Bill Roggio describes the internal struggle over Afghan war policy. The account suggests that consensus has somehow not been reached within the administration and that there are now serious divisions within the senior leadership about where the campaign in Afghanistan is going next. How did it come to this?
Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal’s team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn’t given sufficient resources (read “troops”) to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan …
The entire process followed by the military in implementing a change of course in Afghanistan is far different, and bizarrely so, from the process it followed in changing strategy in Iraq. …
For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague “AfPak” assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal’s assessment hit President Obama’s desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration. …
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration’s commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration’s waffling on Afghanistan.
Some light on how strategy is formulated was shed by Hillary Clinton in an interview with Newshour’s Margaret Warner. Clinton conveys the impression that McChrystal was “a new commander and he was asked to please give his best judgment” with all that suggests.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well first let me put it into context. I mean one of the points that the President has made continuously since taking office is that we’re going to be assessing, both our strategy and its implementation constantly. We’re not going to make a decision and then just let it go on autopilot. We think that it’s much better to be very open and robust in our deliberations. So what General McChrystal has done is to take a look from his perspective. He’s a new commander and he was asked to please give his best judgment. His memo is what’s called a classified pre-decisional assessment but it goes into the process. We have a really vigorous process through the NSC and the White House where we make our contributions and then of course decisions go to the president. I think the President said very well yesterday on his marathon talk show appearances that you know we need to have a clear view of the strategy and its implementation before we get to resources, and that’s the process we’re engaged in right now.
MARGARET WARNER: General McChrystal was very blunt saying if you want to do counter-insurgency, he needs more resources or the whole war will, quote, “likely result in failure.” Now is there anyone better positioned to give at least that kind of assessment than the commander you sent out there, or the president sent out there to do just that?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, but, without referencing General McChrystal’s report because it is classified, let me just say that we know, including our military colleagues that good governance is key to whether or not what we do has positive results. We know that getting it right in Pakistan and along the border is critical. So there’s not just one decision point — number of troops. It is part of a broader understanding of what are our true goals, how best can we move toward achieving them? We have a clear and critical objective of trying to disrupt and dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and their extremist allies and prevent a return to safe haven, and every piece of this has to fit together. We don’t even know yet who will be the president of Afghanistan so it’s, it’s not in any way to say that what General McChrystal, based on his expertise is presenting or asking for is not important. It’s critically important but it’s a part of the overall process and there are many other considerations that we have to take into account.–
However, Clinton’s statements disguise the fact that the case for more troops was being pushed most aggressively by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. “We have reached a turning point in Afghanistan as to whether we are going to formally adopt nation-building as a policy,” said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a former secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration. And the idea that the White House is “going to be assessing, both our strategy and its implementation constantly” may raise memories of Lyndon Johnson’s famous boast “them boys over there can’t bomb an outhouse without my permission”.
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Foreign Policy is aghast at the appearance in the Washington Post of a leaked version of McChrystal’s report. It is a harsh critique of the Afghan government and past command failures, but it also emphasizes the underresourced and off-hand nature of the administration’s involvement. Perhaps the harshest lines were delivered in companion Washington Post piece by Chandrasekan and de Young. The last paragraph reads:
When Obama announced his strategy in March, there were few specifics fleshing out his broad goals, and the military was left to interpret how to implement them. As they struggle over how to adjust to changing reality on the ground, some in the administration have begun to fault McChrystal for taking the policy beyond where Obama intended, with no easy exit.
But Obama’s deliberative pace — he has held only one meeting of his top national security advisers to discuss McChrystal’s report so far — is a source of growing consternation within the military. “Either accept the assessment or correct it, or let’s have a discussion,” one Pentagon official said. “Will you read it and tell us what you think?” Within the military, this official said, “there is a frustration. A significant frustration. A serious frustration.”
It is hardly the picture of an executive team “assessing, both our strategy and its implementation constantly”. An uncharitable reading of the article would be a snapshot of people bereft of ideas themselves but full of advice for others. But interested in detail or not, President Obama certainly seems determined to have his strategic way, not only in Afghanistan but in setting over all nuclear weapons policy. The Guardian’s Julian Borger has this report from London:
President Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon radically review the US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare for deep cuts in the US arsenal. Mr Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the nuclear posture review as being too timid, and has called for more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of abolishing nuclear weapons, European officials say. The options include:
- Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.
- Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.
- Exploring guaranteeing the reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.… One official said: ”Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the President’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”
Questions of policy should be resolved by the civilian leadership, which in turn is accountable to the political process. But with the country racked by the debate over health care “reform” and a deepening polarization in the points of view, one wonders how these serious national security questions are going to be resolved. Can the Senate, for example, hold hearings on the advisability of making deep and probably irreversible cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal in the face of an apparent division of opinion? Can it offer an opinion on a way forward in Afghanistan. There is precedent for this. For example, the Iraq Study Group, chaired by James Baker, was “a ten-person bipartisan panel appointed on March 15, 2006, by the United States Congress, that was charged with assessing the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq War and making policy recommendations. It was first proposed by Virginia Republican Representative Frank Wolf”. President Bush did not follow its recommendations in the end, but the process of debate was in itself valuable.
While the President remains the commander in chief, it is probably desirable to thresh out the pro and contra in a public forum not only to surface the different points of view, but to provide assurance that the policy is rational and in the national interest. If a Commander in Chief is going to disregard the professional advice of the uniformed services and insist on deep cuts in weapons upon which survival may depend, prudence dictates that the reasons, so far as security allows, be made known. Just as everyone is entitled to disregard the advice of one’s medical doctor, the Commander in Chief, may for valid reasons, overrule the men in the field. But this is rarely done lightly and should best be for an obvious and compelling reason. It’s not sufficiently convincing for a source to say “these are the President’s weapons”. Nuclear weapons are not President Obama’s personal property; they are the country’s weapons, entrusted to him for a space.
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Starting to look like George Armstrong Obama
on the Little Big Kahandar.
Anything that actually works “over there” is
toxic towards Obamaroid political ambitions
“back here”.
Result is to try to order results with flawed tactics and no strategy at all.
High profile resignations by Generals may be the only thing that can force realism.
Stay tuned.
Way back, on a thread on BC about Obama’s inauguration, I wrote that it was the emptyness in his eyes that most un-nerved me.
I am now convinced – he’s mad.
ADE
High profile resignations by Generals may be the only thing that can force realism.
That would be bad on several counts. If competent generals resign for reasons other than professional failure, then they may be replaced by lesser men or hacks. Second, if civilian politicians are waiting for military men to cue them in, then the political system is failing already. It augurs poorly if the political elite is waiting for someone to stick out his neck, throw away a career and take the lead because ordinary politicians can’t muster the gumption to. The best thing is for the civilian politicians to find their nerve; to debate strategy rationally and professionally like the statesmen they are supposed to be; not to stand like deer in the headlights waiting for someone else to make the first move.
I suspect that the big 0 will play Gen. McChrystal the same as he has played the American public – for a fool.
0bama will issue vague statements all the while strangulating McChrystal (both men and money). It’s just a question of how long McChrystal will gulp down 0bama’s political Taqiyya.
If McChrystal can do with less…and less…and less, then good on him. But, I have a horrible feeling that the big 0 will 0bamaCare him and his men into the dust. It will not be pretty.
The Financial Times reports that politicians are too busy to pay attention because they’ve been consumed by the health care debate.
So the “greatest deliberative body” in the world may be so busy working on cap n’ trade that that it can devote no attention to other less important matters. Now there may be a grain of truth in that. The extraordinary agenda of President Obama may mean that the Senators are having to work harder than they are used to. It’s a discontinuity for everyone. Still, maybe they can spare a moment to consider Afghanistan and the nuclear arsenal.
Nice emphasis: “these are the President’s weapons. . .”. With wretch’s rejoinder, no, “they are the country’s weapons, entrusted to him for a space.”
Can you conceive of unitlateral disarmament? If Obama spikes our arsenal in some irreversible way, this would be the grounds for impeachment that Whiskey and others are looking for.
the (US) generals should hire putin to negotiate for them — with obama.
The Guardian wrote: “One official said: Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the President’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role. ”
Wretchard said: “It’s not sufficiently convincing for a source to say “these are the President’s weapons”. Nuclear weapons are not President Obama’s personal property; they are the country’s weapons, entrusted to him for a space.”
Starling says: I read the article to see if the word “weapons” is intended in a figurative rather than literal sense. To that end, I read it to mean “a means of persuading or arguing” e.g. “He used all his conversational weapons” rather than as “any object used in fighting or war, such as a gun, bomb, sword, etc.”
By this reading, the two sentences that immediately follow indicate who needs to be persuaded and what they need to be persuaded to do.
