{"id":14920,"date":"2009-10-06T17:27:39","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T22:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=14920"},"modified":"2009-10-06T17:27:39","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T22:27:39","slug":"the-political-football-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=14920","title":{"rendered":"The political football in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

While real soldiers are fighting a real war in Afghanistan, politicians toss their fates around like a football. Leaving a meeting with the President at the White House on the subject, members of Congress made statements which don’t give me much confidence in their intentions. According to the Stars and Stripes<\/a>, Harry Reid said that he “left the meeting believing that all lawmakers \u2013 regardless of party affiliation \u2013 will support Obama\u2019s ultimate decision.” That kind of wording means that if some politicians don’t support the President’s decision, they’ll be ostracized.<\/p>\n

John Kerry, of course, sees the war as a political opportunity instead of the lives of troops;<\/p>\n

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, said while the president deliberates his options lawmakers should be doing a \u201cself-examination\u201d of their own \u201cto see how much they\u2019re willing to put on the table, see what they\u2019re willing to commit in terms of money and troops.\u201d For his part, Kerry indicated he\u2019d be reluctant to send more troops overseas without a clearer set of goals. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, disregard the future of the troops, think more about the political implications of your decisions. He’d be reluctant because he gets his votes in Back-assachusetts.<\/p>\n

John McCain isn’t inspiring me with confidence either;<\/p>\n

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he sees parallels between the \u201csurge\u201d in troops for Iraq and the need for more Afghanistan forces now, adding he is confident that Obama understands the importance of the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the president will make the right decision,\u201d McCain said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why do you believe that, Senator? Because he’s made so many brilliant decisions so far?<\/p>\n

White House and Congressional officials did not offer any timeline for when a final announcement on strategy will be made, but said for now they\u2019re willing to wait.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How long? Do they realize that there are folks engaged in that theater right now? This isn’t a discussion about whether or not to apply military power – the military is currently engaged. It must be nice to sit back in the comfort of the Oval Office and contemplate some future act without BEING SHOT AT.<\/p>\n

The only realistic voice is, of course, House Majority Leader John Boehner;<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants ample time to make a decision, and I support that,\u201d Boehner said. \u201cBut we need to remember that every day that goes by, our troops that are there are in greater danger. We need to get this right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While real soldiers are fighting a real war in Afghanistan, politicians toss their fates around like … The political football in Afghanistan<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}