The Wall Street Journal says Secretary Gates has passed on a request for more men for the Afghan campaign from General McChrystal. Gates had attempted to delay the formal transmission, but mounting public interest in the issue made it pointless to hold it back.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates has forwarded a request for more troops in Afghanistan to President Barack Obama, the Pentagon said Wednesday, as divisions within the administration and Congress continued despite Mr. Obama’s high-profile meeting with congressional leaders the day before …
in the end, the defense chief feared that the document — already widely reported on — would leak to the press before Mr. Obama had a chance to read it, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. The request outlines several options ranging up to 40,000 troops added to the 68,000 now stationed or headed there.
The Washington Post argues that the administration did not fully realize what a commitment to Afghanistan meant when it gave the military the go-ahead to implement a counter-insurgency strategy in March. “Some civilians who participated in the strategic review … thought the thrust of the new approach was to send over scores more diplomats and reconstruction experts. They figured a counterinsurgency mission could be accomplished with the forces already in the country, plus the 17,000 new troops Obama had authorized in February.” When the full import of the decision became evident there was consternation among high-level White House officials who never knew the price would come this high. They described it as “sticker shock”.
“It was easy to say, ‘Hey, I support COIN,’ because nobody had done the assessment of what it would really take, and nobody had thought through whether we want to do what it takes,” said one senior civilian administration official who participated in the review, using the shorthand for counterinsurgency.
The failure to reach a shared understanding of the resources required to execute the strategy has complicated the White House’s response to the grim assessment of the war by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, forcing the president to decide, in effect, what his administration really meant when it endorsed a counterinsurgency plan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s follow-up request for more forces, which presents a range of options but makes clear that the best chance of achieving the administration’s goals requires an additional 40,000 U.S. troops on top of the 68,000 who are already there, has given senior members of Obama’s national security team “a case of sticker shock,” the administration official said.
The meetings now underway in Washington are rooted in part in the gap in understanding that became evident in March. This account of how it opened up is based on interviews with several senior civilian members of the administration and military officers directly involved in Afghanistan issues. Nearly all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about internal policy discussions.
As the president’s top defense and foreign policy officials debate the way forward, they have begun to revisit the March review’s main conclusion, asking whether the administration’s relatively narrow goal of preventing al-Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan would best be achieved through a full-on counterinsurgency mission or through a more limited counterterrorism operation that would target any high-level terrorists seeking to operate there again.
This time, the discussions about counterinsurgency will not remain theoretical or involve back-of-the-envelope estimates of troop levels. It is clear to all around the table now that pursuing a full counterinsurgency, at least according to the model developed in Iraq by Gen. David H. Petraeus and embraced by McChrystal, would entail tens of thousands of additional troops, legions of civilian specialists and billions more reconstruction dollars. …
The gap between what the administration thought it heard and what the military thought it said was mirrored by the differences between what Washington thought it said to the Pakistanis and what Islamabad thought it heard. Pakistani officials declared themselves dissatisfied with Washington’s support and hurt at the lack of confidence reposed in them. ‘Where’, they asked, ‘was the money, the weapons, and above all the blank check?’ Reuters reports:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As President Barack Obama discusses the U.S. strategy toward Pakistan with his top advisers Wednesday, Pakistan’s foreign minister appealed for market access, military technology — and above all, trust. …
Congress has just approved a bill tripling aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for the next five years, but with conditions attached that have unleashed a storm of protest from Pakistanis who complain the country is being humiliated.
A bill sought by Obama to boost trade by establishing special economic zones in Pakistan and Afghanistan has stalled in the U.S. Senate, partly over concerns about labor standards as well as worries within the U.S. textile industry.
Obama also turns to Pakistan Tuesday as he holds the third in series of meetings to review his Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
High on the agenda will be how far to trust Pakistan’s shadowy military intelligence agency, the ISI, widely accused of supporting radical Islamists including the Afghan Taliban.
The Pakistanis angrily dismissed accusations that parts of its intelligence service were coddling the Taliban. Reacting to reports that civilians were outraged at Predator strikes against Taliban targets, the Pakistanis argued that the way to avert local anger at US drone strikes was to turn over the drone technology over to them. Once more trust, money and drones were provided, the Pakistanis felt sure they could find it in themselves to take on the Taliban on their side of the border and all would be well. The Obama administration, according to Pakistani sources was considering the suggestion. According to Reuters, Pakistan’s foreign minister said:
The United States, he said, needed to have a little bit more faith in the immensely powerful ISI. “If you keep doubting them, and don’t expect them to cooperate with you, that’s a contradiction,” he said. “Either trust them or don’t trust them. Don’t have one step forward, two steps backward.”…
As Obama mulls whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, he is also considering other ideas, like stepped-up bombing attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. … They have also killed scores of civilians and angered many Pakistanis who feel their sovereignty has been trampled upon, leading critics to argue the policy is counterproductive.
“You have to understand our sensitivities,” Qureshi said in the interview with Reuters. “The way out that we have suggested is the use of drones, but under our ownership. Transfer technology to Pakistan and then let us use them.”
Such an idea would provoke howls of protest from neighbor and arch-rival India, and would surely meet significant opposition in the U.S. Congress.
Nevertheless Qureshi said the Obama administration was considering the issue. “Their mind is not shut to the arguments that we have projected,” he said. “We have a common objective. You have to see the gains you make by going ahead and engaging with us on this issue.” Qureshi said the Pakistani army would “most certainly” carry out a long-overdue military campaign against militants sheltering in the rugged Waziristan region on the Afghan border, once it had marshaled the necessary resources.
Faced with these harsh alternatives, the Washington Post says the President is approaching his decision with care. “Last Tuesday evening, to prepare for a meeting the next day to discuss Afghanistan strategy with his national security team — the first of several sessions to determine whether more troops will be sent — Obama reread the white paper” that had been given to him in March. The better to make sure there are no more misunderstandings.
What is truly extraordinary about the Washington Post story is that when the President announced his earlier strategy, it was touted as “the conclusion of a careful policy review that I ordered as soon as I took office”. In an earlier Belmont Club post, Plan B, I quoted directly from the President’s strategy speech in March 2009.
“Good morning. Today, I am announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review that I ordered as soon as I took office. … To achieve our goals, we need a stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy. To focus on the greatest threat to our people, America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. To enhance the military, governance, and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have to marshal international support. And to defeat an enemy that heeds no borders or laws of war, we must recognize the fundamental connection between the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan – which is why I’ve appointed Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to serve as Special Representative for both countries, and to work closely with General David Petraeus to integrate our civilian and military efforts. …
Let me start by addressing the way forward in Pakistan … I am calling upon Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by John Kerry and Richard Lugar that authorizes $1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years – resources that will build schools, roads, and hospitals, and strengthen Pakistan’s democracy. I’m also calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Maria Cantwell, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Hoekstra that creates opportunity zones in the border region to develop the economy and bring hope to places plagued by violence. And we will ask our friends and allies to do their part – including at the donors conference in Tokyo next month. … That is why we will launch a standing, trilateral dialogue among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. For three years, our commanders have been clear about the resources they need for training. Those resources have been denied because of the war in Iraq. Now, that will change. The additional troops that we deployed have already increased our training capacity. …
To advance security, opportunity, and justice – not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces – we need agricultural specialists and educators; engineers and lawyers. That is how we can help the Afghan government serve its people, and develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs. That is why I am ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground. And that is why we must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United Nations and international aid organizations – an effort that Secretary Clinton will carry forward next week in the Hague. …
There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. That is why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government, and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province. As their ranks dwindle, an enemy that has nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and repression must be further isolated. And we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans – including women and girls. …
From our partners and NATO allies, we seek not simply troops, but rather clearly defined capabilities: supporting the Afghan elections, training Afghan Security Forces, and a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people. For the United Nations, we seek greater progress for its mandate to coordinate international action and assistance, and to strengthen Afghan institutions. And finally, together with the United Nations, we will forge a new Contact Group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region – our NATO allies and other partners, but also the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran; Russia, India and China.