“Mr Obama is preparing to take the rare step of chairing a watershed session of the UN Security Council on Thursday. It is aimed at winning consensus on a new grand bargain: exchanging more radical disarmament by nuclear powers in return for wider world efforts to prevent further proliferation.”
By this reading the three “more far reaching options” concerning our “nuclear posture” are figurative weapons in persuading “states without nuclear weapons” from siding with Iran “in the run-up to the non-proliferation treaty review conference in May”… just as they did in 2005, prior to the last review. These are also his weapons in convincing them to “forgo nuclear weapons programs themselves.”
Now I may have tried too hard. But if the figurative reading of “weapons” is NOT intended, then there is cause for deep concern because, as you say so well, the weapons are not literally “his.”
PS: No matter how one reads “weapons”, it seems from the article that the French are having none of this “a world without nuclear weapons” talk that Obama and Brits are pushing. Apparently France’s preferred nuclear posture is opposite of supine. Vive la France!
What really makes me furious at the imbeciles in D.C. is that this matter of Afghanistan and our military is not some blackboard exercise in some ivory tower. The lives of our best and brightest are on the line every stinkin’ day! There should not be ANY higher priority than deciding what we are going to do wherever our troops are in harm’s way. Give our military clear objectives, give them the ALL the stuff they need, and then get out of their way. If Obama isn’t willing to do that, then bring them home.
In the past, whenever a new President found himself overwhelmed with the pressure and complexity of the new job, he would reach out to the “gray hairs” in his own party, and former Presidents of both. These groups would counsel the President to move in the direction of moderation, and that would be a good thing for our country.
Who will Barack Obama reach out to? GWB? WJC? GHWB? JEC? Perhaps. Will he listen? Probably only to Carter.
REFRAIN:
Like I said, over his head.
L3
So the “sleeper” is now inside the castle after a 25 year wait. Everything he has been groomed for is now within his grasp. He has just a short time (4 years or less!) to turn the entire place over to his master.
He starts two huge fires inside the walls under the guise of reform which distracts virtually all the inhabitants, and then proceeds to order the guards on the walls to stand down because they are needed to help put out the fire.
The only thing left is to let down the drawbridge.
The endgame is in sight. Your next big decision will be wether to join Islam or resist and die.
My own problem in approaching this debate is to reconcile the formal seriousness of the subject with the need not to become hysterical. Personally I feel the healthiest attitude toward these contretemps is to take it all with a grain fo salt. ‘Hey politicians have been doing this stuff for decades and the world is still turning.’ On the other hand, there’s a voice which warns against complacency. So one is whipsawed between the guilt over being too overconfident and succumbing to dark conspiracy theories.
My hope in this case has been to trust in the wisdom of crowds. There’s a system out there, which while imperfect, works in a manner of speaking. The politicians, though venal and even stupid, are perhaps not crazy. So the idea is that the Republic’s political systems, if stirred into reluctant motion, will correct things.
Even if, for the sake of argument, the President were somehow dangerously wrong, the overall system ought to be able to fix things. A democracy is supposed to be a self-healing structure. Actually, I’m less worried about Barack Obama than the forces which gave rise to him. In some fundamental way, he really does represent a political tradition which a considerable number of people actually subscribe to. If Barack Obama didn’t exist, someone else like him would have been invented.
Ultimately he is a mirror into a great power’s dilemmas and is divisions. This alone means that a political solution is required not only for resolving specific policies, but to settle the underlying debate which has divided millions. The President is at the center of great unresolved issues, but he is not the issue himself, not in any fundamental sense. He may distill it in some way and focus the arguments from either end of the spectrum in ways that a less striking politician might not.
Maybe the real fear isn’t that BHO will do something foolish; individuals do that all the time. Perhaps the real worry is that Washington is so broken that the former correctives no longer function.
American Leftists and Tranzis always misjudge the American military. They assume, based on some movie like Seven Days in May or some book their Critical Gender and Transformative Dynamics Theory Professor made them buy that the armed forces are run by knuckle dragging Capitalists. The truth is that the military is the most Socialist community in America. It does have its own culture and the looming conflict between members of that community and Obama will flow not from policy differences but from their evaluation of him as a man and a leader.
The military obeys orders. That is what they do. Like a faithful dog they can be lead to do amazing things. They will even conform to a policy that lacks basic competency or which goes against their own interests. However the ability to give those orders depends on a reciprocal relationship. Nothing about this is a secret. What the military values and expects in a leader are two things, courage and honesty. If you posses those then you can get them to follow you into any situation and they will execute any policy.
For example while most but not all members of the military disagreed with President Carter they followed his orders without to much dissent. They obeyed the orders of President Clinton also but I think that the linkages between Hillary and the discredited Wesley Clark, who was seen as lacking moral courage and was deceitful in a manner beyond that accepted in a Pentagon bureaucrat, would make it hard for her to be an effective leader. John Kerry was destroyed as a potential candidate for POTUS when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked him on these issues, not on his policy positions.
The problem that Obama faces is that he is being judged, not by right wing partisans or birthers or 2nd Amend. “gun nuts,” but by people who after close observation are concluding that he is a coward and that he is dishonest. This is a tragedy and once that cord of trust is broken it can not be restored.
There are days when I don’t feel like writing at all, recoiling from the sense that the literati are chattering themselves into insanity and driving everyone within earshot into a frenzy; that in some very small way I’m adding to the din. The Internet’s like that sometimes, full of urgent messages all the time. It’s like being in a bongo convention. It almost takes an act of faith to imagine that the sun will rise tomorrow even if you don’t think about it. And yet of course it will, just not in exactly the same way you imagined it would.
One thing I worry about is how the political dialogue has become one series of forebodings after another. The subjects have become so fantastic they are almost unreal. It’s like a horror movie where everybody is inexplicably funny.
Maybe I should go have a beer.
Redstate has a story on more links between Obama and Acorn.
http://tinyurl.com/nopq4p
wretchard,
BHO as Frank’n Furter in Rocky Horror? Enjoy a San Miguel.
“Bama hasn’t made a difficult decision in his life except made latte or expresso. As L3 said over his head, way way over his head.
Academia is not the place to learn critical decision making. “Bamas stuttering off prompter speaking skills and his deer in the head lights demeanor about the rest of this stuff scares me. How does he react when the red phone rings and you have a 10 min. go no window?
His whole tenure(1 term)in office will be muddled and chaotic. If we can change the split in the legislature next fall maybe we can limit the damage but a lot of things will go very badly in Afg. because of his incompetence.
I hope Gen. McChrystal and Adm Mullen have read “Dereliction of Duty”.
Afghanistan is not Vietnam, but as someone once said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”
A key lesson learned propounded by HR McMaster (the author of Dereliction of Duty) is that rather than stand up for what experience told them was the correct course of action; the JCS elected to accept the constraints of Johnson and McNamara and somehow “muddle through”. If I remember correctly, Gen. Wheeler (the CJCS) actually went to the White House to resign but lost the courage of his convictions.
It’s easy to see how men who have risen to the apex of their careers could convince themselves that they were indispensable. That they would bend, because they could ameliorate the ill effects of bad policy. Perhaps even snatch something resembling victory from the jaws of defeat.
I don’t claim to know the way forward. But I do suspect that the President will split the difference and give McChrystal some but not all of the required resources. Then McChrsytal will be faced with the hard choice and we will see what kind of General he is.
“There are days when I don’t feel like writing at all” – those are the most depressing words I’ve read in a long time…buck up, Wretchard, we need you. Would that the country was being run by bloggers on BC than by denizens of DC.
Wretchard,
Re #15, you are not contributing to the din. You are reassuring us all that there are serious intelligent people who care deeply about this country and who think about more than gaining a place at the table of well-paid spin doctors. Enjoy your beer, knowing that you are keeping people atuned to what is really important.
Maybe narcissism-by-proxy really doesn’t work as a guiding basis for policy after all.
I thought for sure the “Reset” button we gave the Russians would work once they realized that history and perceived national interest no longer matter because the Americans have a really, really hip new leader.
I believed the Islamacists would welcome the Age of Nuance. After all, Hugo Chavez may become our closest ally, so what is with Ahmadinejad and bin Laden.
Anyway, direct military action is so five-minutes-ago and tacky. I am confident that when the President focuses like a laser on the image and narrative of himself he wants in this instance, we will have a new Afghanistan policy.
The Perspicacious Wretchard: ” Perhaps the real worry is that Washington is so broken that the former correctives no longer function.”
Rem acu tetigisti.
“European officials say the Obama administration lacks focus because its top talent is wrapped up in the all-consuming debate over healthcare.”
They call that “talent”???
They call that “debate”???
“It’s like a horror movie where everybody is inexplicably funny.”
It’s all fun and games til somebody puts an eye out.
