Oh yeah, we "rushed" to war with insufficient planning and lacked the warm embrace of United Nations approval for the war. The charges are pretty much ridiculous, but the point is that the anti-war side people believe it.
So let's look at what the Obama administration is planning for Afghanistan:
The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has forced the U.S. to plan to rush as many as 30,000 more troops to the central Asian country this year.
They will be joining some 32,000 U.S. troops already there who serve alongside 32,000 other NATO-led and coalition troops — the highest number since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban from power in 2001.
Obama has said Afghanistan is one of his top priorities, but his incoming team have not yet disclosed a concrete plan.
Eide, the Norwegian diplomat who has been heading the U.N. mission in Afghanistan for the last nine months, warned against any major change in direction.
"Our problem is not that we need a new strategy. ... What happens very often is that we agree on something, we do not implement it and we say something must therefore be wrong with the strategy," Eide said. "That is not the case. The problem is in the implementation."
Huh. So we're sending troops to double our troop strength in Afghanistan before we formulate a strategy for them. Could that be called a "rush" to war? Oh, and what's the "exit strategy" that so many so-called military geniuses demand we must have before any commitment to force? And as a bonus, the UN doesn't want us to change our strategy.
This will be ugly. Some of President Obama's supporters will argue that this is all perfectly legitimate despite parallels since their man is in charge, and not Bush. Others further to the left will argue that the war in Afghanistan is as bad as the Iraq War because of these similar charges.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