It is abundantly clear from the March speech that President Obama thought he understood what he was saying. So the idea that they didn’t read the fine print at the time and are now discovering the implications doesn’t quite ring true. It seems hard to believe their surprise is completely unfeigned. Because by July 2009, Bob Woodward was reporting trouble brewing in the policy councils. Basically the generals wanted more troops and more Afghan force generation. And even then the President was already resisting the calls for reinforcement. His messangers wanted more economic development.
National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict. The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, “My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops. This will not be won by the military alone,” Jones said in an interview during his trip. “We tried that for six years.” He also said: “The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed.”
The question of the force level for Afghanistan, however, is not settled and will probably be hotly debated over the next year. One senior military officer said privately that the United States would have to deploy a force of more than 100,000 to execute the counterinsurgency strategy of holding areas and towns after clearing out the Taliban insurgents. That is at least 32,000 more than the 68,000 currently authorized.
“We don’t need more U.S. forces,” [Marine General] Nicholson finally told Jones. “We need more Afghan forces.” It is a complaint Jones heard repeatedly. Jones and other officials said Afghanistan, and particularly its president, Hamid Karzai, have not mobilized sufficiently for their own war. Karzai has said Afghanistan is making a major effort in the war and is increasing its own forces as fast as possible In an interview, Nicholson said that in the six months he has been building Camp Leatherneck and brought 9,000 Marines to the base, not a single additional member of the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) has been assigned to assist him. He said he needed “Afghanistan security forces — all flavors,” including soldiers, police, border patrol and other specialists
Re-reading the President’s March speech, there is no mention of fears of an illegitimate election. And there is the curious disappearance of so many touted initiatives. The “opportunity zones” and grand diplomatic maneuvers, the dispatch of Secretary Clinton to the Hague and the efforts of Richard Holdbrooke, so grandly announced on that occasion, have disappeared with nary a whimper. We can guess, because now we know from the Pakistani Foreign minister’s recent wheedling that the whatever Islamabad was offered, it wasn’t enough. Nor were the resources for the men on the ground sufficient. Despite the promise to provide resources for training, the Marines could not then find “a single additional member” of the ANA assigned to them. Something has gone wrong.
Perhaps what went wrong was the deal making process itself. The President was trying to make many ends meet: to keep everybody happy. Perhaps he tried to satisfy the expectations of his leftist support base and the requirements of the US military; the expectations of the Pakistanis and the desires of the Karzai government. And it is possible that somewhere along the line his representatives, through carelessness or ambiguity, gave the impression of saying “yes” to everybody. Who knows how many checks were verbally or implictly written which are now impossible to cash. Now that the claimants are coming forward with their individual claims they’re finding they’re a chunk short of pie. It would not be surprising if the President were re-reading the March white paper to see how to meet his various promises with progress payments. The President’s actions in the aftermath of the McChrystal demand — his flight to the Olympics, his insistence on a policy process before he’d give an answer, the whole extended “study” period — reminded me of nothing so much as a man trying to hide from a debt collector.
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
The Eyes Have It
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
Good grief. If anyone still needs proof that this administration is hopelessly incompetent, look no further. And the clueless disregard for those lives already on the line is just contemptible.
This uncertainty about what COIN entails is after 7 years in which the Democrats sat around in think tanks like Brookings, presumably thinking, and various faculty lounges, Senate cloak rooms and bath rooms, conferences like Davros or Editorial Board sit downs. All that time they assured the nation was used to come up with an alternative to ChimpyMcbushitlercheney that was going to be ready they said on Day 1. We are now less than 2 weeks from 10 months into this administration and they are still whining that the dog ate their homework.
McChrystal is exercising the standard military response to an incompetent superior, literalism. You carefully and slowly repeat back the orders that he did not really mean for you to take seriously, after all everyone knows it was just window dressing for the rubes, and then you explain to everyone what the plan is and the consequences for not doing it. Then you sit back and look at your boss with great sincerity.
the Washington Post says the President is approaching his decision with care.
I’m sure he’s giving it just as much care as his next pricey “date night” with Michelle. Now that the Olympic fiasco is so last week, his upcoming concern is practicing throwing out the ball for Game 1 of the World Series.
This is what happens when you place Children in places they have not got a clue about in how to ‘behave.’ This administration has picked so many incompetent people for so many key positions perhaps they should be taken to court for costing precious American lives by underestimating what is truly needed and called for in Afghanistan.
The policy of working with the civilian population, bringing in tons of non-military aid and advisers is great. It is a great idea if you have or can earn the trust of the civilians and they in turn trust their OWN government. It is quite clear in Afghanistan this is not the case. The most recent election results have been crippled by many allegations of voter fraud. There has been enough news coverage stating the obvious; the people of Afghanistan do not trust or believe in the current president, Nor do they believe we are willing to be there for the long haul, stick it out and not turn tail like the Russians did.
Couple this with the Obamas horrible rules of enagaement for our troops and the end result is the storm that has now developed in Afghanistan.
To count Pakistan as an ally is folly. It is a massive sucker hole of wasted money and aid. The ISI cannot be trusted and this is about a corrupt a group as one can find. Obama would be an idiot to turn over drone or counter insurgency operations completely over to Pakistan and or the ISI. The Pak hand is always outstretched for more money and weapons from us.Bravo and a tip of the hat to McChrsytal going public with what the situation is and what he needs to even have a CHANCE at success in Afghanistan. The liberal trolls like Pelosi and Reid are once again showing their hatred and disdain for the U.S. military and anything even remotely looking like having some balls in the face of the world. Both of them are traitorous scum of the worst type. Shame on them for not respecting or knowing when to keep their mouths shut. One can make the argument that the military commanders should have kept this quiet and gone through proper channels for their requests. The flip side of this is Obama has spoken with McChrystal only twice since March. That is reprehensible on the part of Obama and no wonder the McChrystal went the route he did. Would you trust Obama or his administration of pussies and cowards?
The policy of treating the world nice(especially our enemies) and even thinking they will reciprocate is ludicrous. Appeasement, cowardice, arrogance, ignorance,
apologizing on the world stage(especially to Islam and Muslims)will never work. Carter proved that. Misunderstandings of the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have cost us dearly in lives lost. Not to mention the loss of what little prestige and
respect this country may have had abroad. It is one excuse after another from Obama and his cronies. The American people deserve and demand to have a leader with moxie and huevos. Our military deserves the backing of our politicians and the president. Look at we have been saddled with: a wussy in the White House and soggy milk toast for our foreign policies. Time is American lives and while one does not want to rush into or make hasty decisions, time is quickly running out. Our military deserves the best and they have gotten the worst. We fight them over there or here, for the most part. I vote for over there. Collateral casualities
always happen in any war. All we can do is try to minimize those against an enemy who uses civilians as shields.
here’s a hopefully helpful smidgen of perspective, a few excerpted paragraphs from a nyquist column from October 2007, during the darkest days of OIF:
MACHIAVELLI’S SIX CONDITIONS
Have we forgotten the history of the last twenty-five centuries? Have we forgotten the cruelty of the Persian emperors, the destruction of Carthage by Rome and the barbarian invasions that inundated Rome? Have we forgotten the whole murderous story with its Viking raiders, Mongol horsemen and cannibals?
