What Is 10 Billion Dollars A Month?

There is way too much institutional inertia for the President to just say, "we're leaving Afghanistan tomorrow and saving $10B."

I had an interesting conversation/debate with one of my neighborhood buddies on the 4th where he, a diehard Red, basically said so why hasn't YOUR GUY OBAMA solved the Afghanistan problem by now? I told him, okay, we've been there over 7 years, then hand over the problem and say why isn't it solved in? Disengenuous.

 

While I agree that we should be phasing out of Afghanistan - an invasion we never needed to make - we waste more than $20 billion a month on DoD cost overruns alone.

You want to save real money, talk to General Dynamics and the joint chiefs.

 

Did you ask him why he wanted America to cut and run? Hey Boom, why do you want America to cut and run? Cut and run, cut and run, cut and run.

Remember that? Sound familiar?

 

1. Which war? Iraq is no longer a combat operation (finally, eight years after Dim Son said it was so).

Afghanistan got sideways on us after Dim Son took his eye off the ball, after what should've been a magnificent and historic victory not ever seen since Alexander the Great.

The sonofabitch dropped the ball! (/Robin_Williams)

2. Um, Obama's not a SCOTUS judge, so that was never his job. Congress did its part by ending DADT. A slight majority of Americans are OK with gay marriage for the first time, so maybe Rick Perry can pray for the polls to go the other way now.

 

I remember that. Nearly every GOP pol would say that phrase in every single speech in 2003 and 2004.

And the idiots in the mainstream media would report it, every single time.

 

And this is the reason why we should stay.. because what was written in 2003.

Times have changed. We need to change the narrative of our country with a bold move.

There would be little downside if Obama held a press conference tonight and announced that he is bring all troops home from Afghanistan as quick as possible.

 

What's that? Evaluate the situation differently in light of new facts? I'm pretty sure that's flip-flopping. Why would you encourage flip-flopping? Remember when John Kerry was a flip-flopper? Flip-flopper, flip-flopper, flip-flopper.

 

Really Obama flipflopped from his campaign commitment to to wind down war. Instead he ramped up.

If he ends now he would be living up to his campaign promise.

Right now he is at a point that Lyndon Johnson was around 1965/ 1966 in Viet Nam.

 

To be fair, there were over 180,000 U.S. troops at the end of '65 and quickly escalated from there. The communists grew their forces to over 230,000 including NVA regulars and VC guerillas. The north was also getting help/supplies/weapons from the Soviets and China.

I don't think the Taliban/AQ are that big in number or are getting help from all that many places.

Although I don't disagree with the basic premise of pulling out.

 

Numbers are different but concept is the same. This war end up overwhelming the Obama presidency. If we stay 2 years or 5 nothing will change in Afghanistan. Time to turn the lights out.