This Tuesday Obama is supposed to announce his decision on troops and Afghanistan (the last guess I heard was 30,000 as opposed to the 40,000 the General asked for) and we will once again see our middle-east  battle commitment increase.

But is there a reason why the President didn't turn the problem over to the State Department for a negotiated solution? Sherwood Ross in OpEdNews writes an extended article on why diplomacy wasn't even considered. here's a clip:

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC Mediawire Blogger

Dr. George Tiller, one of the few physicians in the country who performed second and third trimester abortions, was fatally shot in church on Sunday. It seems that Tiller was marked for death because of his work. The man charged with murdering Tiller, 51-year-old Scott Roeder, has a 20-year history of anti-choice and anti-government extremism.

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 By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire Blogger

Yesterday, Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina and the third woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is currently a federal judge on New York's 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Born to Puerto Rican immigrant parents and raised by her mother in the housing projects of the South Bronx, Sotomayor went on to attend college at Princeton and law school at Yale. George H.W. Bush appointed her to the U.S. District Court in 1991 and Bill Clinton "promoted" her to the 2nd Circuit in 1998.

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Today is the sixth anniversary of the start of our most recent war in Iraq. News reports marking the occasion will no doubt note that combat deaths are now lower than at earlier stages in this war -- a silver lining to a still very dark cloud. No matter how quickly our troops leave Iraq, the war will not soon leave those who are serving -- and have served -- in it. A epidemic of psychological trauma is ripping through our military's ranks, and we're probably still years away from seeing the last of our troops withdrawn from Iraq.

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Cross posted at The Left Anchor.

The following post is cannibalized from a comment I made at TPZoo.  It seems to me that some Obama supporters might be going a bit overboard with their declarations that Obama has made "massive" shifts to the center (I feel his biggest shifts are on FISA and NAFTA, the second of which doesn't surprise me, and the first of which would probably pass no matter what he did).  As for foreign policy, here is my take on Obama's Iraq position:

There are two basic elements to military action: strategy and tactics. Strategy is the long term plan aimed at achieving a given goal. Obama has very clearly stated that his strategy is to remove troops at roughly two brigades per month until all troops are out. This will achieve the goal of removing us from the Iraq quagmire. What is important to note here is that specific tactics for achieving this strategy do not fall under Obama's domain. He doesn't have the military training to be making those decisions. Presidents in general don't make those types of low-level decisions. That would be micromanaging, which is just generally a poor way to run things.

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