Intellectual Honesty is Key on Obama's Afghanistan Troops Surge

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интеретсный блог почему только так мало читателей на нём

kikus of AL 11:46PM June 12, 2010

NOT driven by politics.

The Afghan mess is just that. The US had a just reason to enter Afghanistan to round out Al Quaeda but we cannot "change" that medieval society unless we are willing to be brutal "occupiers" in for the long haul.

The US doesn't "do" that nor should we.

Containment and shoring up of our (allies?) on the borders seems the wiser course.

Obama's delay, final deployment and announcement of withdrawal reminds me of a schoolyard fight...

"I'm going to get you..but I have to be home for dinner or my mum will beat me".

Naivete' does not serve our fine military well nor our country.

Obama was not ready for prime-time and it has shown every day in office.

Chris Petty of GA 1:01AM December 04, 2009

I'm reminded of a few lines of poetry by Rudyard Kipling:

When you're wounded and left on the Afghan plains,

And the women come 'round to cut the remains,

Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,

And go to your death like a soldier.

Written sometime in the late 19th century. Strange how history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, or maybe tragi-comedy?

The Brits lost whole armies in Afghanistan in the 19th century. If you'd like an amusing version of the First Afghan War, read George Macdonald Frazier's first Flashman novel. It's all there-empire building gone awry. Perfidous Albion dealing with equally duplicitous Afghans. The mind--numbing retreat from Kabul, until the last ragged survivor stumbles through the Kyber Pass. Oh yes, jolly good fun.

Lon Felker of TN 1:42PM December 03, 2009

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John A. Farrell

John A. Farrell

John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

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