This morning’s NPR coverage of the Afghanistan hearings yesterday were interesting. The exchange between Mullen and Lindsey Graham went something like this: “How many tanks do the Taliban have?” “None.” “How many aircraft?” “None.” “So they’re outnumbered, they’re not welcome by much of the populace, they have no air force, and no armor – how are they doing this then?” To which Mullen replied, “it’s *their* country, Senator.” Right – it’s not their country. They’re unpopular, they have no air force, no armor, and according to reports they’re “vastly outnumbered” by Coalition combat forces. So.. how’re they doing this?
Then the NPR report discussed the breakdown of the Taliban arrayed against us. Evidently there are three groups. The first and largest is Mullah Omar’s, which has apparently turned Quetta into the seat of its fiefdom. The second I didn’t recognize, but the third is led by Gulbeddin Hakmaytyar – a reputed Soviet asset during the Soviet-Afghan War. These groups are funded primarily with narcotics money and – outrageously – large continuous donations from wealthy Gulf Arabs.
So – the real problem appears to be (1) that Pakistan either exerts no authority in Quetta or supports Omar there, and probably (2) the networks of arm deliveries and narcotics/Gulf money are probably abetted by Iran and Russia. On a hunch I’d go further and say that Russian Spetznas & Co. probably has a great deal to do with the power of the Taliban. Also note that Pakistan’s deepest relationship is not with the United States at all – its deepest relationships are with China.
It appears that what we are facing is clearly or most likely a project of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its observer members (Pakistan, Iran) to deliver a crippling blow to the USA using the hands of the Islamic Insurgents in the ungovernable quasi-states of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Gulf Arab money is obviously involved but one really wonders (1) whether they can deliver sufficient funds with sufficient reliability all on their own without intelligence enablers, and (2) whether “Gulf Arab money” is just disinformation to distract from other sources. You’d think we’d have myriad ways to stop those transactions pretty damn quickly if the choices were between strategic US retreat and the cozy decadent lives of a few Arab super-brats.
I guess my question is why the military, some courageous representatives, Lindsey Graham since he’s usually pretty good on this stuff, John McCain – someone – why aren’t these folks or anyone really describing the dimensions of this Central Asian Thing? Obviously the Taliban aren’t surviving on a stream of weapons brought by Spies Like Us jalopies over from Dushanbe and making 7.56 ammo out of Hindu Kush. That’s absurd on its face. So – to reiterate Graham’s question – “how are they doing this?”
Wretchard,
I concur with vb. After all, “All work and no play . . .” You work very hard for all of us as we try to understand our confusing world.
Best wishes,
Jim
dan,
Interesting comment. Three recurring themes among the journalists/punditry have been the implacable rivalry between Russia and China and the eternal war between Sunni and Shia and the unbridgeable gulf between Islam and present or “former” communists. We are repeatedly told to ignore any signs of cooperation among these supposedly implacable enemies. Without a doubt the all hate and despise each other. Sometimes when you hear all the parties to a drawn out dispute explain the failings of each other the only conclusion is, “You are all correct. You are all terrible.” That does not mean that you get to withdraw to a faculty lounge and sip sherry while bemoaning how dreadful the world is. The evidence is that while they hate and despise each other they are perfectly capable of cooperating to reduce the power of the United States.
Wretchard, I am deep in your debt for providing uncompromised clarity in your choices of subjects for our discussion, and for the wider view of history and all the factors that have bearing on those issues. You faithfully provide a forum in which we are exposed to a wider spectrum of viewpoints than anywhere else I’ve found in a public place.
Sometimes it seems like what you’ve brought into being here – against all odds – is a place where people actually listen and try to wrap their minds around complex debate, disagreements, and seemingly irreconcilable ideas without threats and vicious insults.
Well, mostly.
And I intend to steal your metaphor of the “bongo convention” and throw it into conversation as soon as possible, before the talking heads get hold of it.
Seriously, God Bless You!
What I thought was most remarkable about 9/11/01 was how little real confusion there was. I was both amazed and awed by the pure clarity of understanding and purpose that the people on flight 93 showed. But 9/11 affected things on the micro level. My cousin and I chatted over breakfast. She was visiting from North Carolina. She planned to go to downtown DC that day with her kids but when the plane hit the pentagon–she figured likely that was not such a good idea– and so she stayed away.
Why the want of confusion? TV, radio, internet, cell phones. Broadcast and narrow cast.
These tools enabled a clarity of execution. The clarity of purpose (honesty and courage) came from terrorists themselves. That is the terrorists clarity of purpose motivated american clarity of purpose for a time.
who was most confused? that did not come till later. remember those demonstrations in which jihadists marched side by side with communists in protest against the wars back in 2003-4. how could both communist and jihadist agendas be thwarted at the same time?
This confusion has entered the white house.
But while this confusion rules…I’m not so sure this confusion reigns.
Perhaps it’s as simple as Obama not wanting another embarrassment like his renunciation of the ‘surge’ in Iraq.
If the ‘surge’ in Iraq can’t or, as some silly people say, *didn’t* work, then a ‘surge’ in Afghanistan is only a massive liability. If it fails, Obama’s screwed. If it succeeds, Obama’s further massively embarrassed.
It could just be this simple.
wretchard, I share your dismay at the poor quality of debate (and action) today, but I am not yet convinced that it *matters*, that anything is actually going critical that modestly better judgements would do better at. OTOH, I am convinced that these are The New Dark Ages, and one needs to lay back and enjoy it. I am resigned to the likelihood of nukes going off in several places around the world over the next twenty years, quite possibly under my ass.
But I see no single point of failure, no quick fixes.
And on the plus side, just maybe there are countervailing positive trends as well. Increased technology is raising everyone’s standard of living, and reducing the *rational* reasons for war. I hope that holds China away from any military adventures, like against Taiwan. All that leaves is shitholes like Darfur. And, jihad. But really, would Iran risk its entire existence for jihad, giving up all the modern comforts to see everything blown up and radioactive for the next thousand years? I hope not. Would individuals and tiny groups of jihadis be happy to nuke New York, or London, or the Macdonalds in Riyadh? Probably. But, the etherial liberal view of such things is, I suppose, valid – if it happens, we can survive that. Which I suggest meshes with the conservative view – it’s a good thing we can survive, and we should have some plans in place for retribution after.
Which brings us to Afghanistan … but I’m going to leave that as an exercise for the reader. Nation building, indeed, is all I will say about it.
While I’m in agreement…sadly…with Josh’s bleak assessment of rogue nukes going off around the world in the not-too-distant future, I am somewhat “comforted” by the ultimate irony that such an act would achieve the most bang for the buck, so to speak, in a large city – virtually all of which are run by and inhabited by huge majorities of raving liberals. Since lefties are the very folks whose policies allow terrorism to flourish, I am reminded of Churchill’s comment when the Nazis bombed the family factory of Stanley Baldwin (a noted opponent of military spending and readiness) – “how ungrateful of them.”
Wretchard@15 reflects:
…in some very small way I’m adding to the din.
Storm and fury
Batter weary seekers on their way.
Just a small candle helps.
Wretchard @ #3 wrote:
High profile resignations by Generals may be the only thing that can force realism.
That would be bad on several counts. If competent generals resign for reasons other than professional failure, then they may be replaced by lesser men or hacks. Second, if civilian politicians are waiting for military men to cue them in, then the political system is failing already.
My reply: Perhaps this is precisely the point. What if President Obama wanted the Generals to resign? What if the latent goal was to weaken the US military? What if the main objective of the Obama/Soros plan was to weaken the currency, weaken the military, weaken the economy, and rid the world of the “scourge” of American Exceptionalism?
Looks to me like this description of Obama — one-third incompetent, one-third grandiose utopian, one-third Muslim — is more and more reasonable.
San Miguel? That tasty brew fueled a summer long party across much of Spain and Portugal for me. Ah, youth.
Wretchard:
“…recoiling from the sense that the literati are chattering themselves into insanity and driving everyone within earshot into a frenzy.”
I feel the same and further that the administration feeds into it in an affirmative way.
There is a radical proposal or policy move by the administration, such as the Wall Street buyout and takeover, that results in a huge outcry and fury that carries the Nation along a while. Then, while that furor is maturing, another is introduced, the “Stimulus” Bill which causes another bout of vitriol while the first isn’t even resolved. Then the auto industry takeover and the health bill. The immigration fight has already been introduced as has the nuclear/missile foolishness.
Along with this are minor notes in the score like Cap and Trade, Honduras, Iran, North Korea.
They come so fast and furiously that one can’t sustain a level of concern sufficient to move the political needle away from any but the most egregious, and even those fade into the bureacracy quickly (Who’s watching the auto industry management, the economic machinations, TARP spending, the stimulus?).
