It is not like he did not say what he was planning to do- Obama now has the popular mandate to go ahead in Afghanistan.


You get what was voted in- too late to bitch about it now.

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updated 10:46 p.m. EDT, Mon July 21, 2008
   Obama calls situation in Afghanistan 'urgent'

Story Highlights

NEW: McCain foreign policy adviser says Obama supports "strategy for defeat"

Sen. Barack Obama says more troops needed in Afghanistan

Obama meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Obama has said part of his strategy is "taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan"
   
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday that United States needs to focus on Afghanistan in its battle against terrorism.

"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," he said.

Obama said troop levels must increase in Afghanistan.

"For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three," he told CBS. "I think it's very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough."


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Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan By Tom Hayden

July 15, 2008

Any proposal to transfer American troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan is sure to cause debate and questions among peace activists and rank-and-file Democrats. The proposal potentially represents a wider quagmire for the US government and military.

Dissenting views on Iraq and Afghanistan will have to come not from the hawkish national security team, but from outside Washington, and from Obama himself.

On Iraq, Obama said nothing especially new in his July 14 New York Times op-ed piece and his foreign policy speech in Washington today. In both, he forcefully restated his commitment to combat troop withdrawals after his recent statements suggesting that he would "refine" his views when he consults military commanders on the ground. He neglected to address how many American "residual forces" he would leave behind in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda and "protect American service members," though he made additional US trainers conditional on the Iraqis making "political progress." It is a proposal that seems to promise a phased diminishing of the American military presence, not a complete withdrawal.

Many independent analysts question the wisdom of leaving some 50,000 American troops as advisers, trainers and counter-terrorism units in Iraq after the withdrawal of 140,000 by 2010. Those forces would be protecting a sectarian political regime that is linked to death squads, militias and a detention system now holding 50,000 Iraqis in violation of human rights standards.