I do believe these are fully legitimate questions worthy of discussion. This is true no matter who our President is when we go to war.
What has unfortunately happened is the politicization of the war. Bam (and for a long time the Demos) ran against Bush, against his decision to go to Iraq, often saying that we were fighting the wrong war. The message was that Osammy was in Afghanistan, why are we in Iraq.
Bam has followed up with that theme as a matter of policy and publicly. However, Presidents are allowed to change their mind, new info becomes available, new realities, etc. Not sure this is what has transpired here.
The problem is that the Demos have politicized the war, much like they have done since the 1960s. This has served them well politically as Americans do not like war, especially wars that take a long time to resolve. The Repubs have responded with their own politicization of the war, but usually not at the risk of the nation's security and far less vocally.
So Bam is seriously considering continuing down this path: make an expedient, short term decision based upon the polls. His base is not happy with him and Indies are very skeptical. So he will pander to his base, the anti-war, far left and we will pull out. A disaster will ensue of course, but the media will conveniently forget to mention Bam’s name when this occurs.
schu
And yes, Bam is a poll-driven creature. And now the Dems are cornered and losing numbers daily. Bam doesn't comprehend military strategy...he has devoted less than a day to it since General McChrystal requested the troops. His mind is on the thrust of his wild, liberal spending programs, and on his survival in power. He will do whatever is expedient to these ends, not thinking too hard about the consequences to the country and to the world. Thus, he is not a competent CIC. He is a compromised CIC who is trying to function way above his pay grade.