Letters from a brass watch man

Republican critics said setting a firm date for starting a troop withdrawal encourages the enemy to simply wait out the U.S. efforts, and many officials in Afghanistan agreed, calling the timeline unrealistic. Some Democrats, meanwhile, were concerned the deadline wasn't firm enough and that a sizable force would be left in Afghanistan indefinitely.

From CNN: Will Afghanistan be Obama's Vietnam?

So regarding Afghanistan - I don't really see any way around it. Please correct me if I'm wrong here - but in spite of all of the hype in the media and the vague grumbles from both right and left, there really aren't a whole lot of real options on the table. In the end, we're going to have to commit more troops, and we're going to have to take the war debt - or pay the taxes for it up front, as some are currently suggesting (which is, as one might expect in a recession, probably going to go down like a lead balloon - which doesn't mean, in my personal opinion, that it's the wrong idea).

But let me get this straight - so say we don't send more troops to Afghanistan, and basically let the Taliban take over again. Are the Taliban just going to forget the fact that we kicked them out in the first place a few years ago? Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't really strike me as the type to forgive and forget. We already know from 9/11 that they can hurt us. And unless I'm mistaken, their allied movement in Pakistan were until relatively recently fairly close to taking over there - along with its cache of nuclear weapons.

Like it or not, we're in the crux of the moment here. Giving in isn't going to make our enemies - the enemies we should have been fighting this whole time - go away. And if things don't finally get better for Afganistan, after all these years of being invaded and occupied, then they're going to get a whole lot worse for everyone.

I have two reactions to these words as I write them. The first is to feel like a coward, because even though I write these words I know I have no intention of fighting in the war I'm urging onwards. The other is a vague sense of disquiet - because I'm guessing that this is the kind of thinking that kept us in Vietnam long after the point of no return.

I know all of these things. But if there are other choices here, I'm not seeing them.

As of roughly 8:30 this morning &ndash before:

After:

Yep.

So a few weeks back, I got myself an Obama yard sign. I usually don't go for that sort of high-handed display of political allegiance, makeshift bumper stickers in my back window aside; but there's been an unexpected profusion of McCain-Palin signs in my neck of the woods, and I got sick of staring at all of them.

So, I rebelled, in my own little way. Until about last Thursday, when I came home to find that my sign had gone missing. Don't know for sure what happened to it. Might have just blown away the previous night, for all I know. Mind you, all the McCain-Palin signs still seem to be in place, so I don't know how valid that hypothesis is.

It's not a big deal. But I guess, once again, I really couldn't help myself. As of last night, this is hanging in front of my house:

We've got, what, five, maybe six days until the election? And I have about ten copies of this. I figure, if anyone has a problem with what it says, I can just put a new sign up when I get home.

Sent my absentee in on Monday. Just have to hope for the best from this point forward. And keep putting signs up as necessary.

PALIN: Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

The Republican House leadership blamed Pelosi, saying she gave a partisan speech before the vote that alienated House Republicans.