re: #672 lawhawk

Well, they can do what President Bush did to increase the numbers temporarily. He can hold the returns, so that the 200 going home and the 200 replacements are there at the same time - a 200 soldier increase for X period.

The problem is that the Democrats simply want to bring ‘em all home. From both Iraq and Afghanistan. They are still the defeatists and cut and runners. They just know that to do so would expose them for 2010, and their chances of holding on to power slip away. So Obama has to curry favor with GOPers to keep the Afghan operations running. He can’t count on Democrats, because he’s too busy pandering to them to get out of Iraq.

That idea, of having them there, overlapping temporarily, won’t work, because firstly where are the 200 bomb demolitione xperts going to come from? And as they are not ‘soldiering’ in the usual way, they would not increase the numbers of fighting troups, even if there was this temporary overlap.
Making 200 soldiers go home ine xchange is in fact a reduction in the numbers of fighting troups.
Its a typically hare-brained thing, spin and propaganda, a good soundbite but nothing else.

As for the idea that everybody should leave - yes, this is definitely ‘in the air’, here as well.
Both Obama and Brown know damn well that even debating this publicly is boosting the morale of the Taleban, thus its self-defeating.

I soemtimes wonder what certain people, especially ‘experts’, actually use for brains …