It’s like a solid and viscious beating. After a while you can only hope to survive it and your whole being is tied up in defense. There’s no longer any room or strength for offense.
I worked for the government and have had experience with the political appointees. The soundest advice is don’t watch the hand that’s waving: watch the one behind the back. That’s the one creating the worst mischief
“If competent generals resign for reasons other than professional failure, then they may be replaced by lesser men or hacks.”
Paging Wesley Clark…. paging Wesley Clark….
A military that is weak invites attack.
A Nation with no way to retaliate against attack is conquered.
A leader who loses the confidence of his Military is lost.
I recall Carter, desert one of the Iran hostage situation. We had no military option due to massive cuts in defense and Carter’s attitude towards the military. yet the Georgia giant sent our boys off on a mission to rescue hostages with second rate equipment and helicopters that could not fly in the enviroment. Got folks killed, and then unable to do anything Carter sat for over 400 days and waited for the Iranians to let them go.
Mr. Obama (PBUH) is running the risk of getting a bunch of guys killed all for what?
perhaps the fellow is stuck on stupid.
Wretchard sez “There are days when I don’t feel like writing at all….”
Keep the faith, good man, you are as a beacon of light.
I look toward your postings the way a swimmer at night looks toward a lighthouse to be sure they are heading the right direction.
Take a break when you need to but please keep up the good work!
I’ve been telling everyone here since McChrystal was installed that one goal of the Obama Administration was to make Petraeus look like a failure for domestic political reasons. Obama and the Left want and need to cut down our most visibly successful military leaders.
McChrystal’s impending resignation will weaken the military leadership and make the remaining careerists more timid and compliant.
Purging the military leadership of political conservatives helps preserve the Left’s power.
Believe me, being able to say “I told you so” is little comfort.
I can’t help but think in cliches as I watch this administration: Paralysis by analysis, He who hesitates is lost, death by a thousand cuts, you are known by the company you keep, and etc.
Information has an economic value and bad information is worth less. As the Obamaites are caught in more lies the less worth their words are and the greater the economic consequences are for them. New York City will soon look more and more like Detroit with its abandoned buildings.
They can violate the written law but there are unwritten laws and forces that are much more unforgiving.
“The people who run the country read the Wall Street Journal, The people who think they run the country read the Washington Post, The people who think they should run the country read the New York Times, The people who don’t care who runs it unless there is a juicy scandal read the NY Post.” Fewer and Fewer people read newspapers esp. the New York Times, and the Washington post is in free fall also.
One small note of comfort. If BHO purges the officer corps to promote the likes of Weasley Clark and abandons the fight over there then those who survive the ensuing debacle will remember and come 2010 the Democrats will find it harder to throw their votes away, as the Democrats did to the troops who voted while deployed.
Obama’s history shows that he is always looking for a way to “work the angles” to devise a new approach that avoids dealing with the real problem.
As a student he got on the Law Review but produced nothing of any note.
When he ran for the state legislature he found a way to get his opponent disqualified and thus ran unopposed. When he ran for US Senate he got Jack and Jeri Ryan’s divorce papers released to discredit his opponent.
In the legislature he voted “Present,” failed to show up for votes, and sometimes would ask that after he voted it be noted in the record that he changed his mind and wished he had voted the other way.
When he bought a house in Chicago he got a sweetheart deal from a crook.
When he ran for President the media – and the Republicans – made sure he had to deal with nothing but softball questions and ACORN made sure he had plenty of fake voters.
His only success has come from working the angles.
So now he is at it again. And he is desperately looking for angles on each and every problem to keep from having to deal with the real issues. So it is with Afghanistan.
In DC you find that often the politicians don’t like any of the answers they are presented with – so they just keep slow rolling the problem, kicking the can down the road. Obama is a master at this.
Of all you list RWE I still think this is the spookiest:
“When he ran for the state legislature he found a way to get his opponent disqualified and thus ran unopposed. When he ran for US Senate he got Jack and Jeri Ryan’s divorce papers released to discredit his opponent.”
I mean come on.
Leo Linbeck III said “Who will Barack Obama reach out to? GWB? WJC? GHWB? JEC? Perhaps. Will he listen? Probably only to Carter.”
More than likely he already had. And this is what happened from the counsel.
Wretchard, about that beer. Well earned. Make it a XXXX or VB, then have another for me. You help keep me balanced.
Belmont Club is a place where thoughtful people can come to ask themselves and each other: how in the heck did we get here? while trying to make sense of it. Sometimes that is a noisy process; the clairity and insight Mr Fernandez provides is highly appreciated…
Ultimately Americans are going to say: show me the money. Let’s look at the budget. Let’s elect a new class of fiscally responsible congresspeople and a new president.
Who’s paying for Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid?
What policy is going to result in sound fiscal policy that is going to support a growing economy and low inflation?
What’s a foreign policy that supports economic growth at home? Is it throwing sheets to the wind and making policy willy-nilly (e.g. tariffs on Chinese tires, adventurism in Honduras, friendly ties with non-productive socialists)? Sure, that’s a clever foreign policy, guaranteed to grow the economy.
Social security is going to be in the red next year. The Debt Clock shows $59 trillion in unfunded liabilities, $192,000 per person.
Every time I get in a political discussion now I pull out the Debt Clock figures. Let’s be sustainable, I say (that feels good, for sure). Who pays? There’s no money left to “spread around.”
None.
Then I open another beer. I’ve earned it.
I feel you Mr. F.. It may require a few nips of something stronger than beer to quiet the “bongo convention”…..Please do not ask how I came to possess this information.
dan-It wasn’t just one opponent it was four Democrats he managed to get taken off the primary ballot.
Dennis #35 – “It’s like a solid and viscious beating. After a while you can only hope to survive it and your whole being is tied up in defense. There’s no longer any room or strength for offense.”
Brilliant! That is exactly what I have felt in this battle against liberals since before the last election.
Well said.
W: I wish I could buy you that beer!
The BC has been a beacon of hope for me over the past years. At times, when I was stuck at home with only a modem dialup as my only internet access, which could not load any pages with graphics, I could still read the articles and commentaries here. They kept me going and let me know I was not alone in my concerns. Now that I have a fast connection I check the club several times a day, just to keep up. The quality of content is second to none.
The most fascinating angle to myself, in all of this, is the military-civilian dance that is going on.
Back in the day there was a lot made on how President Bush was not listening to the military most of whom were, generally retired and doing punditry on the alphabet networks. Of course, when a study or memo would come to public light from the military arguing for some other course than the administration favored or was pursuing we’ld hear about this constantly from the mainstream mastodons and how Bush was being stubborn.
I cautioned, on my tiny venue, to remember who is in control of the military and that is not the military. I warned the Dems have natural disadvantages when it comes to their relationship to the military to exacerbate such tensions when under a Republican administration would come back to haunt them, and that is what we are seeing right now.
The Pentagon and General McChrystal are pushing back with these leaked memos.
I have no problem with the administration making sure it has a plan and to get the military, diplomatic, and political efforts all set up to work together, but I don’t think that is what they are doing, I think they are dilly-dallying and waiting for an event to force things on them and on us.
I think what Wretchard does here is valuable because he is over there and most of us are over here. It’s helpful to have someone outside the undergrowth help us to see the forest for all the (dead) trees we are surrounded by. Besides that, he’s really smart. And funny. And cute in a pirate-y sort of way.
Speaking of which, I wonder if den Beste is ready (or able) to re-enter the fray. I see him mentioned every once in a while here and there, quoted with reverence, so I know he’s still watching and thinking and putting together. If the Pajama’s Media folks were to approach him tugging at their forelock, hats in hand, wouldn’t it be wonderful if he’d agree to do VDH-like columns there? No hurry, no pressure, no deadlines — whatever and whenever. Make up for the implosion of Charles Johnson.
Then, about generals resigning. I think that would be a mistake on their part because, really, what would it accomplish? It wouldn’t save American soldiers’ lives in Afghanistan or Iraq, nor would it frighten Putin or the Chinese, and I think Obama and his ilk would be giddy with delight at not having to deal with them any more.
HOWEVER, what if said generals were to resign their commission and then start running for office? Eisenhower made a pretty good President, and lord knows, we need someone at the helm who is pro-American and can make a decision.
Give the Tea Party millions something definite to get behind: Petreaus for President!
One must not forget how much leftists hate the U. S. Their position is “my way or the highway,” which translates into “a marxist U.S.A. or its destruction.”
Every initiative Obama has created comes out of the radical leftist playbook–everything else is either ignored or played in whatever way will injure the U. S. on the assumption that a U. S. that is not leftist is good riddance in any case. Whatever happens anent Afghanistan it will done to further the above agendum.
