Obama don’t know nuttin’ about …. Afghanistan (or Iraq) (Updated)

RBO guest blogger Katmandu writes:

ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) if he had learned anything on the trip that would change his mind, and the answer basically was “no.”

But listen to this stunner:

“In terms of — look, there are all kinds of things that I learned,” Obama said. “I think one of the things that was most eye-opening was the extent to which the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan makes it very difficult for our troops, as good as they are, to decisively defeat the Taliban and the terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

My gawd, he didn’t know the border was porous?

And how does he know the “x amount” of troops he’ll send will solve that?

Update: Sen. Obama had another sit down interview with one of his faithful media reporters obediently following him about as he flits about Eurasia. Allahpundit at Hot Air sums up a major issue thusly:

If he considers troop levels to be a tactical rather than a strategic issue and therefore something to be guided by the advice of his generals rather than dictated from the top down as C-in-C, how is he able to set even an informal timetable? Petraeus, his would-be Centcom commander, is already telling him that a timetable unmoored to conditions is a bad idea. Is that a strategic or tactical judgment? Does it matter, since he’d have the final say anyway? He’s drawing an artificial distinction here in order to avoid having to commit to an estimate of the number of troops he hopes/plans to draw down. Which is fine by me, since it leaves him room to inch away from a total withdrawal later on, but presumably not so fine by the left for the same reason. Imagine, for instance, he tells Odierno that manpower is desperately needed in Afghanistan and therefore he wants to try to free up 50,000 troops by accelerating the handover of provincial security to Iraqi forces. No dice, says Odierno; we can spare 20,000, but those other 30,000 will be needed as back-up for awhile since the Iraqi aren’t fully prepared yet for their lead role. 50,000 versus 20,000 is a big deal, sufficiently so to matter to voters, I’d think. We have no sense from his answer what he’d do.

And, just like with Afghanistan, it appears that Sen. Obama doesn’t either.