Again With the Broken Clock!

I am agreeing with Friedman far too much recently. This is the second time in the last 30 days.

This time it is on Afghanistan and the President’s and our Country’s conundrum. Everyone is getting in on advising the Obama Administration on this dilemma. And Friedman raises some very good points.

If President Obama can find a way to balance the precise number of troops that will stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, without tipping America into a Vietnam there, then he indeed deserves a Nobel Prize — for physics.

I have no problem with the president taking his time to figure this out. He and we are going to have to live with this decision for a long time. For my money, though, I wish there was less talk today about how many more troops to send and more focus on what kind of Afghan government we have as our partner.

Because when you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign, the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals. If that government is rotten, your whole enterprise is doomed.

I feel like I have seen this movie before and as I recall it had a very bad ending. This is sounding and looking more and more like Vietnam to me.