RE: Tiger's wife.

I was expecting, the night the story broke (when there was already speculation as to a "domestic disturbance" and "lacerations on Tiger's face"), to read a headline the next day screaming: "Tiger Clawed!" but alas, haven't seen it yet.

Heh heh. More on Tiger in a moment, when FTP posts...

-CW

Michale.....

Better ring to it than Bush's war which sounds like something out of the Boer wars...

Did a quick Google news search on the term"Obama's War". It really is quite interesting to see this phrase in so many articles.

Sometimes I wonder, do they all "borrow" their copy from the same source? :)

Guess it's just provocative and that's what sells. Progressives are outraged and read. Conservatives feel justified that someone else is carrying on the war effort and read.

One of the interesting things about this is that I don't think the term will hurt Obama politically. I think it might actually help him by making him seem more centrist.

Maybe because it has a nice ring to it. Obama's War. Like Sophie's Choice. Or Jacob's Ladder. Or Tiger Wood's wife (Be honest readers- you don't know her name w/o looking it up).

NOTE: This is not a war endorsement. Only an etymological comment.

-David

Or, another accurate characterization is that everybody found SOMETHING to be happy about in President Obama's Afghanistan strategy.

But, I have always been a "Cup Is Half Full" kinda guy. :D

"Is Obama's new policy a good thing or a bad thing, and does it have a chance of working?"

I hope this wasn't a rhetorical question. :D

Obama's NEW plan is a good thing, insofar as he has given General McChrystal pretty much the troops he asked for. McChrystal wanted 40K and Obama gave him 30K. The balance of 10K should be able to be made up by NATO forces so, on the face of things, Obama did make good on his promise to listen to the generals in the field.

However, Obama's did a bad bad thing by setting a timetable for departure. A good military leader knows that you NEVER, EVER telegraph your battle plans.

As for if it will work. Too many variables to make a good guess... I will say, though, that Obama's deadline to be out by Jul 2011 is laughable at best. It will come back and bite him on the arse during the 2012 Elections, I guarantee..

It's easy to try to compare "Obama's surge" to "Bush's surge," but ultimately a rather pointless exercise, since Afghanistan is not Iraq. The enemies are different, for one, as is the whole socio-political side of the conflict. This type of comparison may be worthwhile at a much smaller level (which tactics we've learned in Iraq would be useful in Afghanistan, for instance), but simply don't hold up at the macro level.

What you say is true to a certain point. You cannot compare the POLITICAL situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But, I don't think you give enough importance to the tactical level. An insurgency is an insurgency is an insurgency. Minor details might differ here or there, but not enough to drastically alter the tactics.

"A difference which makes no difference IS no difference."
-Commander Spock

Throwing thousands of troops at the country may eventually fail, no matter who is in the White House at the time. Just ask the Soviets.

You really can't compare the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with the current NATO engagement. There are many MANY differences, not the least of which NATO forces are not boobie trapping children's toys, like Soviet forces were.

It's like comparing apples and Eskimos.

Both engagements take place in Afghanistan. That is where any similarity ends.

I have not heard a single dissenting voice from any high-ranking military spokesman since Obama gave his speech. This is because Obama took the time to hear them out, present other ideas, and in the end, get them on board with his strategy.

Or, more likely, there is no dissenting voices from the high-ranking military because they saw what happened to McChrystal when he put out a dissenting voice. :D

Other than the minor nits above, a very good article, CW... :D

Michale.....

Why can't you post this at HP - it is so sorely needed there!

Chris, it's that 11-Dimensional Chess again. Obama spent three months creating a consensus. What's more, his decision has had an interesting effect on the media, which -- in the process of trying to find fault in the case for war -- has finally discovered the mistakes made in Afghanistan from 2001-2008. I noticed CNN this morning interviewing the author of Jawbreaker about the Bush decisions that let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora; they had the "Developing Story" chyron up for something that happened 8 years ago.