After six plus years, the war in Afghanistan drags on. The media occasionally cites casualties, but if it doesn't involve National Football League veteran Pat Tillman's execution by his own comrades, Afghanistan gets sparse attention. A few stories feature the growing number of Afghan and Iraq War vets on American streets. But the aspiring candidates ignore such "blowback." Instead, they demonstrate verbal aggression, a characteristic thought necessary for victory. "We've got to get the job done there [Afghanistan]," Barack Obama asserted without specifying what the "job" is. (AP, Aug 14, 2007)

Obama called for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and sending them to "the right battlefield," Afghanistan and Pakistan. To pressure Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to act against terrorist training camps, Obama would use military force -- if he became President -- against those "terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans." (Bloomberg, Aug 1, 2007)