It is best to put everything into perspective. The era dominated by U.S. power and the American dollar hasn’t been the worst period of history. In fact, it has been one of the best. American power has stabilized the world so that a global system of trade has flourished. And it is that self-same system that supports over six billion human lives. Admittedly, this global system is not perfect. It is not utopia. But it is a far cry from the famine, pestilence and penury of “normal history” – of antiquity and the Dark Ages. Let us contemplate what might have been if the Nazis and Japanese had won the Second World War – or if Communism had triumphed during the Cold War. Does anyone really suppose the world would be better off?
Men seldom appreciate what they have. In the midst of peace and plenty they curse the very mechanism that sustains them. They set aside the folkways that brought prosperity. They neglect the study of those subjects that foster liberty. Inevitably, all their vain enterprises become imbued with malice, spite and envy. They malign the rich and powerful. They curse the philosophers and embrace the false prophets and revolutionary pranksters of history. “America is evil,” they say. “American deserves to be destroyed.” Here lies the argument of the coming war.
The simple forms of the state – monarchy, aristocracy and democracy – tend to degenerate into tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule. According to ancient observers this could be expected within two or three generations of the state’s founding. By mixing elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy into a single constitution, each element checks the others thereby forestalling a descent into tyranny and civil war.
There is a catch, of course. Certain preconditions are necessary for republican government to flourish. Niccolo Machiavelli listed six conditions, and these may be related loosely as follows: (1) That there is respect for tradition; (2) that the town dominate the country; (3) that popular power is institutionalized; (4) that a large middle class exists; (5) that civic spirit has not decayed; and (6) that there is knowledge of these things. If these conditions are not present, noted Machiavelli, men should not attempt republican government because such an attempt will ruin them.
(remember this is from Oct 2007)
In the case of Iraq, the country’s traditions included Saddam’s secret police, mass political homicide, censorship, arbitrary arrest and torture. Popular power was not institutionalized and a large middle class did not exist. It is therefore easy to understand why America’s foreign policy in the Middle East has failed. The necessary preconditions for success were missing, as they are missing in many places around the globe. If people want to understand why democracy never triumphed in Russia, why it fails to emerge in China, one merely has to consider Machiavelli’s six conditions.
The American failure abroad shouldn’t surprise us. Over the last thirty years Americans have lost the knowledge that attends the preservation of vital traditions (i.e., order) and civic spirit. We are therefore unable to recognize the proper course abroad. The time will soon come, as well, when we lose our way at home.
(close selected excerpts)
read more here:
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2007/1012.html
Doubt that 40,000 would do it. That would bring us up to 100,000 which is about what the Russians had, if memory serves, and that didn’t do it for them. What they lacked in technology they made up for in ferocity, didn’t help. Maybe 500k for ten years might do it. Obama’s between a rock and hard place. And the Habu option is off the table. Obama is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Lesson: don’t make yourself personnally liable for a war, if you can help it. Obama owns it, and it’s the troops who will suffer.
bob, i don’t think a million would make the enemy quit, so long as we have one foot out the door and our eye on the clock. The surge worked for whatever reasons but it surely can’t have hurt that GWB had been so thoroughly trashed that there was nowhere lower his enemies could any longer drive him. Obama looks like he’s gonna pursue the Fabian Strategy –on us, on America and NATO.
The problem with kicking the can down the road and deferring hard choices into the future is that you eventually run out of future. Sooner or later the debts catch up with you. CBS Chicago says Illinois’ pile of unpaid bills is now so high that it will take 3 months for its creditors to collect on their IOUs — assuming they ever get to collect.
It’s an old story. Probably as old as mankind and certainly as ancient as running and hiding.
w/8; yep –last water down the bathtub drain seems to go faster. Dr. Helen has a John Galt thread going –most all the comments are stories of personal financial blows –but down at bottom, #80, is a clear administration defender, who says “…real businesspersons would be back to doing whatever they could to make money – like a dog in heat on your leg”. i tried to open the universe for him a little but i got too wordy. i’m afraid it may be hopeless. Citizens just won’t do what the brain trust says they must –which is, to act like the humping dogs in heat that they are. I didn’t mention to him that male dogs do the humping, and that they do not have an estrus cycle. I figured that poor dog knowledge is not his main problem.
8 wretchard
And Chicago wanted to host the Olympics on top of its present debt? That’s got to be a sterling example of chutzpah.
40,000 more just might do it. Hopefully the number requested is what Generals McCrystal
and Petraeus really think is adequate.
For the Clear and Hold strategy to work, you have to thoroughly clear all the infected areas
at about the same time. This will take a full battalion for each target zone. Get moved in and then go to saturation patrolling for a period of several months.
After that, the holding can be done with platoons. A case where “mass” is the initial trump card but is then replaced with
“economy of force”.
BTW: Robert Kaplan had a recent piece on why China wants the USA to stay in Afghanistan.
Lots of mineral resources and other raw materials in them thar hills.
Okay, China can feel free to go get what it needs, PROVIDED the proper of amount of royalties are paid.
Said royalties will go to our occupying platoons and their trading post outposts. The boys will cheerfully share the wealth
with cooperative locals of course and the latter can have it all just as soon as certain conditions are met.
Sounds like we got us a profitable potential on the horizon. President Palin ought to be able to grasp the potential. Too bad it is beyond the capabilities of the current occupant.
dave, reckon could we turn security over to the United Mine Workers International, trade Afghanistan to China for our T-Bills, and just call it a day?
We shall be looking for a few good Dorsai Buddy. We hire ‘em. China pays for them.
We just may be on to something here.
I have worked all night in the bagroom and then come home to illuminate you with my (ever so modest) brillance.
So will check back in on the morrow. I just gotta get a little shuteye before next shift starts.
So in the spirit of Cletus Graeme, I now bid you a temporary adieu.
adieu temporarily backatcha dave –& we’ll be ok as long as CiC remembers that stirring speech Arlen Specter made at the spoon factory: “Victory Belongs to He That is On the Winning Side”.
I keep coming back to a “control the variables” meme… If you can’t even identify the variables, you shouldn’t be in the game.
My impression of Democrat Executives over the years leans toward the Democrat mind-set intrinsically ignoring the real world variables for ideology-based variables that they must introduce – their variables are the right variables, yours are failed variables. This is supported by the ecstatic support of the “Hope and Change” meme that swept a Socialist leaning, 2 year Junior Senator into the White House. The change is what’s needed, not the real world, just the change. Wonder when the Chaos theory of Government textbook will be researched and sponsored by a notable Ivy League University?
Don’t get me wrong here, I would support a rational plan by this junior senator that has a hope of succeeding. Not listening to his Generals gives me little hope that the Democrat Executive curse has shifted to a variable rather than a constant.
Such an idea would provoke howls of protest from neighbor and arch-rival India, and would surely meet significant opposition in the U.S. Congress.
Oh, yeah, India.
… there is little doubt in Washington what’s behind the decision [not to meet the Dalai Lama]. The US President is going to Beijing next month at a time the US is widely seen as a declining entity and China as a growing power…The US is also said to be re-examining some of the joint military exercises it is conducting with India to eliminate those which may cause concern to China. “The Obama administration is showing signs of greater sensitivity to the concerns and interests of China than those of India…”
Never before have so few done so much to undermine the freedom of so many.
