

Accusing the current POTUS of dithering because he is taking all the facts on the ground into consideration before actually committing American lives, American money, and the security of the nation before his own greedy, warped, corrupt world view?

PRICELESS!

Wow, a politician sees a political opportunity to make a cheap shot and follows through on it. Gee, we've never seen that before.

Dick is either busy trying to save face, or protect the original sympathy for his cause he managed to garner in the exuberant wave of patriotism he orginally diverted to his seemingly ulterior motives, whatever that may be. Strictly theory, I shudder to think that perhaps he's nervous about losing kickbacks he may be getting from his former buddies at Halliburton/KBR. More war means more logistics to be outsourced. But I digress, as far as saving face, stoking the original fears over a safe America could simply be a way to re-energize a disillusioned conservative base prior to off year elections and as a primer to congressional elections in 2010.

Personally, I think he had his chance, he just needs to shut up and sit down.