WHY WARS...? WELL, JUST BECAUSE...!

The crusty old author-warrior Norman Mailer put it best: "Fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of the clap...!"

Tuesday night, President Obama will announce his decision on the war in Afghanistan. I'll venture a guess, guessing it's 99% correct. His decision will satisfy no one. Which won't make it wrong; it will simply make it clear, once again, that wars solve nothing and breed everything.

Obama surely knows this. After all he has the tragic lesson of Lyndon Johnson who also had a vast social agenda at home, only to be suckered into a mistake overseas called Vietnam. So Tuesday night's speech will not be an easy one for the President. Nor is it one he wants to make. But he's the President, and the critics and pundits can Monday-Morning quarterback him to their hearts and pocketbooks content -- because they don't have to pass from the pocket.

The assumption in the West Wing is that our national security has no other good choice. Hopefully, though, it won't be a crazy Haily Mary pass like the last administration threw in Iraq. Time and the Taliban will tell. As will the courage of those GI's whose bodies and blood are smearing those wretched mountainsides. If you look closely on Tuesday night's closeups, it's likely you'll detect some of the very same pain that etched Lincoln"s and FDR's face every time they ordered young lives into combat.

As for those critics who are currently piling on the President, history reports the same thing always happens. Every wartime quarterback from Jackson to Bush has been piled on and sacked by his opponents. However, history also reports that its final judgment is not written until the last whistle blows. So maybe television's talking-faces after Tuesday's night speech might hold back some of their pomposity until closer to the 4th quarter. When they have something more concrete about which to be pompous.

To switch metaphors from quarterbacks to dancers, here's something Fred Astaire said to his critics: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you're allowed. Then, right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style..."