Gridiron Politics

So Obama has firmly seized ownership of the Afghanistan conflict, with yesterday’s news that he is deploying 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. This comes as no great shock - while Obama always spoke negatively about Iraq, he used Afghanistan as a pivot point to illustrate where the United States might use its military might more sensibly.

I suppose the surprising thing for me is how well people are taking it (breathless USA Today tone aside.) For instance, the folks on the left who think Obama is too conservative seem to like his latest move. Take this post by Riverdaughter, one of those charming people who still maintains, 9 months later, that Obama stole the nomination from Hillary and should give back the presidency. You’d think she and her fellow PUMAs would harp on this “warmongering” by our commander in chief. Instead, this is the first post I’ve read on that blog where the author hasn’t slandered Obama within the first sentence. (Perhaps this is simply because Hillary has generally been more of a hawk than Obama, and now that she’s Secretary of State the PUMAs will support most of Obama’s foreign policy.)

Now I think there are still legitimate worries about committing more troops to Afghanistan. Namely, are we just bogging down in the conflict the way the Soviet Union did in the 1980s? Is there really a good solution? How do you turn a nation of terrorists and poppy farmers into a democracy? And how do you do this when Afghanistan’s leader is corrupt? It’s not that I think the United States is incapable of pacifying the country, it’s just that I’d like a definition of what “victory” is before we send more troops there. Goalposts, please.