A Lack of Direction in Afghanistan

Barack Obama is currently in Copenhagen, Denmark trying to secure the 2016 Olympic Games for the city of Chicago. There is a lot of Americans who believe that Obama is not using his time wisely by going to Denmark to make one last push for the Olympic Games. Personally, I think Obama has far more important things that he needs to deal with like ongoing war in Afghanistan.

The commander leading U.S. military forces in Afghanistan admitted last Sunday that Obama has only spoken to him once since he assumed the office of the presidency (I kid you not). This is an astonishing admission because I think Obama should be speaking with this commander everyday to understand what is going on. Sure, Obama receives intelligence briefings each day, but intelligence briefings cannot be a substitute for hearing directly from the man running the show on the ground in Afghanistan. Obama needs to hear from the commander to get a feeling of whether he can trust the man and so he can have an opportunity ask poignant questions with someone who is the most qualified to answer them.

The lack of communication between Obama and the U.S. commander is just a microcosm of a bigger problem the U.S. faces in Afghanistan. We have a complete lack of leadership from Obama, the Commander of the U.S. Armed Forces, when it comes to Afghanistan.

Obama does not yet have clear goals describing what he wants the U.S. military to achieve in Afghanistan. The fact that Obama does not have any clear goals set is inexcusable because you cannot approach a major activity-let alone a war- without first knowing what you want to accomplish first. You cannot formulate a successful plan without having coherent goals set first since you won’t know what you want to achieve with a plan, and without a sound plan, you end up performing a lot of tasks that are a waste of time and a waste of resources.

If we take Obama’s words at face value, achieving victory will not be a priority in the future. A couple of months ago Obama made it clear that victory is something he is very hesitant about achieving:

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,” Source

You may say that I am misrepresenting Obama’s statement, but think about the mindset of someone that is very hesitant to use the word “victory” to describe what he wants to achieve. The statement indicates that Obama is sympathetic to the feelings of the enemy because he is worried about things from their perspective. This attitude is the wrong one to have because the enemy is ruthless and would be glad to humiliate the U.S. However, to be fair, Obama’s staff is now working on defining a set of goals and a strategy after getting heat for not showing any leadership for the first nine months of Obama’s presidency.

I will have a lot more to say about Afghanistan in future entries, including what I believe will happen and what role Afghanistan may play in leading us to the End Times.