President Obama will spend his August vacation writing an essay on why the United States should stay in Afghanistan. The essay was due during the 2009-2010 legislative term but has yet to be completed because the president kept putting it off citing more pressing projects such as healthcare reform and dealing with the recession. But a year and a half into his presidency an increasingly annoyed public is demanding he turn his paper in now even if it means spoiling his summer vacation.
President Obama came into office promising to write a really great essay about Afghanistan because the American people had become bored with the conflict and wanted it to end. He told the public that his piece would include a clear thesis statement that would outline his goals for Afghanistan, how he would accomplish them and why it had to be done. It would also include properly formatted footnotes and a bibliography.
Some mainstream media sources who like the President have openly tried to help him with his essay. Earlier this year the New York Times published a front page story about Afghanistan's mineral riches. And Time magazine recently published a cover picture of a young Afghan woman whose nose had been chopped off with the headline, "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." The efforts backfired and Obama won't be able to include the reasons in his essay because the American public knows only multinational corporations will receive all the mineral wealth and also that the girl lost her nose even though American troops were in Afghanistan.
Vocal detractor Stanley McChrystal, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, believes Obama isn't up to the task of coming up with reasons to stay in Afghanistan. He told several reporters that Obama "is really intimidated by this essay and he can't write it because he doesn't know what he's doing." After having his words read back to them and correcting the statement for accuracy he said, "This is off the record, right?"
It is rumored that the President is trying to find a Cliff Notes version of Wikileaks' "Afghan War Diary 2004-2010" as well as track down the five or six newspaper articles written about the war in Afghanistan prior to 2009. He's also interested in interviewing those in charge of the Afghan war during the Bush administration. He's having a notable lack of success in finding anyone that fits the description.
The American public had already warned the president that a late essay would result in lost credit. If the essay is not completed and turned in when the president returns from his vacation in September he could receive a failing grade on his handling of the nearly decade long conflict when they public goes to the polls in November and face possible expulsion in 2012.
