"Soviet" solution in Afghanistan?

[PanzerJaeger]

Ah, gotcha. So a seven-year failed military policy is okay and understandable if you're a Republican, but a four-month reassesment is spiteful, cowardly and defeatist if you're a Democrat.

I can forgive mistakes on military matters from political leaders if they resolve themselves to fixing them, but I cannot forgive the spineless political pandering, masking defeatism, that Obama's summit produced.

Lincoln faced the likes of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville among many other crushing defeats, while Churchill presided over Dunkirk and Gazala among many others as well. In the face of years of unmitigated military disasters, these men didn't announce time tables for withdrawal - they steeled themselves to keep fighting, to figure out what worked, and to win. GWB, for all the hatred and furor, did the same. Its easy to say he should have listened to those arguing against the strategy instead of its proponents, but thats all Monday morning quarterbacking. Now, thanks to him, we finally have in place a Defense Secretary and a military command well suited to winning the type of war in which we are involved, but our current president doesn't have the heart for it.

Our nation hasn't endured anything close to the magnitude of those previously mentioned defeats, yet the proverbial kitchen gets a little hot and the current C&C is looking for the most politically expedient way out. Why even have this half-hearted, politically compromised bastardization of Patraeus' "surge"? Why waste more American lives when the end date has already been laid out in a prime time speech to the country?

That kind of pathetic, play-to-both-sides, political maneuvering with American lives is diametrically opposed to GWB's resoluteness in the face of adversity and is as disgusting as it is transparent.

Edit: If you can frame my motivations, can I take a stab at yours?