Obama Considers Half Measures In Afghanistan
On October 16, Fredericksburg lost one of its brave sons, Army Staff Sgt. Chris Staats, in the Afghanistan war. If you were at the funeral or on the procession route, you would not have seen a dry eye.  To date, three brave soldiers from Fredericksburg including  1st Lt. Phillip Neel and 1st Lt. Andrew Houghton, have give the ultimate sacrifice to the war on terror. Fredericksburg mourns for their loss and salutes them for their sacrifice to protect freedom and our way of life.
October 2009 was the most deadly month in the Afghanistan war. Weeks ago, Gen. McChrystal recommended an increase in troops to ensure success. Yet, President Obama continues to vote “present” by publicly not making a decision. Has President Obama privately made his decision – to pander to the far left wing radicals in this country at the peril of our troops?
As a Tea Party patriot, I fully support the notion to ensure success for the war. I trust the advise of our Generals and believe we need to fully support their recommendation with the needed resources.  Stay to win, or get out.  But do not put our brave sons in harms’ way because our commander-in-chief will not make a decision or will consider only partial resources or a “McChrystal Light”.Â
The Heritage Foundation explains more in their posting “McChrystal Light Is Not A Strategy We Can Believe In”…. Heritage Foundation Posted Oct 29, 2009. Author James Carafan“Apparently, after ten months on the job, the commander-in-chief still can’t figure out how to be commander-in-chief. This would be like if almost year after Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt was still seeking input on what to do. According to the Washington Post this morning, Obama has now asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan “to help determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help.†He supposedly “wants the clearest possible understanding of what the challenges are to our forces and what is required to meet the challenge.†Fine, go out and get that information. Sounds useful. But why did it take 9 months to know he needed it?!
This is more evidence, that the President might be considering “McChrystal Lightâ€, a strategy which includes protecting portions of the population, putting more emphasis on going after al Qaeda (something pushed for by the Vice President), but authorizing far less troops than the general asked for. That doesn’t sound right either.
That would be like saying go ahead and build the house, but you can only have half the budget. Adopting a strategy without fully resourcing a strategy is prescription for disaster. This sounds terribly like President Johnson’s approach to Vietnam where he incrementally increased forces trying to anger neither keep doves or hawks.
Unfortunately, when you adopt incrementally so does the enemy—and you never get ahead of the bad guys. A strategy of compromise is a strategy for disaster. All this news makes it look like the president is shopping for a rationale to justify a commitment that is “politically†acceptable in Washington.
The truth is the Pentagon has been scrutinizing the failures of our AfPak strategy for over two years and the new administration has benefited from all the work done before it took the White House. The argument that we need more study, or that half measures will do, is wearing pretty thin. We need a decision and pretty compelling rationale to support it…other than it is half way between Biden and McChrystal.”
