George,

Last night, in his speech before the corps of cadets at West Point, President Obama outlined his reasons for escalating further the fiasco in Afghanistan. With it, in my opinion, he sealed his fate as a failed one term president.

As the flag-draped coffins containing the body bags of young Americans killed by his decision inevitably arrive at Dover Air Force base, and hundreds, perhaps thousands more, maimed, some forever, by the wackiness of a war that the word "winning" could simply never apply, Obama will inherit the fallout of the Cheney-Bush nightmare! The voters will not be kind or forgiving.

The utter sadness of a war being waged against a civilian force, will result in the further suffering of a population wracked by "collateral damage." The economic cost of the war alone could feed clothe and house many of the citizenry and produce far more fruitful results for the USA.

Obama is a smart man, true, but he also seems to be caught up in a fatal trap called "process." He has let himself be influenced by the military mind which, historically, and with few exceptions, sees peace as in interval between wars. The mind of the generals operates on a day by day basis--often lacking in both historical knowledge or perspective. It is their job to see fighting as an opportunity to prove their abilities, but with an often very narrow point of view. They stand "too close to the picture" to see what the inevitable tragic outcome will be.

As was once expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "the years teach what the days never know." I wish George Bush ll and Barack Obama had been guided by the words of a soldier, Dwight D Eisenhower. He said "I hate war,as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

He went on to say: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

There was so much hope, so much promise offered by Barrack Obama to those of us who clearly recognized the devastation of the Cheney-Bush years.

The late William Elwood observed many times, "intelligence is a cheap commodity. Leopold and Loeb were brilliant, as was Hermann Goering. Wisdom and its application to all Humankind comes at a higher price, but with a much greater value."

It is a sad time in my life.

Harry Tenney (Electronic mail, December 2, 2009)