Obama says progress made in war in Afghanistan

Stuart Loory, Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism: President Barack Obama this week held a summit meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asi Ali Zardari of Pakistan to bring together two leaders of neighboring countries fighting a war with the Taliban and al-Qaida. He told the world that progress had been made and that the war could be won but that great difficulties lay ahead. As he spoke, a major refugee crisis was forming in the Swat Valley of northwestern Pakistan. A half million were leaving their homes to get out of the line of fire between the combatants. Complaints are increasing against the United States for allegedly killing too many civilians in western Afghanistan in an attempt to flush out Taliban leaders. The question now is will the Afghanistan/Pakistan war come to haunt the new president in the same way Iraq did George W. Bush or Vietnam did Presidents Lyndon Johnson and J.F. Kennedy? Is it true that President Obama has taken a major gamble, and if so, why did he do it? Has President Obama done the right thing in what he said at the summit meeting?