The tea partiers are way ahead of all of us, I think, because they recognize that there’s no reasoning with Obama and his Obamaniacs–all you can do is shout them down and wait for the next election. The fact that Obama partisans recognize these people as their particular enemies is indicated by the continual stream of snide remarks from the MSM, democratic hoods and other assorted fellow-travelers.
If the above is what it’s all about, then its simpler than we may have thought. The tea partiers have sufficient savvy to recognize this fundamental fact, and the Obama bats just sufficient intelligence to recognize that they do: Obama not only cannot be trusted, he is the enemy. The melodramatic “manchurian candidate” screamers were right. Obama ran for the presidency with malice aforethought.
Wretchard:
Let me add my voice to the chorus of support. There is a level of integrity in your voice that goes far deeper than most others. Reading your thoughts is vastly helpful, don’t ever doubt the worth of your efforts.
I will never forget the story of your ‘uncle’, or the travels of your background. Myself I’ve never worn a uniform, but I have worked with my hands in the manure and I sense your humility and commitment is not an act.
While not educated, I know wisdom when I meet it, and the Belmont Club is a precious provider. Enjoy your beer, and keep at your work. If we ever have chance to meet, I’ll give you the seven in a race to five.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
Mr. Fernandez, apologies for redundancy as I’m repeating what so many others have, but I felt compelled to Thank You again myself for your contributions through BC. What yourself and the commenters here provide and facilitate is priceless food for thought. Through the ups and downs, I hope that you are able to at least occasionally enjoy that beer and gain just a bit of comfort in knowing that you’re helping to keep a lot of heads up.
As for “adding to the din,” I would suggest that a larger concern many readers have is that they don’t know exactly what, where or how to meaningfully contribute on an individual basis. (Certainly Tea Partying, Letters and email, voting, those are crucial but obvious) I feel that way quite often, and definitely agree with the sentiments of Dennis @#35. Part of deciding what options we have is a clearer understanding of these complex and fast-moving events that can so easily overwhelm, especially when everyday life and problems are considered. The commentary and conversations drawn from Belmont Club in particular, but certainly other places makes it just a little easier to wrap my mind around all (some?) of this.
The quality of the commentary here is generally so engaging that I find myself feeling both privileged and humbled just to “know” you fine people through the internet.
Quote: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”
After thinking about this saying, I thought I’d try a little rhyming.
So with apologies to Country Joe and the Fish, I came up with this bit of doggeral:
Come on, boys, do move fast
Our big chance has come at last
Just like pops did in old Vietnam
We’ll do the same in Afghanistan
No matter what the leaders say
Our job is to do and obey
So put on your boots
And pick up your guns
And run past the roadside bombs.
So it’s One Two Three Four…
What are we fighting for?
Ask me if I really do care
About over in who knows where
So it’s Five Six Seven Eight…
Open up the Pearly Gates
Don’t bother to wonder why
We’re all gonna die.
Come on dear Republicrats
Your big chance has come at last
We gotta get that Taliban Man
Over there in Trashcanistan,
But Osama’s laughing in his cave,
While we go to an early grave.
So we’ll put down our ipods
And pick up our guns
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.
So it’s One Two Three Four…
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I really don’t care
About over in who knows where.
So it’s Five Six Seven Eight…
Open up the Pearly Gates
whoppie, it’s no wonder why:
Our politicians love to lie.
Well, I hope the president gets himself some “clarity” on this matter and fast, otherwise he might wake up someday finding that his name rhymes with “Lyndon Bains Johnson.”
With apologies to Yoda:
Either win or get out.
Either do or do not.
There is no try.
still reading down the thread but i have to stop and commend dan/24 and lotm/26 –well ‘commend’ isn’t the right word –how about, i think they are right, they’ve hit the nail on the head. All the real evidence points exactly that way. other items of disinfo are the poverty and weakness of Russian economy –the natural resources of eleven time zones? The second or third highest foreign currency reserves in the world? The world’s largest oil exporter with the political ability to amp world prices any time for any reason? A political stability that regardless of all else promises continuity and reliability to all who ally with it?
Compared to the world locus of confusion and cacaphony emanating from Washington DC? A leader who vacations in Martha’s Vineyard & trades fey humor with David Letterman vs one who treks into the Siberian outback to hunt & fish & ride horses in the mountains?
One who dithers vs one who acts and accepts the consequences?
And note that the jihad is directed not at the presumable natural target at Islam’s borders but at faraway USA, & that the big hole in the ground is in Manhattan not Moscow.
NahnCee,
Good comment. I’ve been wondering about Den Beste’s possible return, too.
Wretchard,
As many have already said, please keep writing. Take a break for as long as you need to, but then come back tanned, rested, and ready. There is nothing like Belmont Club.
Jamie Irons
Funny, I was going to add to my remark above a quick query as to whether anybody had heard from Buddy (Larsen) recently, and lo and behold, his evil twin luddy barsen pops up!
Jamie Irons
Thank you, Toad! It’s wonderful how much we’ve learned about the way government really works from Sir Humphrey!
>;-)
(i.e., BBC comedy shows “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister”)
bwaha ha –i’m not the evil twin –the other one is!
but while i have Napa Valley on the line, let’s frame the great duality as America is now air and water, while eurasia is fire and earth. So that would be fire-nukes and earth-natural resources vs air-F-22′s and water-Carrier Battle Groups –and we’d best beware or like air and water be inhaled and swallowed!
and –arm to parley! (winston churchill)
Like Buddy Larsen, I agree with dan/24 and lotm/26. Shortly after the Taliban was driven from Afghanistan, the United States shifted its focus over to Iraq. This was obviously a strategic decision given that defeating Saddam was a tractable problem while it was not obvious that removing the Taliban from Pakistan was tractable. I find myself wondering whether it was an error to refocus attention on Afghanistan. Perhaps the best solution was to keep flying Predators there, kill high level al Qaeda whenever we saw them and allow entropy to remain at a maximum to prohibit Afghanistan from again becoming an al Qaeda safe haven.
OM/57; hey, that was righteous, man! You join the BC poets –an August crew, even in the other months.
MF/61; name it and claim it: “Pry Minister”
…Saddam was a tractable problem while it was not obvious that removing the Taliban from Pakistan was tractable.
I agree with the assessment crediting President Bush for being more savy than most would give him credit for repositioning the focus on Iraq. That said, I think the situation in Pakistan has changed dramatically over the past few months. The Pakistanis received a healthy scare after the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley and al Qaeda-affiliated militants advanced afterwards towards Islamabad. As a result the government is directly fighting against and, I would surmise, assisting the American effort to neutralize the bad guys. The population is still rather antagonistic to American intrusions on their territory but, at the same time, do seem to rather appreciate the effect those predator drones are having on the Taliban, who have absolutely no support among the wider population.
So while we are not popular, our efforts are not only tolerated but welcomed by the Pakistani population. It is a strange part of the world and no doubt frustrating from our perspective to deal with, yet we are making slow but sure progress. And really, what is the alternative?
The US has just a few days ago moved the focus of anti-missiles even further from Russia to Iran. Perhaps moving the ground force focus from AfPak to Iran also makes sense?
The Taliban protected al-Queda, the real enemy. Otherwise our beef with the Taliban does not require military force. Al-Queda had a few airliners. Iran will soon have nukes on top of ballistic missiles.
The Obama Administration might try a reassessment of the kind now underway wrt to Afghanistan, and review the strategy of waiting to deal with the Iranian regime once things have cooled down. Things are heating up again over there and the regime is in trouble. Why isn’t this news? And why isn’t our government supporting the protesters? Oh, that’s right, it wouldn’t be diplomatic.
Ledeen is writing on the Death Spiral of the Islamic Republic III, refering to “a regime of zombies in Tehran”. Relevent to this discussion, “they can still do a lot of damage… to us. Early last week Khamenei summoned Afghan terrorist chieftain Gulbadin Hekhmatiar to Tehran, and told him to step up attacks against American and other Allied forces. Other Iranian-supported terrorist groups have received similar instructions.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2009/09/21/the-death-spiral-of-the-islamic-republic-iii/2/
“- Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.”
Sounds good, about fifty hundred ought to do.
sirius_sir said:
“So while we are not popular, our efforts are not only tolerated but welcomed by the Pakistani population. It is a strange part of the world and no doubt frustrating from our perspective to deal with, yet we are making slow but sure progress. And really, what is the alternative?”
What’s going on in Pakistan with the Taliban seems a little bit like a repeat of what happened in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge. There was a brief period of time under the Lon Nol government that we thought Cambodia would stabilize. Then the Lon Nol government collapsed, the Khmer Rouge came out on top and the whole situation metastasized into a regional holocaust. Yeah, I know it’s a weak analog. What is the alternative? Well, in the case of Cambodia, the triumphant communist Vietnamese eventually intervened and broke the Khmer Rouge’s power. With Pakistan, it’s India that will eventually come in and clean house. Perhaps our mission is to kill high level al Qaeda members whenever we see them and then get out of the way after India decides to get directly involved.
