In August I wrote about reports that another new general was being appointed for Afghanistan. Well, now it is official. The appointment of Marine General Joseph Dunford to replace General John Allen is being announced.
Instead of repeating what I said in my prior post, I have another thought. I would love to be able to go into the future (maybe 20 or 30 years), so I could read the histories of Afghanistan and find out the “real” story of all of these appointments and changes of leadership in Afghanistan during the Obama administration.
It is becoming pretty clear that Barack Obama doesn’t really care about Afghanistan. Apparently, it was more of a club/issue to beat John McCain/George W. Bush with in the 2008 campaign than anything else. (In one bizarre way, I sort of hope President Obama didn’t care. If he did/does care, and this is what happens, that might be even scarier.)
Look at all the top generals we have gone through in Afghanistan: David McKiernan, Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus, John Allen, and now Joseph Dunford. And that is all in four years.
And then there is Ryan Crocker. He came out of retirement to be ambassador to Afghanistan in 2011, but he resigned a year later. Ambassador Crocker said he was resigning for health reasons, but it is still unfortunate that we have not been able to keep good people in Afghanistan.
And that is why I would like to go into the future (thinking about it, 20 to 30 years might not be enough; it might need to be 50 years): To find out the real story of Barack Obama and Afghanistan.
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