George Will suggests it is high time to leave Afghanistan. Charles Krauthamer noted that Democrat Strategist Bob Shrum wrote an article saying the Dems never wanted to fight in Afghan, that was just to cause Bush grief in Iraq. Eric Holder has decided to investigate/ CIA tactics. The end of the war in the Mid East will come by June, 2010.
On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite suggested on his evening broadcast it was time to leave Viet Nam. Seven years later dangling from helicoptors, the Americans did. The parallel with the 1970s continues.
One can question whether an armed invasion in the mid east was the right response to 9/11. Yet today the proverbial Martian would surely conclude that, given the cost, the lives of the Arab attackers, the terrorists accomplished their goal.
The World Trade Center was destroyed.
Financial markets have been in turmoil and are now in the worst shape since 1974.
Political division is as bad now in the USA as it was in 1974.
The responses of low interest rates and building homes has imploded most of the major players in the mortgage business. Home prices fall 3% every six weeks.
Commercial real estate vacancies continue to escalate.
Once again the US has been drawn into a guerilla war with an forces still best equipped to fight WW II.
Dictators come and go in the Mid East. Ssdam Hussein is gone, the Taliban remains in Afghan. Resentment towards the US throughout the region remains high.
And finally, the US cannot afford this financially. The US cannot afford the damage to our military morale. A way to declare victory and leave needs to be found, quickly.
While attention has all been on his domestic agenda, the Obama may be finally held, like LBJ and Nixon, to the prism of unintended, unending war.
Professor Elam 
Leave a comment