Why Is President Obama Doubling Down On Afghanistan? (A Commentary)

SUNSET SCAN - U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Naoto Nakamura scans a village on the other side of a canal near Parghee Bagat in southern Afghanistan, May 31, 2010. Nakamura is assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. The Marines have been patrolling the villages and open terrain near Parghee Bagat to identify trends in the day-to-day lives of local Afghans. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Dean Davis

Washington's Compulsive Gambling -- Tom Dispatch

History, or the future (however you want to look at it), has a funny way of rearing up and biting leaders who think they know what they’re doing. Take Barack Obama. Only weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, he made a “pragmatic” decision to give way on the expansion of deep-water drilling off U.S. shores in return for political support on his energy bill that might never have added up to much. In the process, he said on camera: “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” His decision, which left the oil industry’s key lobbying outfit, the American Petroleum Institute, dancing for joy, doesn’t look quite so pragmatic or advantageous now.

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My Comment: The reason why I like to read articles from Tom Dispatch is not because I agree with them (I mostly disagree), but because they make me think. This commentary from William Astore, especially his posting on "Doubling Down On Afghanistan", is an example of this and it is a must read.