Regarding Steven the best, instapundit just had a link to a proposal by him for 10 constitutional amendments, so perhaps he is back.
Regarding being discouraged. In the Bible, 2nd Kings, Chapter 6, the Aramean Army has come after Elisha. His assistant looks at the terrible might arrayed against the city, and loses courage.
Elisha prays: “Lord open his eyes, so he may see”. He does, and sees Angel Armies arrayed in their magnificence, with chariots of fire. I suspect we are in such a time. We need not be discouraged. We are not alone. In addition to angel armies, there are millions who have not bowed the knee
This website is and must be an outpost against that most insidious foe, the one that saps the will. To do most things takes time. Just ask any parent of a 4 year old, or a 14 year old, or in some cases a 24 year old, it can seem impossible this child will ever become responsible. But life is won by living day by day, doing your best, and not giving up. Afghanistan is such a child. It seems about right for an 8 year old.
I have the blessing of having a special needs child, now 33. Life has been a struggle. Yet I count myself the lucky one. I had two brothers. One who could not have children. One who’s child died being born. If God had asked me if I would trade with either, the answer would have come swift and certain. I am the lucky one. I have the chance to do something.
We are the lucky ones. We have a chance to do something. He doesn’t promise it will be easy. He doesn’t promise easy wins. All He offers is a chance. True Hope.
The marines going ashore to Guadalcanal in 1942, abandoned by the Navy, fought with no certainty of success. But they didn’t give up hope. The torpedo bombers who sacrificed their lives so the dive bombers had a clear shot at Midway, had no certainty of success, but they didn’t give up hope. We fight today with no certainty of success, we must not give up hope.
Thank you Wretchard for providing this outpost in the battle, bringing us hope, and the knowledge we are not alone.
Annoy Mouse: lol. Buddy: thank you sir. Sirius: Gulbadin Hekhmatiar – exactly. His Wikipedia page, which I’m incompetent to link, is very suggestive. He is an asset, if not an agent, although considering his relationship with formal Afghan Communism going back to the mid-60s, he could easily be an agent as well. Who knows? Who cares? Why hasn’t this p.o.s. been painted by SOCOM yet?
The question we need to address is – aside from President Popularity – how would we address this extraordinarily circumspect, deniable enemy?
I – without knowing anything beyond what all BC knows – suspect there is a perestroika deception occurring in Iran. Revolutions from above are inherently suspicious; even the first shot in the 1989 events was the Soviet Hungarian government’s decision to open its borders with East Germany. The second? Honecker’s “frantic” decision to liberalize the media. Gee – Communists aren’t stupid. They knew what would happen.
So – why flamboyantly rig a vote every poll said you’d win (Ahmedinejad)? I suppose: to have a pretext for demonstrations. Why would Russia be training internal security forces so obviously the people spontaneously shout “Down with Russia!” If Mousavi is legit, why is he allowed to speak through Facebook? What are the sympathies of the regular Army? If one faction of the clerical regime evicts another, what result?
If – as Ledeen says – the regime will remain antipathetic to the West because of our silence during their labors, what difference? Will they forgo nuclearization, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban aid? Will they distance themselves from the SCO? Will they stop subverting their own people, Europe’s and ours through drug trafficking?
My guess? None of these; things will one way or another still be controlled by Mullahs and remain more or less continuous.
Therefore, in a country thoroughly controlled if not completely cowed: spontaneous, or not? If yes, US success is just a matter of time, tracking with the success of the Revolt. If no, the USA/West leftwing/isolationists have a fat carrot, perhaps. A nuclear Iran, followed by a nuclear Venezuela, accompanied by a very very nervous Israel, followed by a nuclear Burma. If Venezuela, why not Brazil? If NK, why not Japan?
And then Pakistan: what? Who is Zardari? I notice a recent arms deal with China, and AQ Khan’s claims of Iran/NK/Chinese triangulation (obviously disinfo since Iran/NK are not indigenous powers but satrapies). And so on.
Our reaction to pure aggression and deceit by cartoon evil and cunning cannot be to float the proposition to the Japanese that we ought to remove 40 F-16s in order to close a military base. It is not to unilaterally cut nuclear forces to their bare city-hostage capability. It is not to withdraw hard military assets promised to countries lying in the growing shadow of their overlords. It is not to cripple our economy any further with “health care” and “cap n trade” and whatnot. How, under all this, can anyone resist the conclusion that there has been a coup, though smiling, inside our political system?
You may call him Obama, but really he is a modern equivalent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He is torn–how can he reconcile the leftist cliches with reality? How do you get both to work at the same time? Its way beyond his pay grade and IQ.
And in the meantime, while he contemplates the skull, events whirl. As the saying goes, be careful for what you wish for, you just might get it. Obama wanted to be POTUS. He got it. America wanted someone who would provide “hope and change.” They got it.
Buyer’s remorse anyone?
p
Eggplant, I don’t know if the Cambodia analog is weak or not. It might even be inspired, if one credits the idea that we at an early stage supported the Khmer Rouge, and did the same (lest we forget) with the Taliban.
But the situation differs now if for no other reason than the Pakistani government is still in power. It may be a fools errand, but I believe we should support it as long as it is cooperative and, most especially, because it is a nuclear power.
I don’t like to even think what happens should India find it necessary to intervene. That seems likely to trigger something big, with many millions of innocents ending up dead as a result. But maybe that is the end game, no matter what.
I find myself now becoming as depressed as Wretchard confessed to being earlier. I think I’ll go have myself a beer as well.
dan… I think the spookiest thing i’ve heard is that you listen to NPR.
Dan, who is Zardari?
That is the hundred billion dollar question. (Or whatever the proposed assistance amount.) The close ties with China are indeed troubling, but one thing seems sure: If we leave the table then China picks up the pieces without having to so much as work up a sweat.
Presbypoet… thanks for that.
Thank you, PresbyPoet.
Sometimes I feel like my paunchy old-guy body can hold back the advancing tide about as much as Knut the Dane.
But there’s a lot more to just our bitty little world than the strife and contention of the moment. A vast plan, in fact, that we can never fully grasp.
We sometimes see in our own lives, with a perspective that is only available following the tumult of years, that events we perceived as utter catastrophes while we were immersed within’em, were in fact essential parts of a process of refining and shaping we had to go through in order to mature.
There are seeds that will only germinate and give rise to towering forest giants AFTER they’ve been scorched by a passing fire. Other seeds can germinate only after passing through the gut of some critter.
I find some comforting sense of order in the idea that a billet of iron, pounded vigorously by a hammer, has its molecules jostled and perturbed, allowing them to re-orient themselves to the prevailing magnetic field as they settle back into the crystalline structure.
Whang on an inert lump of iron,
get a magnet.
“This morning’s NPR coverage of the Afghanistan hearings yesterday were interesting. The exchange between Mullen and Lindsey Graham went something like this: “How many tanks do the Taliban have?” “None.” “How many aircraft?” “None.” “So they’re outnumbered, they’re not welcome by much of the populace, they have no air force, and no armor – how are they doing this then?” To which Mullen replied, “it’s *their* country, Senator.” Right – it’s not their country. They’re unpopular, they have no air force, no armor, and according to reports they’re “vastly outnumbered” by Coalition combat forces. So.. how’re they doing this?”
Well the, Senator Graham is more cognitively impaired than I had thought.
“They” are “doing this” by using the populace as human shields. If they were out in the open, TAC air or MLRS or whatever could grid them to dust. If they are out in the open using their 10 year old kid “to fetch electrical tape for the detonator for Poppa” as we saw a couple of Wretchard posting ago in that video, all of the armor, arty, air power, etc, etc does not help.
W. I tell people that this is the smartest place on the internets. (any and all of them) Yours is a unique voice and much needed by all of us. Purity of tone will always triumph over cacophony.
If a select number of Generals were to quit over principle, they, I believe would be honor bound to speak to the issue. They would not be constrained to remain silently loyal to the Office. Their voices would provide significant witness.
Wretchard –
You wrote: “Actually, I’m less worried about Barack Obama than the forces which gave rise to him.”
Which is spot on, but you and I differ in the degree to which the elites are overtly allied against the people, and the nations they represent. Secretary of Energy Chu believes the American people are unruly teenagers and that the Government must tell them what to do. What the elites want is an end to nation states, and global rule by a global aristocracy. Thus elites like Tom Friedman or Van Jones or Barack Obama feel more solidarity and kinship to say, Pakistan’s Zardari or Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Vladimir Putin, than they do their own people.
