Measure Twice, Cut Once

It’s silly pundits day on Delaware Liberal! The last time we talked about David Broder, he was spewing incorrect information on Mike Castle and the Senate race. I think he should have stuck to less complicated subject like domestic politics but this week he turned his conventional wisdom insights to Afghanistan:

The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose — and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.

Whaaaa?!? Did I read that right? Let me look again:

Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.

That’s right, Obama should do something, anything and he should do it quickly. He urgently needs to do the wrong thing because…?

We knew that governing Afghanistan would never be easy. It had resisted outside forces through the ages, and its geography, tribal structure, absence of a democratic tradition and poverty all argued that once we went in, it would be hard to get out.

But George W. Bush said — and Obama seemed to agree — that withdrawal was not an option.

That imperative is reinforced by the presence of Pakistan, a shaky nuclear-armed power across a porous mountain border. If the Taliban comes back in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda cells already in Pakistan will operate even more freely — and nuclear weapons could fall into the most dangerous hands.

To me, these are the reasons why we need to deliberate on the decision because whatever decision is made is going to have big consequences. But hey, Broder probably doesn’t have family in the military that will have to sacrifice, so what does he care? It’s only other people’s lives, after all.

I hope Obama takes his time to make the best decision possible and there are actually no good options left. Withdraw and leave a weak, corrupt government or stay and try to prop up the weak, corrupt government. Bush and Cheney dithered for 7 years on Afghanistan and that’s a big reason why it’s such a mess now, so I don’t see why we’re all of a sudden in such a rush. The fact that the biggest supporters of sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan are the neocons has to give Obama pause. The neocons are the ones who have been disastrously, consistently wrong about Iraq and still have fantasies about bombing Iran.

There is an old saying from carpentry, “measure twice, cut once,” because once you cut a piece of wood you can’t uncut it. You need to be sure that you know exactly how much to cut. I think President Obama is doing the right thing – we need to understand what our goals are for Afghanistan. Once we figure that out, the decisions will follow.