Word: delayer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There's no question that President Barack Obama is taking his time in deciding whether to send the 40,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan that his commander has requested. The debate in Washington is over whether that delay constitutes dangerous "dithering" in the face of a growing danger or prudent pause in the face of a looming quagmire...
There are costs associated with delay, just as there are costs in making the wrong decision. "Each day that passes erodes domestic and foreign support for the war," Anthony Cordesman, a military expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Thursday. What Obama ultimately decides and how he shares it with the world "will be one of the defining acts of his presidency, and its ultimate success may well determine whether he has a second term...
...Pentagon officials acknowledge a "mild case of heartburn" over the delay, but they like the idea of the "political buy-in" it will represent once Obama decides. Still, they wish the issue hadn't achieved such a high profile. The Obama White House, they say, brought much of this upon itself with its running tally of (now seven) top-level, top-secret meetings, including the attendees and topics being discussed in the media. The Administration compounded its problems by asking McChrystal for his assessment after only 60 days in Afghanistan, well before all the 21,000 U.S. troops ordered there...
...unclear that this round will be any less contentious than the first. Fraud is still likely, Karzai is still tainted by the corruption and inefficiency that have plagued his government for the past eight years, and the onset of Afghanistan's winter could delay balloting until spring. The Obama Administration, meanwhile, has signaled a reluctance to commit more troops to its campaign in Afghanistan until it has a legitimate government to work with. At some point, it has to start wondering whether it has a partner worth waiting...
Alongside carefully arrayed mortar shells, short-range artillery equipment and a range of rifles is a pile of papers and documents. Among them are plans showing how to assemble an "impact grenade" and a "time delay" grenade. Other pieces of paper, handwritten in Arabic, apparently lay out instructions on how to rig another explosive device. Also among the documents are two European passports that purportedly belong to fugitive al-Qaeda members who are linked to the 9/11 attacks and the 2004 Madrid bombings. (Read about how Pakistan's army is finally getting serious about its internal enemies...