Obama, and the people around him, are not stupid. They WANT TO LOSE IN AFGHANISTAN. Glen Greenwald for example said “But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.” Hope and Change is incompatible with anything BUT surrender in Afghanistan, to Bin Laden and the Taliban.
Obama’s dream, which is shared broadly by the elites, is that America will be hit hard, by a mass casualty terror attack, so that people around the globe will “feel sorry for us” (the feminized, Munchausen syndrome) and the nation can have a dictatorship of PC/Multiculturalism imposed on it. Outlawing criticism of Islam, non-Muslim worship, etc. To have the entire United States having a fashionable, Jimmy Choo pair of high heels stepping on the human face, forever. Inflicting a defeat in Afghanistan and victory by bin Laden is critical to having America nuked with no nukes to retaliate.
Obama is getting rid of nukes so America has no choice but to surrender.
Of course, the elites are incapable of understanding most Americans. Quite likely Obama would be impeached and convicted, elites would see their institutions destroyed and themselves in jail, and a rapid re-armament program created to basically, wipe out most Muslims. Out of fear — the great driver for total war.
You are quite right Washington is broken — the Elites simply have too much power and money to be forced into any backing down from their overt plans to turn America into Finland. America will be forced to suffer millions of war dead, and in turn wipe out most of the Muslim world. There just is no other way, with elites having so much power and in basic sympathy with America’s enemies.
As a furriner, my contribution to this peering into the abyss is: The 2010 US Election is of surpassing importance, not only to the US, but to the West. The Tea Party Movement must be supported at all costs. This is serious, and no time to sit back and let others be involved in your political system. Toughen up your election laws (no more ‘motor voter’ stuff, and every voter should have picture ID!!!). Really. The US is a representative democracy that has allowed rentseekers to take over its government from the municipal through state to the national levels.
One good thing has come about: the Census has cut its ties with ACORN. Thank James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart for that.
Mr. Fernandez:
Over the years I’ve almost always found your writing at the Belmont Club to be highly thought provoking. Although I rarely commented, and haven’t always agreed with your conclusions, I’ve found your writing on nearly every topic you’ve chosen to address to be much more thoroughly researched and reasoned than the dribble which passes as news in the Main Stream Media.
Please keep up the excellent work you do here at the Belmont Club. You often bring up topics for thorough discussion that are completely ignored in the media. In cases where the media does address some issue of interest, the reporting is so biased, shallow, and lacking in rigorous reasoning and discussion as to be nearly worthless. Often times a supposedly unbiased piece of MSM reporting will conclude with a near verbatim press release from whichever progressive politician, pundit, or pressure group is most vocal about the subject, and most readily available to spoon feed their propaganda to the MSM. It’s almost as if these “reporters” all had the same pre-approved group of progressive references in some shared MSM Rolodex.
The Belmont Club provides one of the few readily available venues for conservatives, moderates, and libertarians to debate and discuss topics of the day amongst themselves with occasional interjection from thoughtful progressives. Throughout most of the Internet, a serious discussion about these topics results in being trampled under a profuse vitriolic, hateful avalanche of profanity and intellectual garbage spouted by lefty trolls.
To borrow a phrase I heard somewhere before,
“Stay the Course!”
Respectfully,
Armegeddon Rex
Master Sergeant, recently retired
I could not find an old memory of my youth – the radio commercial:
“They gave me a San Miguel. It tasted good.”
I hope these will do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbMd4QOsfDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq0WUcYjkpQ&feature=PlayList&p=18831B5CCB7F30D7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=66
I’ve scrolled down to write this comment, so I may have missed some useful thoughts above.
1. Someone made a good case for the Tea Parties. I second this idea. The nice thing about the Tea Parties is that it is a leaderless community that is uncompromising. It is an Alinsky-type movement, and thus will be impossible to ignore. What is needed right now is enormous pushback against the congressional and czar plans to destroy our nation. We all have our various methods of defending America, including writing, organizing, voting, and running for office. The Tea Parties can continue to mimic the Uprising of the Proletariat that the left so loved to sing about. Alinsky methods can work for normal Americans as well as for the leftists.
2. Wretchard, your website is invaluable for all the reasons listed above. As a non-American, you have amazing insight into our national affairs. I can’t think of any other writer who has such insight. If you get tired or discouraged, please take a rest and then come back to us. Dr. Sanity took several rests, and then she came back even more brilliant then she already was. We need your writings, but it doesn’t have to be every day. Just know that you are appreciated.
General McChrystal will turn in his pistol
If Barack Obama won’t show
His Afghan intention and may we just mention
His attitude toward Qaeda foe
He said on the stump into Afghan he’d jump
And throw old bin Laden in chains
But now he’s as dubious as Varro and Publius
When told Hannibal’d made no gains
He’s thinking it over is Barack the rover
Who thinks he’s an eagle on high
But deep in the clover lies Barack the plover
Not sure which decision to buy
The problem with Afghan for Barack is he can
Not see where the politics lies
He’s afraid of his Left and so now he’s bereft
Of all but soft whimpers and sighs
Wretchard -
Maybe I’m stupid – I dunno – but I have a sense that you’re having trouble maintaining the idea that Obama isn’t as bad as the more extreme commenters on this blog suppose. Or maybe I’m stupid because that’s obvious. I dunno.
Anyway, I myself have that problem. What’s to be done about it? What’s the nature of the problem, really? I don’t want to say that it’s impossible to know if Obama is that bad. Is it just something where we have to keep our mouths shut and see what happens? I’m baffled by the problem.
Whiskey hits another home run.
Ok whiskey. obama does not want a terrorist attack on CONUS. look this is where i part ways with you guys. cmon. these people believe that what they are doing is good – it just so happens that they believe they should be running the show. this, of course, is a terrible idea, but they do not believe that it is terrible. if there is a conspiracy, obama is not the guy. he is the dupe. i went to columbia; i understand how he thinks at least as much as anyone. he’s just a useful idiot. even if he’s an agent influenced by kgb agents, they only succeeded because they sold it as The One for Good, not as “and then we’ll execute 25 million Americans.” William Ayers & Co. play a totally different role. Obama is disarming America because that is the only software that fits into his hardware. As usually with idiots who are preoccupied by irony (or “hypocrisy”), they don’t undertsand that they are ruled by it. It’s not Obama, it’s people like Axelrod. this is how porpaganda works: what if all the bullsh-t over the last 8 years about Rove has really been to establish the idea, inversely, that the campaign advisor to the president – who effectively got him elected – is like the Vizier in a time of crisis? The propagandists of our enemy are actually more than two steps beyond the sophisticated Anglo-American observer. Why do you think everyone has been ignorant for so long about something so obvious? Look at the front page stories from the New York Times – lately published on FreeRepublic – from the day the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed. They talked about the secret protocols establishing Spheres of Influence *RIGHT THERE.* Think about that. Obama is a dupe, he’s not evil. And he’s not stupid. “Give me a child for 8 years, and I will make him a Bolshevik forever.” – Vladimir Lenin.
Lenin wasn’t stupid either. But Obama’s no Lenin.
I read of Washington in the French and Indian War, “He alone is exposed.”
I remember the “Follow me!” poster and the account of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Little Round Top.
Great leaders care deeply for their men. I don’t know much about General McChrystal, I hope he is a great leader and will stay out front doing all he can for all who are under his command.
God bless and protect our troops.
onesimus
With respect to the comments of Dan @ 24, and the recognition here and there throughout the thread, I can only add, they don’t call it the “Great Game” for nuthin’!
Afghanistan by itself is not much of a prize, but Afghanistan is the high road to just about everywhere else in that corner of the world.
To the Soviets (in the 80′s), it was the door into Pakistan.
To the ISI (in the 90′s), it was a breeding ground for jihadists to fight against Hindu India.
For the Islamic Republic of Iran (in the 80′s and 90′s and maybe still today), it was another chip to be won in the world wide struggle to lead Islam.
To Osama bin Ladin (in the 90′s), it was a training ground for world wide jihad and the creation of a new caliphate.
To India (now and ever since 1947), it is on the flank of their bitter and incoherent enemy, Pakistan.
But perhaps most meaningless of all, it was the springboard for the United States of America’s “War on Terror”, since 2001.
Afghanistan remains all of the above, so the Great Game will continue whether we decide to play or not.
The “War on Terror” is partly won, but could still be lost.
Iran may yet collapse in its own contradictions and the failure of vision of the tyrannical Mullahs. Iraq may yet collapse into a civil war, or be caught up in the maelstrom of a civil war within Iran.
My tactical sense is that McChrystal may not succeed even if he gets all that he wants. Afghanistan is just too cussedly poor and tribal to build much of a modern nation state out of. It would be a century long project.
