When President Obama makes a decision on the war in Afghanistan, his critics will have a field day no matter what course of action he takes.

The catastrophic mess left by the Cheney/Bush dimwits leaves Obama three options. If he decides to pull out, the bloodbath will continue. If he stays with no troop increase, the bloodbath continues. If he increases troop levels, the bloodbath continues.

The same goes for Iraq. We can’t leave, can’t stay, can’t win and can’t afford.

The best that we can hope for is to be chased out of Afghanistan and Iraq as the Russians were run out of Afghanistan and as the United States was routed from Vietnam “protecting our freedoms.”

(Don’t we remember hordes of pajama-clad, barefoot Vietcong storming the shores of the West Coast on bamboo rafts with booby traps trying to take our freedoms away?)

President Eisenhower warned all future presidents that we should never, ever get into a ground war anywhere in the Middle East. It’s safe to say that he knew that region was the earth’s religious loony bin since day one. He also warned, “We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”

Here’s Eisenhower again: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”