Michael Yon, author of Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers Is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope, spent more time embedded with U.S. and British combat troops in Iraq than any other correspondent. Michael Yon has changed his focus to Afghanistan.

Pajamas Media » Afghan Quicksand Awaits Obama

Say what you want about GWB -- history will record he kept us safe by leading with a radical domestic plan (Patriot Act, Gitmo, warrantless seaches, eavesdropping, banking, ect, ect) and an even more radical foreign policy: the Bush Doctrine. The advance of democracy.

What will Obama do? Does he have character? If forced into a decision between doing whats right, and possibly becoming unpopular at home and abroad for it or doing whats clearly wrong just to remain popular with the people, which do you think Obama will choose? Within 6 months we will have our answer.

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232 years ago, this is who we were. . .
"A republic, if you can keep it." ~ Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, in answer to "What have we got?"

232 years later, this is what we have become. . .
http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/war-...a-we-rule.html

and Iran quicksand
and taxation promises quicksand
and restore/repair our image abroad quicksand
and bailout quicksand
and that ocean of quicksand called "change"............

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I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill

He might be able to walk on water, but can he walk on quicksand?

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Politicians, like diapers, should be changed regularly. For the same reason

Morior Invictus
"On my signal, unleash hell"

Afghanistan actually will be more of a challenge than a lot of those other things. Restoring our image abroad is something he's already started doing before he even takes office. Iran will be easier for Obama than it has been for Bush because 1) he'll actually talk to the Iranian government, which unless you're going to invade is a prerequisite for accomplishing doodly-squat; and 2) our allies will back us up better than they have with Bush at the helm. The economic stuff will be tricky, but not impossible; we know what to do, it just requires the political will.

But Afghanistan is a knotty problem, and Obama isn't talking about pulling out, either. It will be interesting to see what he does. He is a very capable man, much more so than some of his thoughtless detractors suggest, and by no means an "empty suit." If any leader can handle the problems in Afghanistan, he can. But it remains to be seen if any leader can.

What exactly should we do with the economy, again? Last time I checked, the government bailouts failed to head-off the recession...

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"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."
- Milton Friedman

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."
- George Orwell

You are aware that Iran (thru their diplomats) are already "warning" Obama not to try to stop their nuke program, right?

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I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill

Yargggg! ahoy EagleSeven!

i was wonderin', matey...in yer opinion, have the bailouts help slow our slide? what imma askin' be this; i think an arguement can made that President Bush's aggressive post 9/11 agenda may have kept america safe from any further major terrorist attacks on its home soil...we can only hypothosize what would have happened if he had pursued a different route.

IF bailouts hadn't been issued, be it reasonable to suggest that our plight here at home would be even worse?

*salutes*

-MeadHallPirate

Exactly!!! This goes well beyond Afghanistan. The greatest foreign policy challenge on Obambi's plate is will he allow Iran to go nuclear? During the primaries/election he flip flopped the issue.

__________________
232 years ago, this is who we were. . .
"A republic, if you can keep it." ~ Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, in answer to "What have we got?"

232 years later, this is what we have become. . .
http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/war-...a-we-rule.html

you are making a huge assumption, that being; you think iran wants to be reasonable, a mistake made time after time after time after time in history.

Hilter was reasonable at Munich, ask anyone around then....

restoring our image abraod...hummmmmm, yes that will just make everything hunky dory.......don't rock the boat, the wolf will lay down with the lamb.....somehow I doubt it.


uhm I see its obama or bust, and if he cannot deal well no one can so that makes it impossible and what, gives him cover of some sort?