But my strategic sense is that it is very much an important battleground. Just by continuing the struggle their confounds the plans of our less visible enemies, if Dan@24 is correct (and it seems logical).
Our less visible enemies have a stake in the outcome, but do not dare to make their hands too visible, yet. None of them are too strong at the moment.
I wonder if the Obama Administration in their great cosmopolitan wisdom and multilateral consultancy theory, have thought about discussing this with India, who is ostensibly a democracy and has a big stake in what we decide to do there? Or is that something only the evil Booosh and Darth Rumsfeld would do?
I also tend to think that the NATO countries would like to be let out of the whole affair, thank you very much. Obama could give them the fig leaf they need to beat a hasty retreat, if the US too decides to bug out, which would then mollify the politcal unpleasantness this nasty little war has caused with elites of Europe.
Oh hell, Wretchard, If you’re having difficulty making sense of the din, imagine what president Obama is hearing? If anyone on the planet needs you, it is the guys (in guise) behind that man.
Dan @ 24,
In all of my reading and ponderings about Afpakistan I have been frustrated by the lack of an understanding of just how the Taliban funding worked. The numbers and the traffic didn’t add up, nor the source of Arab funding (as much has been shut down as has I know not). Iran is having a lot of its own problems and the Gulf states funding attacks on America just does not have that intellectually honest feel, Even given layers of intrigue. I know that all of the points you drew together have been touched on multiple times and simultaneously but still I did not see to push the logic further.
Funny I never pushed the process beyond that. but Dan, you and LOTM have done that. Thank you. It makes total sense that Russia would pull a President Reagan on us. And all the more sweet that it could pivot on Afghanistan. Being able to view the Pakistan-China connection not in context of India, is a large step in seeing how the cabal could work.
Excellent.
Hey Wretchard, see what we’d be missing! Thank you too.
I luz me the BC!
(Wretchard’s is the first site to pull any dough out of me. I’m a tightwad, so that’s saying something.)
Did anyone notice the uncomfortable chuckle burst reflexively from the panelist to the Left of Krauthammer while Krautie relayed Obama’s incredible triple gainer on Afghanistan in the You-tube clip above – as if a stifled chuckle could make the dead-seriousness of the implication of Krauthammer’s words magically go away?
I did. That laughing person needs to have his funny bone examined. I think it’s broken.
Yes, we have a wonderful, brilliant, insightful host and many, many commentors of the same caliber (or at least close).
This thread somewhat hinges on what people are being told the General might do. All upon the word of some unknown people at *McClatchy. I find myself unimpressed or convinced the General leaked or encouraged those comments IF they were ever said at all.
I also identify (much to my discomfort and ire) with the situation in the Afghan and how it stabs me in the back with what happened in my war. Or to be more correct after I had recovered and was a civilian. I was there in 68 and 69 long before we all thought that we could lose the war and saw it happen right before our eyes. At the time I was there, bombing the North and hell, bombing anything near the North was to us grunts at least a good thing as we heard about it second hand. Only after I came home was I able to read enough and watch enough TV to understand that the only reason things were not going as good as they could was because of politicians and the President[s].
My Vet friends and I couldn’t understand the on again, off again bombing of N.V. Why we picked only certain targets, why…why…why in so many aspects were things being screwed up over there. We had been there, we knew what the hell needed to be done.
Slowly a discontent and puzzlement turned into hatred of the worse kind. Not only for our politicians, but for our President[s].
And looking back, they were not half the fools that Obama is nor were they surrounded by advisors and backers that were 1/10 as dangerous to our Republic as the ones that Obama has surrounded himself with.
Would our Generals ever resign back then, no because they knew that others that would not be as good as they were would replace them. Or at least some that is what they thought. Others were just cowards.
I have two grandsons in the Military now. One in the Navy, one in the Air Force. At the moment they are not in combat, but they are in harm’s way.
I lost many a friend in my war, I pray to God that I lose no more in this war and for him to protect my grand sons.
And to be honest and have honor I must say that Obama and his backers are raping my Republic and enjoying it. And I pray that we can stop them at the polls, and not have to go to the actions, that will not be spoken of until it is almost too late.
Papa Ray
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
*”Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he’d stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.
“Yes, he’ll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far,” a senior official in Kabul said. “He’ll hold his ground. He’s not going to bend to political pressure.”
From an outsider who:
prefers the US to be strong if you can’t win it you should get out
who assumes President Obama is not knave or a fool No insult intended but American politics is starting to resemble 3rd Republic France See where that got them (see point 1 again)
who does not understand what the object or goalline is in Afghanistan
(and I don’t think I’m stupid -no insults please)
much of what is written on this thread is interesting and moving, but more a reflection of the various responders internal fears than a window into the facts, or a guide to what sensibly next.
Wretchard, any blogs run the risk of disappearing down the plughole of selfreferential similar opinion. Surely that is not what you wish?
90 E Nigma,
I think the “Great Game” was finished in’89. The Brits preserved their “Jewel” until ’47 and the Afgans swallowed the Russians in ’89 as they did the Brits way back when (I’m thinking of Elfinstone, but without checking). It’s now a nothing place, with nothing to be gained. If the “Great Game” should recur it will be played further east and the north and west will be armchair participants. Has anyone here ever read East and West by C. Northcote Parkinson? I remember reading it some thirty years ago and I’m beginning to think (on maybe faulty memory) that we are on the turning point of his thesis.
Ned
P.S. Wretchard, as so many above have said, keep up the good work. You are a brilliant conversation leader and I would reccommend a good Australian wine. I have it on good authority that Australian beer is abysma – or was it NZ beer.
Thank you, Dan (#88) for offering a sobering dose of logic and reason. We’ve explored theories on Obama’s mindset in a recent thread concerning his missile defense folly. That thread too offered mad fantasy about the president welcoming holocaust so that he can rule over a post-apocalyptic US and dole it out to the world’s evils.
I think this sort of conjecture stems from assuming that BHO thinks as you do when he makes these terrible moves. But like Dan says, “they do not believe that it is terrible.”
Obama’s core hopes/dreams/beliefs are really just an Occam’s-razor thing: America is the problem, the cause of terrorism, the source of profound evil in the world. Our military, CIA, nuclear arsenal, etc. are all tentacles of the agressor. And it’s his moral obligation is to reign in these things… to make the world a better place, you see?
It’s likely that simple. Obama does want to implement world peace, but he is really no smarter than your average beauty pageant contestant.
I think the only thing that has returned to afghanistan, or rather, in regards to Afghanistan is rumor and speculation (present company excepted of course).
I mean in D.C. and committee hearings and newspapers and such.
wretchard @ 12 wrote
“My own problem in approaching this debate is to reconcile the formal seriousness of the subject with the need not to become hysterical.”
Well, sir, you are the least hysterical voice out there, and you do us all a great service here. Please allow me to add one more small voice to the chorus above – There is no other place like this on the internet.
Thank you one and all.
Fantastic discussion here.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”
To start with it is good to know a little history.
There seems to be a fantastic urge to repeat the failure of Vietnam, by our media and leftist politicians. Aging hippies and terrorists, with the levers of power in their hands, now want us to lose.
Vietnam was a failure of political will as much as anything else.
WWII on the other hand was a masterpiece of political will. I remember the phrase, “Unconditional surrender”. Focus was on the goal of ending Fascism and when we were done, we wound up with democracies where once our worst enemies ruled.
Partly you have to pick your model. Which history do you want to repeat?
Now Obama is fighting an ‘overseas contingency operation’. This is not a good sign. Cutting and running from Afghanistan will leave behind chaos with Pakistani nukes in danger of falling into the hands of Al Qaeda.
On the other hand, I see a glass half-full.
Peace between Pakistan and India inches forward. The payoff in prosperity for both countries is clear.
Osama’s son is dead.
Half of the Al Qaeda leadership is dead, and more join them regularly.
The leader of the Paki Taliban is dead, Baitulla Mehsud.
Literally, thousands of Taliban are being killed on both sides of the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. 3000 in Swat valley. This is the first time Pakistan has seriously attacked the Taliban militarily.
The Afghan druglords are being attacked, and their Taliban protectors killed and their money is being cut off. If we have the will, we may be able to eliminate 90% of the world’s opium production. Opium production has been eliminated in Turkey, Pakistan, and now Burma, so this is not impossible, only hard.
Afghanistan is corrupt and tribal. So was Iraq. But we ground Al Qaeda to ashes there and defeated the Mahdi militia what was a proxy of Iran.
We have our best soldiers and our best generals in Afghanistan now. They have a history of winning.
Give them the tools. Let them work.
R/99; –good letter. That’s the case for staying in & winning the WoT. But without that optimism and will in the White House –what then is the case?