Speak of the devil, salt lick –Indian embassy in Kabul just got the exclamation point on the Obama sentence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/world/asia/09afghan.html
on top of Drudge, the lead-ins beside his header about falling troop morale:
‘We’re lost, that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here’…
‘There’s no tangible reward for the sacrifice’…
‘The whole country is going to s***’…
Tired, strained, confused and just want to get through…
***
anybody surprised? the only diff from last time is it’s not General Giap giving the Democrats their orders.
Fish will be the last animals to discover water.
Imagine yourself a leftist, in a leftist mileau. As long as you say the group-think, you will loved. Bush-Hitler, global warming, dolphins – adhere to the meme and you’re in. Water, water, all around, swim on.
And then you hit land. Never having experienced land, you still spout water-speak. Thinking you are talking to Leftists, you utter non sequitors, half truths. No you’ve move beyond half-truths. You issue My Truth, and you celebrate the idea that others have Their Truth.
And then suddenly it all gets F****d up at the sound of gunshot.
Sic transit gloria Mundi.
ADE
“NATO seeks more Russian help in Afghanistan”
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL7615125
So, perhaps withdrawal of ABM/radar installations was for the purpose of securing “Russian partnership” throughout Asia?
Now. Strange as it may seem, in a situation where an explanation for otherwise inexplicable events, motivations, and decisions eludes even the most alert and informed imaginations, consider whether Occam’s Razor might not reveal something like this:
“In a March 1989 memorandum to the US Central Intelligence Agency, KGB defector Major Anatoliy Golitsyn revealed the dreadful conclusion of Mikhail Gorbachev’s “perestroika” reforms: “The final period of ‘restructuring’ in the United States and Western Europe would be accompanied, not only by the physical extermination of active anti-Communists, but also by the extermination of the political, military, financial, and religious elites. Blood will be spilled and political re-education camps would be introduced.”
In the same 1989 memorandum, written more than 12 years before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Golitsyn predicts: “The Russians may be expected to provoke an incident unattributable to themselves involving the explosion of a nuclear device somewhere in the West not excluding the United States. The purpose would be to reassert or re-emphasize the necessity for the American-Russian partnership now, and to create pressure for eventual World Government.”
Four years later, in a February 1993 memorandum, Golitsyn warned: “Ignore Russian and Chinese strategic designs against the United States at your peril.”
81. wretchard (October 6th, 4:30pm thread: “The Track of the Storm”:
“Thank you sir, for proving my point. What we have is a problem of evidence and although some commenters have provided links to meet your requirements, in reality there is probably nothing I can say which can convince you. We are at the point where events will do the talking: manifested by state the dollar, the economy, international relations, civil liberties and social consensus.
Shortly before the elections one of my best friends said he was going to vote for Obama, and another commenter said he would do the same. I emailed them privately and said: “here’s my fearless forecast, Obama’s going to be the worst President in history”. So my answer to you is: please continue to believe I’m crazy and believe all’s well. But here’s my fearless forecast: you’ll be sorry.”
Not at all. Here’s what you wrote and FAILED to proved a link or quote for: “So when an African-American President gets up on a stage in Copenhagen and dons sack-cloth and ashes; apologizes for his culture and all the rest, he is really telling two stories.”
You have not provided any proof that Obama apologized for his “culture and all the rest” in Copenhagen. Nor have you really sought to cherry-pick any other quotes from other context either. Starling at 61 (same thread) applied links with no context, and NONE of them are from the President’s recent speeches in Copenhagen.
So let me iterate the challenge, can you, Mr. Fernandez, actually supply any quotes or links for Obama’s speech in Copenhagen, or did you create this out of your own deranged hate?
From the Jakarta Globe:
Obama said Chicago — following Atlanta as the last US city to host the Summer Olympics in 1996 — would allow America to restore its tainted image, “to show America at its best … that the USA is open to the world…
Over the past few years the fundamental truth of the United States has been lost. The Olympic Games could restore it.”
Over the past few years the fundamental truth of the United States has been lost.
Hear that sound? Like popping grease? That’s Herman’s brain calculating how Obama could have said this if it wasn’t mentioned on NPR.
Is this another one of those “the new administration seems to have failed to do their homework” thingies?
Is it not fitting to remember, at this time of Obama equivocation, the resolve and bravery of George W. Bush?
At a time of crisis, when the buck stopped on his desk, he made the decision to support the Surge.
The president’s voice quavered. His eyes darted. He was alone. Or worse, in the court of public opinion, he had Cheney on his side. Republican congresspeople, especially in the Senate, deserted him. (A lot of good Sen. Norm Coleman’s equivocations and evasions did him.)
He was afraid, I’m quite sure, and his voice revealed that. But the President did what he had to do. He was a mensch, in mensch time, doing what a mensch should do, accepting the personal and electoral consequences that went along with his decision.
The troops loved him.
I miss him.
Gates had attempted to delay the formal transmission, but mounting public interest in the issue made it pointless to hold it back.
This shows Gates worked for his boss, POTUS, as a yes man.
What Would Rumsfeld Have Done It?
A profoundly unserious President indeed.
We hear today that Obama didn’t really understand what was required to pursue the strategy he said he understood for Afghanistan.
Last week we heard that Obama didn’t really understand what was required to win the Olympics for Chicago.
Does anyone here believe he really understands what is involved in the transformation of our health care system? Or our energy policy (cap and trade)?
Here in Los Angeles, when we were building an 800 student high school and middle school facility on land already zoned as an “educational corridor” with four other already existing schools, we were forced to spend millions of dollars for environmental impact and traffic abatement studies, all of which delayed our project by two years. If Obama has exercised a fraction of such effort on his proposals I would be shocked.
Victor Davis Hanson has written a column today on Nemesis that looks at this from yet another angle.
Despite this, as Wretchard noted many weeks ago, his erstwhile supporters are still unwilling to face their cognitive dissonance and acknowledge buyer’s remorse.
I bet McChrystal/Petraeus miss Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld right now too.
Free Range International » Reading Tea Leaves
The New York Slimes has an OK roundup of what happened here.
If my information is correct this story contains a “untruth” told by a Colonel – and that is the kind of thing which really gets me worried.
I get worried because I know what happened to our military post Vietnam and would be crushed to see them held in such low esteem and outright contempt by the American public again in my lifetime.
Let me insert an excellent point from a more than excellent post by one of the all time most excellent bloggers “…lying, while advantageous in the short run, is like a drug, temporary in its effects; requiring higher and higher doses to maintain the same effect and is finally self-destructive.” That is from this mornings post on the Belmont Club by Richard Fernandez; a blogger I admire greatly….and I’m stopping with all the “excellents.”
—
—
I know some of the men coming out in the uplift and can say without reservation they are smarter than I am about the Stan, more capable than I am at running reconstruction projects and if let lose could make a huge difference. But they won’t be let off the FOB.
Lots of missions = big risks and nobody is into taking risks to achieve a mission which has yet to be clearly defined, properly resourced, or supported by the one man who’s support is critical – The President of the United States.
Obama should not have tried to steal GWB’s thunder in Afghanistan. GWB must have concluded that on balance short of eviscerating Pakistan, there really wasn’t much more that the Americans could do about the Taliban. Obama had simply shot his mouth off in the manner of a Harvard debater and is now looking to backtrack without appearing as an ass. He too must have realised by now that the ultimate cause of the problem is to be found in Pakistan.
PA Cat wrote:
“And Chicago wanted to host the Olympics on top of its present debt? That’s got to be a sterling example of chutzpah.”
Joe Biden was their financial advisor. He told them they had to spend $5 billion immediately to keep from going bankrupt.
