Thoughts on the Afghanistan speech: we can’t afford more war.

Last night, President Obama delivered his much-awaited speech announcing his strategy for the war in Afghanistan moving forward. I covered it, and my reaction to it, over at Care2 so if you have a sec I hope you will check it out — as well as the already very lively debate in the comments section.

In short: I think we shouldn’t be escalating. Our total troop level in Afghanistan will be at 100,000 and although the timeframe for withdrawal is tentatively set at 2011, there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll stick to that timeline. In the meantime, we’re continuing to lose dollars and human lives — two things we can’t afford to lose anymore of.

Feel free to check out my whole post here.

Also, for additional coverage I’d recommend reading other perspectives on the speech from some great writers:

The Washington Independent

David Corn at Mother Jones

And one of the smartest foreign policy bloggers around, Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy mag