I’ve read with interest, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s unsolicited advice to President Obama to stop dithering in Afghanistan.

Dithering?

Did he really say dithering?

In my imaginary face to face dialogue with the Ex VP, I stand before him, red faced with veins bulging from my neck and droplets of spittle spewing from my mouth as I loudly repeat my question. Dithering? Did you really say dithering?

Please pardon my somewhat over the top reaction to our former Vice President, but in order to understand what has me stirred up, you should take some time to read two compelling books regarding our excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq by Pentagon reporter and author Thomas Ricks.

In his books, “Fiasco” and “The Gamble”, he reports on interviews with top CIA leaders who were on the ground in the early days after 9/11, going after Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The CIA operatives revealed that they had the Al-Qaeda mastermind in their cross hairs as he began his escape to the mountainous area of Tora Bora.

Despite the CIA’s report to the White House that they were so close to Bin Laden that he could surely feel their hot breath on his neck, their urgent request for Army Special Forces to aid in the prosecution of the retreating Al-Qaeda was cut short by Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The lack of response was because of a political tug of war in Washington over who was going to control the Middle East war effort.

In short, they dithered big time.

They dithered so badly that Osama Bin Laden made good his escape to the mountainous border of Afghanistan and Pakistan where he remains today.

In the end, President George Bush and his team of Cheney and Rumsfeld dithered away time and American lives in Iraq and now we stand involved in Afghanistan for nearly eight years with little or nothing to show for our efforts.

In fact, the Afghan population generally hates our guts, while each day we receive reports of our young soldiers in uniform dying in a forsaken country where the people still hold 17th century tribal values. Dithering sir?

You see, here’s the rub as far as I am concerned with the likes of Cheney and his so-called neoconservative following.

I find it revolting whenever I hear these pseudo-tough guys who are so eagerly willing to sacrifice American blood in far off places.

This from the likes of men who have never themselves found time to serve their country’s military service.

Former Vice President Cheney unabashedly reports that "he had other priorities” than to serve in Vietnam.

The same goes for Bill Kirstol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and the list goes on.

Oh yes, these are indeed tough guys.

Rough tough cream-puffs, as we used to say on the school yard.

I for one want our President to think long and hard about sending more troops to Afghanistan.

As for myself, I’m conflicted about our involvement there.

However, without regard to what I think or feel, I want our President to carefully consider our purpose, the strategy and indeed the logistics of indefinitely sending our brave military folks into battle over and over again.

What’s the price of overworking our military capacity in human terms?

Dithering? No Mr. Cheney, it’s called intelligent and thoughtful decision making.

You see, this is not a football game where one team wins and one team loses.

We should never view our military incursions in that context.

The truth is, we don’t even know what winning or losing means.

Clearly, should the President decide to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, little or nothing will change in America or our way of life that has not already happened.

We’ll still wake up each morning; go to work, school and church on Sunday.

We’ll still vote for elected candidates, gripe about taxes, laugh and love each other.

But if we are not successful in our military effort, it wouldn’t be the first time that we have precipitately withdrawn our military from a war effort.

I would ask you to remember the scenes of American helicopters hovering on the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon in hasty retreat.

We lost in Vietnam, and although it was not without a high price, nevertheless our unhappy experience in Vietnam didn’t materially change our way of life, our freedom or our democratic principles.

In the historical sense, none of it really mattered much at all.

In the end, despite what the Cheney crowd would describe as cutting and running from Iraq and Afghanistan, I would simply point to our experience in Vietnam.

After our departure from that war we have witnessed the historical disintegration of the Soviet threat, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war.

China now serves as a principal trading partner and Vietnam is still a Communist state.

It simply just didn't matter much at all.

So think long and hard Mr. President and take as much time as you need.

For if careful consideration about the gravity of war and whether to send our brave soldiers in harm’s way is what Cheney describes as dithering, then I say, “dither on Mr. President, dither on.”