And Herman Szig-heil, having deliberately ignored a host of answers to his previous rant, wins the facepalm award of the day and a nomination to the Cluelessness Hall of Fame for having unintentionally justified Wretchard’s reply to him completely.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:Picard-no-facepalm.jpg
The lack of seriousness is part and parcel of the amateurish approach the Obama uses toward everything. He has never had a REAL job, simply positions that he held while setting his sights on another office. Now that he is POTUS he finds that the work just SO hard that he can’t have any fun.
Problems don’t go away just because you made a well-delivered speech. He can’t be troubled to read McChrystal’s report (all hundred or so pages of it) but we are expected to buy his thousand plus pages of Cap&Trade nonsense as a “well-crafted” bill?
Now he is letting it be known that he may give drones to the Pakis? I have to hope that somebody in the CIA has hammered out a deal where it LOOKS like we are doing that while we maintain full control. Why not turn over control of our nukes to the Russians…..that way they would not feel threatened any more and peace would break out everywhere.
I have heard it said that Russians are chess players and Americans are gamblers, it seems we have elected somebody who is challenged by checkers.
There is little left but to pray!
@30. wws:
What you missed was the there would have to be a bailout with Federal money and the resulting graft and figgerish would have made the Chicago crowd wealthy!
Ivan, it has been noted here many, many times that the main problem in Afghanistan is the one thing that has always dogged military operations since history began: logistics. I think, no, make that I know Bush correctly surmised that simply adding more troops in the theater was subject to the law of diminishing returns: i.e. the additional logistics required to support the additional forces would increase the cost of operations well beyond any benefit from the expected outcome. Plus I believe he wanted to minimize the risk of a humiliating retreat out of Afghanistan should the tenuous line of supply through Pakistan be cut. Obambi having no other talent other than running his mouth failed from the start to grasp something that the supposedly dumb Bush understood from the start. And now our clueless wonder of a CiC is looking at an humiliation (troops in ‘revolt’, generals calling his leadership in question, the public outraged) that will dwarf the debacle in Copenhagen. While I look forward to that with glee I find no real joy in the prospect because now we as a nation are facing a situation where the military has zero faith in their CiC, which is a very, very bad thing.
Well, it only shows how incompetent the Obama administration. Axelrod is a one trick pony and I blame the media for peddling for this inexperienced guy to serves a president. Even if you boast having 300 advisers, if you have no skills or wisdom you still sucks as president.
Nothing new in the process here. High and low, big and small, government commits itself to any number of schemes which it never intends to fully fund or support. Despite the gargantuan size of the federal government, it is incapable of fulfilling its obligations in many (maybe most) areas. It may spend around $4 trillion a year now (of which it can only collect around $2.5 trillion yearly), but would have to spend $4.5 to $5 trillion a year to fully fund everything it has set out to do.
With the COIN venture in question, it follows the same pattern, and for the same reasons: The people in charge in the administration and Congress are largely ignorant, naive, and arrogant, and have no idea what is involved in fully implementing something — anything — healthcare, warfare, space programs, you name it. When they find out the hard truth, they either stay in denial and insist that it somehow be done with the insufficient resources they allocated, or they cut and run.
“It was easy to say, ‘Hey, I support COIN,’ because nobody had done the assessment of what it would really take, and nobody had thought through whether we want to do what it takes,” said one senior civilian administration official
Nice try with the double shuffle and misdirection, but it doesn’t fly. The Obama campaign had a year of advice from their military advisors, and now nine months of actual involvement, and has constantly demanded more troops based on… whatever they campaigned on. Going off on General McChrystal for his London speech is misdirection too, since his recommendation was exactly in line with all the public declarations of the geniuses running the government. The bed’s been made – and lo and behold, Obama must lie in it until an ingenious new party line takes form.
If bloodstains in your laundry is your biggest laundry problem, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem
One reason I was always wary of a strong commitment in Afghanistan are the mired problems involved. Whenever Senator Obama spoke of reinforcing Afghanistan, I assumed he was lying for political gain — as did his many supporters. Turns out he was totally clueless — and apparently so remains.
I think Herman Szig @20 provides a good example of what I have noticed about people on the left (although it is not limited to people on the left): they focus on winning the argument rather than solving a problem. If you actually want to solve a problem you take account of the difficulties involved. If you want to win the argument, you attack. And if that don’t work, you turn into a petulant adolescent. But of course the argument is never about this or that difficulty the nation faces. It is about the left acquiring and maintaining power. They are about acquiring power (for our own good, of course) rather than solving problems, so this approach makes perfect sense. They actually argue about two topics. 1). You must give us more power! 2). Don’t you dare take power away!
I’m thinking the new emblem for the Democratic Party should be the cracked pot, since they attract so many crackpots. But the donkey is good, too. Maybe the donkey could carry a bunch of crackpots. The donkey is led by a crackpot peddler, who looks a lot like George Soros (rhymes with sorrow).
An op-ed on the various strategic approaches to winning in Afghanistan.
Nearly 90,000 US and NATO troops are fighting to clear and hold the villages and towns of Afghanistan. The Taliban, Afghanistan’s prior ruler, and their Al Qaeda allies fight to impose their brand of Islam on the population. In his hand, President Obama holds a request for 40,000 more US troops from the general on the ground. Deploying or denying this troop request is the first crucial strategic decision he will have to make as a war-time President. If these troops are deployed, his second crucial decision will be the strategic direction they will pursue.
In the debate over strategic direction, the proponents of two opposing schools of thought have drawn battle-lines and are massing their arguments. The “Legitimate” school wants a decent, legitimate and representative country as the definition of victory in Afghanistan. They propose doubling down, by surging US forces, until Afghan national forces can take over the fight. The “Punitive” school argues that there’ll never be a decent, legitimate and representative country in Afghanistan no matter how hard we try. We’re wasting blood and treasure on a meaningless backwater. What we have to do, can be done through long-distance punitive strikes using cruise missiles or Special Operations Forces.
Both camps marshal compelling arguments. Both camps are, however, missing the point. Afghanistan, or Somalia, or a dozen other Islamic-fueled, tribal-backed conflicts around the globe are a complex miasma of history, religion and ethnic warfare. Pigeonholing the strategic response to where America is either spending billions of dollars and suffering thousands of dead to restructure whole countries, or is a distant sword bearer antiseptically raining down death and destruction is a false choice.
The US must find another way to respond to pre-nation state conflicts like Afghanistan, that balances cost with benefit, provides stability and offers positive future potential for those areas in which we intervene. US strategy should have hard strategic goals largely obtainable by military means and demonstrated by historical precedent. Lastly, it should take advantage of the full spectrum of both hard and soft power that the US currently possesses.
The rub for western powers dealing with tribal based Islamic conflicts like those in Afghanistan or Somalia lies more with their lack of imagination than with the capabilities of tribal adversaries. In Somalia, the US accepted open-ended, direct tactical engagement and became just one more armed tribe in the mix. In Afghanistan, the US dropped its largely successful, low-cost unconventional war of maneuver to create an allied proxy state. The fundamental and continuing presumption of Western powers has been that they have to achieve strategic objectives either directly or through proxies to win. They do not.