__________________
Imperators “scale of relativity”…

Gilad Shalit- days in captivity?
– 1000 (as of March 21 2009)

Red Cross visitations?
-Zero

Contact since capture?
-Zero

Diet-? Gitmo prisoners = 4200 calories a day, Halal prepared.
Shalit?
- Kosher meals? Unknown
- Caloric intake/sustenance? Unknown

UN, EU, Human Right(s) NGO Outrage meter reading?
-Zero



Mortgage Backed Security survivor

The government bailouts are not the solution, merely a stopgap measure. What we need to do is to redistribute wealth downward, and break our dependency on oil. Both of those are in Obama's plans. Not easy, but not impossible. As I said, it requires only the political will.

No, I'm simply refusing to assume to the contrary without giving them a chance to be. If you decide ahead of time that a diplomatic solution is impossible, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's talk to Iran, let's see what we can do to head off having that country develop nuclear weapons. With cooperation from our allies, we can impose some pretty serious consequences -- still well short of war -- for noncooperation, and also offer some nice benefits for being reasonable.

Hitler was bent on war, thinking he could win. That is the one and only reason why Chamberlain was unwise to try to negotiate with him, and even that doesn't fly because there was no way Chamberlain could have known that. In that one almost unique instance, diplomacy and "appeasement" were the wrong move -- in hindsight. Normally, that's not the case.

If Iran's leadership is truly irrational and impossible to negotiate with, then this effort won't succeed. But there is no reason to suppose that to be the case up front, without even trying.

Strange as this may seem to some people, we can do a lot more with the power of our allies behind us than we can if we try to go solo. Restoring our image abroad means, among other things, that when Obama sits down to talk with Iran, he'll represent not just the U.S. but also the EU, Canada, Australia, Japan -- all the richest and most powerful countries in the world. That will carry a LOT more clout than Bush is able to exert at this time.

As for your last sentence, I don't know of any other potential leader who could handle Afghanistan if Obama can't. I'm not however going to say that Obama can automatically. Afghanistan has been a royal pain in the ass for every country that has ever tried to deal with it.

Obama will do very well in Afghanistan, this will happen because he will actually be trying to do what he says he's trying to do instead of prolonging the war so as to make his cronies richer and trying to gain votes by giving the rightists a chance to beat their chests . He will use a carrot and stick instead of just the stick and this will work very well, as it in fact did in the early stages of the war before Bush remembered he was Republican.

It will also work in Iran.

The rightists, of course, will try everything they can to block this and seize on every setback, no matter how minor, to point out how all muslims are perdious murderers who can't be trusted and the best way to gain their trust and loyalty is to kill them all.

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I stared into the Abyss, the Abyss stared back, neither one of us liked what he saw.
Theodore

So Obama is going to tell the Department of Defense "Okay, you can win the war in Afghanistan now, I'm in office! You can stop pretending!" ????

Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. Also, North Korea was very responsive to the carrot in the 90's, they took the carrot (food aid) and built new test reactors! They had their carrot and ate it too!

__________________
"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."
- Milton Friedman

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."
- George Orwell

It can be argued, but it is too early to make a decisive conclusion. Still, we really didn't get much visible bang for our $800 billion bucks...especially since every near-failing industry (auto, for instance) are now demanding bailouts.

__________________
"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."
- Milton Friedman

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."
- George Orwell

Oh cmon. You know its very easy to not win a war while prolonging it to enrich your friends if you're CINC. Everybody knows the war in Afghanistan was largely won by 2003, but then Bush pulled all the troops out to send them to Iraq and stopped the humanitarian aid, so the Taliban came back. All we have to do is do what we did before. If you give most people a choice between the first decent meal they've had in 3 years and being blown to bits not too many even go Hmmmm....

So what if Korea did what you say. Carrot and Stick means just that, if they eat your carrot and still try to make nukes you beat them with your stick.

Silly conversation in any case. Iran doesn't have and isn't even close to getting nukes, all another Bush lie. Obama doesn't have to keep up the Bush lies, which should make foreign policy so much easier.

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I stared into the Abyss, the Abyss stared back, neither one of us liked what he saw.
Theodore

Yeah. You sound like you enjoy being safe. Comfy and safe.

Yep. Safe.

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All things serve The Beam