Romesh Ratnesar
is Deputy Managing Editor of Time magazine. He has written on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs and reported from many countries around the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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Dec 2009
Dec
1st
Obama at West Point. Can he Make the Moral Case?
I recently published my piece on Obama's West Point speech at Time: "Obama at West Point. Can he Make the Moral Case?". Here's how it begins:
If the leaks and speculation are anything to go on, President Barack Obama will deliver a number of different messages in his Tuesday-night speech about the war in Afghanistan. He will announce plans to send some 30,000 additional troops to the war zone. He will lay out benchmarks that the government of Hamid Karzai will be expected to meet. He may even sketch a timetable for an eventual U.S. withdrawal. At some point, he will likely describe the conflict in Afghanistan as a war of necessity.The mere fact that Obama has reached a decision on Afghanistan, coupled with the speech's West Point backdrop and the President's oratorical gifts, will probably boost public support for the war effort in the short run. But it is unlikely to convince most Americans that a war that has already lasted more than eight years is worth fighting indefinitely.
Read more at Time.com