In Afghanistan, creating a proxy state was a spectacularly lazy, yet enormously expensive, strategic decision. It was lazy because it substituted the creation and imposition of a conventional western framework, the means, over denying sponsorship, support and sanctuary to terrorists, the goal. It was lazy because it substituted the familiar for the effective. The change from tribal based counterinsurgency, the first strategy, to the imposition of a conventional western nation state, the second strategy, has been an abrupt and radical one for Afghanistan, supplying reactionary tribal and religious elements with a rallying focus. In many ways, the worst of all possible choices, creation and use of a foreign derived proxy state in Afghanistan is enormously expensive, operates outside of traditional social parameters, requires extensive education and social preparation, guarantees reactionary backlash, and depends upon open-ended direct tactical engagement by the US for its survival.
Several other strategic options are available instead of creating a proxy state. Punitive strikes have been proposed as a solution in Afghanistan. They are another form of open-ended direct tactical engagement, merely executed from a distance. The intended result is temporary chaos. Compared to this, any regime, regardless of how oppressive, offers the tribal society durable positive benefit. Additionally, foreign raids periodically culling targeted personalities are, ultimately a Darwinian process wherein the movements those personalities lead, and the survivors who remain, will adapt to preclude, constrain, or avoid those strikes. In fact, the strikes impersonal, seemingly random and punitive nature offer those indigenous constituencies who can define their meaning and context to the native society, the means to generate additional support, enhance resistance and increase the will of their adherents. In the long run and by themselves, punitive raids work against you.
If targeting individual tribal leaders is one side of the coin, the other side is supporting local tribal leaders. There are strategic problems with approach as well. These individuals, typically warlords, are pre-existing victors of a zero-sum ethnic-tribal competition. They maintain their positions by promoting their own tribes at the expense of other competing tribes. Supply them with US equipment sublimates that equipment to the prior zero-sum competition, reinforcing existing divisions. They are, characteristically, unable to govern outside of their tribal faction. Funding amplifies their characteristics. It does not change them. As a funded tribal faction gains predominance through one means, typically military, other tribes will seek new means of competition, demographic, religious, economic, etc. Under an unregulated zero-sum competition, elevating one tribe to predominance encourages the other tribes to ally and oppose. This creates an unstable scenario, where one tribe, risen to prominence by an external interlocutor must suppress all competition to maintain its position, if not survive indigenous reaction.
If our intent is to remove militant Islam’s hold on targeted tribal societies, we must replace it with other indigenous constituencies producing allied populations and in-place tribal paramilitaries whose lives and work are measurably superior to militant Islam’s supporters, and opposed to them in religion, culture, politics and economics, all natural forces within the tribe. This requires that we alter the balance, predominance, range of control, depth and balance among these natural forces, elevating certain constituencies within the tribe and diminishing others. These constituencies are not proxy forces dependant upon foreign support and intervention. Indigenous constituencies can be natural competitors to militant Islam. They can also be engines of societal reformulation, inoculating that society against militant Islam, or as a pathway for unleashing or amplifying forces antithetical to militant Islam. If natural competitors emerge, militant Islam must shift its focus and resources from expansion to internal policing in order to maintain its preeminent position as societal motivator and organizing principal. The more the US forces militant Islam into policing and population control against revitalized natural competitors, the more internal strife will be generated in those populations. Instead of fighting neighboring tribes, they are fighting each other
Salt Lick @21:
It seems neither you, nor the Jarkarta post, nor Richard Fernandez read the actual transcript of Obama’s speech to the IOC in Copehagen. Here it is:
http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.com/2009/10/02/transcript-obama-speech-to-the-ioc/
It says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about ” . . . would allow America to restore its tainted image.” Go ahead, read it!
wws @31: Right back at ya, kiddo! Not a single word justified as Richard Fernandez claimed: “So when an African-American President gets up on a stage in Copenhagen and dons sack-cloth and ashes; apologizes for his culture and all the rest, he is really telling two stories.”
Apologized “for his culture”? What culture? Multicultural leftism? Give me a break. Another EIPC FAIL for the Belmont Club.
“Saying yes to everybody” – coincides perfectly with the observations that he is still in campaign mode
President Rogge, ladies and gentlemen of the International Olympic Committee:
I come here today as a passionate supporter of the Olympic and Paralympic Games; as a strong believer in the movement they represent; and as a proud Chicagoan. But above all, I come as a faithful representative of the American people, and we look forward to welcoming the world to the shores of Lake Michigan and the heartland of our nation in 2016.
To host athletes and visitors from every corner of the globe is a high honor and a great responsibility. And America is ready and eager to assume that sacred trust. We’re a nation that has always opened its arms to the citizens of the world — including my own father from the African continent — people who have sought something better; who have dreamed of something bigger.
I know you face a difficult choice among several great cities and nations with impressive bids of their own. So I’ve come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reason I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago — the reason I fell in love with the city I still call home. And it’s not just because it’s where I met the woman you just heard from — although after getting to know her this week, I know you’ll all agree that she’s a pretty big selling point for the city.
You see, growing up, my family moved around a lot. I was born in Hawaii. I lived in Indonesia for a time. I never really had roots in any one place or culture or ethnic group. And then I came to Chicago. And on those Chicago streets, I worked alongside men and women who were black and white; Latino and Asian; people of every class and nationality and religion. I came to discover that Chicago is that most American of American cities, but one where citizens from more than 130 nations inhabit a rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods.
Each one of those neighborhoods — from Greektown to the Ukrainian Village; from Devon to Pilsen to Washington Park — has its own unique character, its own unique history, its songs, its language. But each is also part of our city — one city — a city where I finally found a home.
Chicago is a place where we strive to celebrate what makes us different just as we celebrate what we have in common. It’s a place where our unity is on colorful display at so many festivals and parades, and especially sporting events, where perfect strangers become fast friends just because they’re wearing the same jersey. It’s a city that works — from its first World’s Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties, we know how to put on big events. And scores of visitors and spectators will tell you that we do it well.
Chicago is a city where the practical and the inspirational exist in harmony; where visionaries who made no small plans rebuilt after a great fire and taught the world to reach new heights. It’s a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town; where the world already comes together every day to live and work and reach for a dream — a dream that no matter who we are, where we come from; no matter what we look like or what hand life has dealt us; with hard work, and discipline, and dedication, we can make it if we try.
That’s not just the American Dream. That is the Olympic spirit. It’s the essence of the Olympic spirit. That’s why we see so much of ourselves in these Games. That’s why we want them in Chicago. That’s why we want them in America.
We stand at a moment in history when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations — a time of common challenges that require common effort. And I ran for President because I believed deeply that at this defining moment, the United States of America has a responsibility to help in that effort, to forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world.
No one expects the Games to solve all our collective challenges. But what we do believe — what each and every one of you believe and what all of the Chicago delegation believes — is that in a world where we’ve all too often witnessed the darker aspects of our humanity, peaceful competition between nations represents what’s best about our humanity. It brings us together, if only for a few weeks, face to face. It helps us understand one another just a little bit better. It reminds us that no matter how or where we differ, we all seek our own measure of happiness, and fulfillment, and pride in what we do. That’s a very powerful starting point for progress.
Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. Presidential election. Their interest wasn’t about me as an individual. Rather, it was rooted in the belief that America’s experiment in democracy still speaks to a set of universal aspirations and ideals. Their interest sprung from the hope that in this ever-shrinking world, our diversity could be a source of strength, a cause for celebration; and that with sustained work and determination, we could learn to live and prosper together during the fleeting moment we share on this Earth.
Now, that work is far from over, but it has begun in earnest. And while we do not know what the next few years will bring, there is nothing I would like more than to step just a few blocks from my family’s home, with Michelle and our two girls, and welcome the world back into our neighborhood.
