The President and Afghanistan

News yesterday, quietly announced by the four-star general who will benefit from it, of an impending troop buildup in Afghanistan. You remember Afghanistan, right? It is where "the good war" is happening, the one candidate Obama and much of the left hid behind while badgering the Bush Administration to cut and run from Iraq?

What gives the Administration the wiggle room they need to send these extra troops? Why, success in Iraq--you know, the place where Harry Reid said we'd lost, and where candidate Obama said a "surge" would make no difference.

Governing is different than campaigning, and the Commander-in-Chief role is what really distinguishes the Presidency from every other elective office in the land. On the whole, I support what the President is doing, I take a great deal of satisfaction from knowing how this move will be received on the left. "We didn't really MEAN all that stuff about Afghanistan! It was just a way of POLITICIZING the Bush Administration's war in Iraq!"

I know the Joint Chiefs are working hard on an Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy, as is the White House. Presumably, a solid plan can be put together to ensure that these troops are employed to satisfy a coherent strategy, something that received short shrift in the waning days of the Bush Administration.

A note to my Republican and Conservative friends. Remember--what makes us different from our Liberal friends is that all politics is (are?) not personal to us. We supported the war in Afghanistan when President Bush started it, we've supported it since the Fall of 2001. Now is NOT the time to begin to politicize this. The President has a responsibility to justify the increased troop levels with a plan to win, and we all await progress on that front.