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December 6, 2009

Obama’s Tipping Point: From Area 60 to The Surge


How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But his advisers say he was haunted by the human toll as he wrestled with what to do about the eight-year-old war. (from NYT)

The question is, what happened to Obama in Arlington on Veterans Day?

After performing the requisite laying of the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the President then showed up unannounced in Area 60, dedicated to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, to greet and mourn with visiting families. If you accept today’s NYT in-depth scenario on how Obama backed the surge, that visit served as the emotional tipping point for committing 30,000 more troops to central Asia.

But then, if you’ve witnessed the somber video photographer Christopher Morris created of the event, he seemed to have figured it out right away.

More Christopher Morris at BNN.

  • http://spacetimecurves.blogspot.com kelley b.

    Any sane person sees such a scene at Arlington and says “No More”.
    The Village sees such and says “30,000 more. At least. To be determined by conditions at the time.”
    All of their gravitas is a sham to hide their profit.

  • Thirdeye Pushpin

    A Reifenstalesque vision of Obama’s descent into the Inferno of the Father Death Warrior Killing cult….how beautiful they make the sacrifice in distance with black and white, laced with harmonic tones of nostalgia…I could not help but feel it may have been the documentation of Obama’s conscience being kidnapped. It does not inspire hope and reeks of betrayal. I hope I am wrong.

  • bystander

    The question is, what happened to Obama in Arlington on Veterans Day?

    The only answer that makes sense to me is Obama came face to face with the sunk costs and found he couldn’t ignore them. The whisper of John Kerry’s voice, How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? could not be heard over the siren calls of the dead and their mourners.