At the beginning of this new century, the nation that has been shaped by people from around the world wants a chance to inspire it once more; to ignite the spirit of possibility at the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic movement in a new generation; to offer a stage worthy of the extraordinary talent and dynamism offered by nations joined together — to host games that unite us in noble competition and shared celebration of our limitless potential as a people.
And so I urge you to choose Chicago. I urge you to choose America. And if you do, if we walk this path together, then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
Actually Szig it looks to me like the last 6 paragraphs are an obverse apology for that terrible Bush era and the “anti-World” America that elected it. But probably your personality disorder prevents you from appreciating such subtlties.
The ISI is giving captured Taliban the choice of jail or jihad against India. We should not be “rebuilding” a single brick of Pakistan, and we sure as hell shouldn’t give them any technology. That would be as bad as Clinton giving China nuclear secrets (for which I never understood why he wasn’t prosecuted).
[Obama'] most telling comments came in response to a question from Pakistani IOC member, who sought an assurance that foreigners attending the Olympics would not face the “harrowing” experience at immigration familiar to many visitors.
“One of the legacies I want to see coming out of Chicago from 2016 is a reminder that America at its best is open to the world and we are putting the full force of the White House and the State Department into making sure that not only is this a successful Games but that visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people,” Obama said.
“… in Chicago… we look like the world. And over the last several years sometimes that fundamental truth about the United States has been lost. One of the legacies of this Olympic Games would be the restoration of that understanding of what the United States is all about and a recognition of how we are linked to the world.”
Hey Herman, why don’t you enlighten all of us unwashed here with your list of our President’s greatest accomplishments? The floor is yours.
Hear that sound? It’s Herman screaming “Yes we can!” at his Obama action figure as he googles for links supporting the voices in his head.
All this hand wringing over the administration sending 40,000 additional troops or not misses a large part of the overall situation. Why did General McChrystal and the CENTCOM staff only request 40,000 more troops to tame a piece of ground more difficult to control than Iraq? It’s because the new higher total is about the maximum number of troops we can effectively support, logistically, in sustained combat operations. This assumes we can provide, maintain and operate a near doubling in the number of helicopters and tactical vehicles, and ramp up the delivery of material, especially fuel.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda may have different ideas about that, and they largely control the lines of communication (routes) between our primary harbor and supply bases in Afghanistan. This entire thing is shaping up to be a huge debacle. A concentrated effort by the enemy along our Pakistani lines of communication will, in the best-case result in having lots of forces in Afghanistan sitting around, getting mortared and sniped at, without adequate supplies to be effective. The worst case scenarios include the break up of Pakistan in a full scale civil war as the “central government” attempts to impede Islamist attacks on our supply caravans, and possible stranding of our troops in a situation reminiscent of the British evacuation from Dunkirk, where our mostly cut off troops require evacuation, leaving all their heavy equipment behind. Even if the additional troops are approved, properly supplied, trained, and supported, and present in theater, the current rules of engagement would just lead to a more target rich environment for Taliban snipers and roadside bomb makers, and suicidal Al Qaeda jihadis.
The current administration does not want to “win” in Afghanistan. They are unwilling to even contemplate suffering the international and domestic blowback that would follow effective military actions necessary to achieve victory. They are likewise afraid of the political ramifications of pulling out and going home (a.k.a. Al Qaeda and the Taliban winning). Their goal is to take a middle path seeking an effective stalemate where little really gets accomplished except for the maiming and death of hundreds or thousands of brave U.S. and allied personnel. The fact that this will destroy the lives of tens of thousands of generally conservative service members and their families in the U.S., and destroy our military as an effective fighting force for a generation or more is a feature, not a bug to this administration.
Scythianeedle say:
We need immediately: (1) Citizens’ groups filing Class Action Suits against ACORN in every single voting district of the country. (2) Same against DOJ, specific idiotic, criminal, and/or traitorous representatives and senators at state and federal level. (3) Recall Election Petitions for stupid lying criminals holding elective and appointed office where such petitions are already legal; (4) Actions to make such petitions by voters legal where they are not yet.
Remember the Recall Election that dumpt half-wit Gray Davis. The inability of Schwarzenneger to overcome the entrenched Leftist Unions and Tranzi ideologues dominating Cali would be equally true of any replacement Gubernator, without similar dislodging of parasitic, crooked, and insane state legislators, state and FEDERAL judges, City Councils, and REGIONAL Commissions.
Regional commissions, operating in the regulatory gap between the County and State level of government, are populated frequently by appointees answerable only to the politicians who put’em in place, and are utterly anonymous to the homeowners, consumers of public water supplies, parents with kids in school, victims of fire, flood, etc., over whom those commissions exercise VAST powers. Such commissions frequently have authority to set land use policies, water use rates, recommend policies to public utilities, et cetera, and most people don’t even know they exist.
Herman, are you denying that Obama has not, ever, travelled to Europe and apologized for America? All our many transgressions against the Yurpizoids, such as bailing some of them out of a couple of wars, rescuing others from their invaders, and rebuilding others after the wars that they started and subsequently lost?
I think either you’re being deliberately disingenuous at picking apart Wretchard’s words, or else you’re an attorney pretending that you’ve got a hostile witness on the stand and are nit-picking what he said in an effort to prove to the jury that he’s wrong. And from what I can read in his (and Michelle’s) speeches to the Olympics people, their pitch was based upon a claim of “diversity” — “come to Chicago where there are lots of black people, and lots of them are poor just like Michelle and I used to be before we hit the jackpot courtesy of the American taxpayer.”
Luckily, the Olympics people are not in the affirmative action business, so they chose to go somewhere that is *really* diverse and doesn’t depend upon legalized line-jumping like we do in the United States.
If you find Belmont Club to be an epic fail, perhaps Huffington Post will welcome you back with open arms, since your multiple memes seem to be cribbed verbatim from what one sees there when one feels like taking a mud bath.
Obama is an apologizer. A multiple apologizer. He’s also African – American – or do you want to deny that, too?
Herman-
Why did you post the Copenhagen speech here? Is it because the blogger whose link you provided highlighted all the ‘I’s’ and ‘my’s’ it contained? The backhanded bits of groveling about second chances for America that you insist aren’t there are obvious enough if you take the speech in context with his actions – the world-wide apology tour, the abandonment of one ally after another and his simultaneous courtship of leaders like Chavez and Ahmedinejhad who are irredeemably opposed to American interests.
Grow up. This thread is not about you and your puerile quest for attention. It’s about Afghanistan and your hero’s inability to cope with his responsibility for the lives of our men and women in uniform. If you think his self-absorbed speechifying in Copenhagen has anything to contribute to that conversation, you’re every bit as clueless and reprehensibile as he is.
Salt Lick at @46: You must be daft. There is no apology here whatsoeve, especially for, as Richard Fernandez wrote: ” . . . his culture “. (What, exactly, in “his culture” would Obama believe he has to apologize for? Liberalism? Multiculturalism?) Apologies include words like “I apologize,” or “I’m sorry for. . .” or “I deeply regret”. Obama is taking no blame whatsoever for global perceptions of American during the Bush years. In fact, he’s describing them as just that, perceptions: “presentation,” “look like,” “understanding,”.
If you read Fernandez’s original post, you would think that Obama was grovelling before the IOC, (sack cloth! ashes!) apologizing for slavery, the Holocaust and New Coke instead of boilerplate boosterism for the city of Chicago. This is another fine example of the BC sinking into a fevered cloister of hate and conspiracy theory.
