Charlie Rose tonight is pretty much an Obama Afghanistan decision roast.

[NRaleighLiberal]

Pretty big round table there making some good points - pretty much unanimous that going along with a major troop increase is a disappointment and a mistake. They are now moving on to the economy....don't know if I want to continue to watch...

edited to have a few other good points (in my view):

That despite his words, Obama has been following conventional wisdom from those like Summers and Petraeus.
Counter point to that was that the 60 vote rule in the Senate is hindering true progress.
Another point - that continuing job loss will really hurt Obama if it continues.
and another - people wondering if things are,despite the veneer of confidence and competence, requiring some sort of a "course correction".

In general, I think the discussion is reasonably balanced.

Guests - David Bromwich of Yale, Ariana Huffington, Hendrik Hertzberg, Les Gelb, John Harris - plus others to come.

The two who are clearly the most negative on Obama to this point are Les Gelb and John Harris (Politico, of course).
Most supportive - Bromwich, Hertzberg, and Huffington (sort of)

Now Dolores Kearns Goodwin and her son are on...discussing Afghanistan - he fought in Afghanistan following his reaction to 911

[MadHound]

1. Good on Charlie, going along with a major troop increase is a mistake, and a disappointment

This war is turning more and more into Vietnam. We have no way to win it, and everything to lose. Time to get out now while the getting is still (relatively) easy.

[Twillig]

4. I'm of two minds on the Afghan war.

Either it's a meat grinder that we are trying to defeat(jam) by feeding more troops into it,

or a wood chipper. :shrug:

[LakeSamish706]

5. The biggest problem is, what is a win in Afghanistan? There have been so many...

countries that have fought in this country, and gone away with their tails between there legs.... There is no such thing as a win here... Get the hell out and leave the Afghans to sort out their own destiny... (and that applies to Iraq as well)

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. I agree. What indeed is a win? I don't think we can possibly understand the culture there,

and what they want or need. This is part of American hubris - "we will be greeted as liberators" is another example of this, of course.

[kenny blankenship]

12. Could we create a "reliable", corrupt, brutal client regime in Afghanistan? Possibly, yeah.

Germany probably could have held onto Western Europe for a long time -generations- had they not attacked Britain and Russia.
Should we do it? FUCK NO!

Would it stick, if we imposed it? Maybe, that is if you don't have any problem with us sending 100,000 men over there every 15 or 20 years to prop it back up again every time it collapses. I DO have a problem with that. If that's what America is going to be for the next 100 years then let me the fuck out of here right now. I don't join with many Democrats in deploring the "wasteful inefficiency" of the process. I don't say it cannot be done. I don't add my voice to the lamentations that the project of Empire "just hasn't been done correctly" so far by the Bush administration. The WHOLE PROJECT --starting from the goals and building on up from there-- that's what's fucked up about this present escalation, not the fact that it's been as much slapstick as genocide. This project is criminal. Whoever calls it "realist" is a REAL criminal. Its apologists are every bit the Good German. And it will lead you, as it has already, to embrace methods you never wanted to have people attribute to the United States of America.

TURN AWAY, AMERICA. WHILE YOU CAN.

[MadHound]

9. It is a guerrilla war,

And those are the hardest type of wars to win, virtually impossible. Our very own revolution was essentially a guerrilla war. Washington and others lost far more battles than they won, but they were able to keep the army going, drain Britain of money and resources, and win the occasional strategic victory to really give the British a bloody nose. If you go back and read the newspapers and magazines of that era, you'll find many people saying virtually the same thing that modern anti-war protesters are saying.

The Soviet Union lost a guerrilla war in Afghanistan, we lost one in Vietnam, on and on it goes. These type of wars are simply unwinnable unless you go in, lay complete waste to the land and call it peace. Otherwise, there is no victory.

All we're going to do is pour more money and lives down a rathole, and have nothing to show for it in return except our own country gone to hell due to a fucked up economy.

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. What! Other people don't think war escalation is a good thing?

Some DUers here think it's only Freepers that have that opinion.

This is THE turning point for Obama. There are many people in this country who feel sold out.

[LakeSamish706]

8. I feel sold out on so many issues... "Change you can believe in" When and where I ask? n/t

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. I suspect that the Bush years were so horrible for us, we forget that Obama is still a politician

and had to do what politicians do to get where they get to. The need for change was so intensely pent up that given the mess he was handed and the political environment, there was/is no way he can move as fast as many of us feel he needs to, and in the ways we wish for.

[Skittles]

13. what does that have to do with escalating a senseless and useless war?

[bigtree]

3. I've got to see that

not sure if Thanksgiving will bump the rerun tomorrow

[2tr4nqued]

6. I can't believe Obama is willing to just throw the 2012 election like this. n/t

[ShortnFiery]

11. This has nothing to do with the election. He should know that we can NOT win this war.

He's very intelligent and must know his military history ... yet he lets these PRESENT General Officers (who are probably invested in the corporations comprising the MIC up to their stars) CONVINCE him that we will be The Nation who can Pacify Afghanistan.

We, the American Empire War Machines and our mighty Army are going to defy all of HISTORY? It makes NO sense that a man of such intellect would even consider that we have a ghost of a chance.

Best to "cut losses" now because THEY KNOW (the Taliban and remnants of al Qaeda) that the R.S.V.P. to any terrorist attack on American Soil will be returned to Afghanistan. :(