1. PLEASE stop feeding the troll!!!
2. Re Obama defense policy—agree with hdgreene (39) first 2 paragraphs.
3. Problem with Obama administration specifically, national Dem Party in general, and all of Washington DC culture broadly—-no adult supervision. It’s like a bunch of high school juniors maneuvering to be elected Class Officers for their senior year—a lot of snark, some vicious tactical maneuvers, but no responsible attention to substance.
Of course, in high school there IS no substance, but you get the point.
Is it just me or does Herman sound like he is chanelling Vivo?
@54. Marty:
mea culpa re: 1
re: 3, My point exactly, campaigning is fun, all that travelling in Soro’s jet, the media, the crowds, what a BLAST! Being POTUS, on the other hand; all those long meetings with staff, all that really hard reading stuff, nobody lining up to cheer every time you go somewhere, all that hard reading stuff, Congress not doing as they are told, all that hard reading stuff. Man what a buzz-kill. Almost like being back in school except you can’t hide what you are doing and people ACTUALLY pay attention to what you write, instead of giving you an A+ grade (oops, Columbia doesn’t bother with grades).
School is over kiddo, the beer-bong is put away (along with the pot and the coke). Now it is time to get to work and none of the slackers in the WH (or on the staff) have the serious mind or work-ethic to make it fly.
As I said earlier, there is little left but to pray.
Marty — mea culpa. I don’t usually do that, as I know it gratifies their need for attention, and also it’s not Christian to pick on the mentally ill. Blame it on a bit of boredom due to a dead-end search today for a job in Obama’s economy. I’ll stop.
The only further apology I want to hear from o is the one he gives to the U.S. public as he hikes his sorry rear-end from the precincts of our sacred presidential residence, which he has besmirched more in a few months than even the open running sores of the Clinton presidency did in eight years.
The current administration could teach tricks to tropical skin diseases.
One is tempted to give money to medical research merely in hopes of finding an anti-hopey-changey salve for the afflicted portions of the body politic.
I’m afraid though that the approaching catastrophes conjured up by the bumbling incumbents, will need more like the industry of Noah, or Moses.
Definitely time to stock your pantry with foods that need no fridgerator, and store up some quarrels for your crossbow.
American troops in Afghanistan losing heart, say army chaplains
The war was lost when this Commander-in-Chief won.
Mad Fiddler,
The current administration could teach tricks to tropical skin diseases.
That’s a keeper.
anton,
… does Herman sound like he is chanelling Vivo?
Those with multiple personalities often have no personality at all.
Marty,
1. PLEASE stop feeding the troll!!!
Concur.
Our genial host is to be congratulated for demonstrating that a mature community can self regulate without resorting to LGF style purges. I would still like some of those nice features like controlled or auto refresh. Even better would be an Ignore button.
Scythianeedle,
The recall of Davis happened because of California’s unique Constitution. While I agree with those who have pointed out that the United States is a Constitutional Republic and not a direct Democracy, I do not think that California has been ill served by those elements, recall and referendum, that are most democratic.
The myth of transferable costs is always easier to sell in a larger polity. Left to itself Rhode Island might prove as Improvident as California but there are no distant Scrooge McDucks in the little state that they can send their bills to. Perhaps the best thing to do with states like California and New York is break them up. If 50,000 was the upper bound of a viable Greek polis then what is the maximum size of a solvent state in a federal republic?
BTW, lost contact with PJM for a bit, was it a DNS attack?
Herm@53
You almost had me going, until…”This is another fine example of the BC sinking into a fevered cloister of hate and conspiracy theory.”
Heh. Good one. You shouldn’t try to adhere QUITE so closely to the cartoon leftist thrown up as a bugaboo by some of the more excitable BCers. People will figure out your gag quickly if you go that far over the top.
Fiddler@58
Don’t underestimate how much I enjoyed that post.
Looks like we got ourselves a troll.
The Skin Disease joke is stolen from an Episode of Red Dwarf.
All glory to their insane writers.
(…assuming it’s original with them.)
By the way, thanks to L. Barsen for the Machiavelli quotes. Last time I read “The Prints” [sic, yeah] was high school back in the mists of pre-history. I think my copy was scratched on a mud tablet.
If you have not already read numbers 11-13 above
fellows, you might want to do so now.
Finding that there is something there that somebody wants for industrial purposes
changes the game in our favor—-if we are astute enough to act on the opportunity.
In addition to the PRC, a resource-poor Japan
might well show some interest in the matter.
Couple this with converting poppies to petroleum to help power the mines; throw in some agricultural/animal husbandry projects
etc and we ought to be in darned good shape
pretty soon.
And since transportation requirements along with other support needs will have to transit Pakistan, that country will also benefit—-subject to some attitude adjustment on their part.
x
As a bullet point summary:
- Obama talks trash on the campaign trail [this would be before the election] about how he’s going to open a can of whoopass on the Taliban and Al quida in Afghanistan. This is the real war where our real enemies are and Bush was too dumb to recognize this and blah blah blah. I assumed this was all political bs. My bad.
- Aa soon as HE takes office the One orders a policy review on our Afghanistan policy.
- He [ the One] then announces (in March) a comprehensive new strategy based upon the policy review.
- In September [this would be 6 months or so later] the general in charge of implementing this new strategy says he need 40,000 more troops or else.
- Now these numb nuts claim they had no idea what resources would be required to implement the Maarch policy. A policy that was adopted after at least 2-3 months of study and a decision process that presumably included the Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, the president’s national security adviser, the generals in charge of implementing the strategy, and so forth.
Am I to believe that these people including a number of experienced professional military types approved a strategy and forwarded that strategy to the president for final approval without i)having a clue as to the men and material required to implement this strategy; and ii) without knowing where the men and material were going to come from and how they would be supported in the field?; and iii) not setting this information forth?
I find this not plausible.
Either Obana and the people running the show are complete idiots, which is quite possible, or Obama is desperately looking for an exit from this whole Afghan thing by finding a way to vote present and blame someone else.
This is the second Carter administration.
Herman,
if indeed you are just a troll and not a meta-troll, then I suggest you find a good linguistics professor or professional to sit down with you and do a careful subtextual analysis using semiotic techniques on the Presidents speech. I will not bore the rest of BC by doing so, anymore than just posting this friendly suggestion. The speech strongly pushes the themes, “hat in hand”, “begging forgiveness for past behavior”, “we can do better now”, “disdain for hidden privilege”,…
I can understand how you missed it, for I can tell from your writing that you are probably not a semiotician. I recommend reading some of Umberto Eco’s work.
As is indicated in wikipedia (search wikipedia for an easy to read popularization of some of his thinking),
Eco emphasizes the fact that words do not have meanings that are simply lexical, but rather, they operate in the context of utterance.
…mirrored by the differences between what Washington thought it said to the Pakistanis and what Islamabad thought it heard.
Is this any surprise? Remember during the campaign when Obama told a group of rust-belt Union members that he wanted to repeal NAFTA while he sent Austin Goolsbee to Canada to privately reassure the Canadians he was a NAFTA supporter? Got a little confusing when both messages got out to the general public and Goolsbee had to spend some time under the bus. It’s a habit (or rather, a tactic) of Obama and his crowd to talk out of both sides of their mouths. I don’t think they have any hidden second channel where the truth is broadcast, but it’s inconceivable to most that a US President could be so irresponsible and so everyone assumes there must be a second channel and then they proceed to hear what they want on it, Pakistan IIS agents and Herman ze Trolls alike.
And so now Obama says he’s going to focus on al Qaeda in Pakistan, but then the Pakistan military rejects the US Aid/Surveillance Bill *immediately.* Funny if it weren’t tragic. For some reason the sincere, non-infantilized among Obama’s supporters have never figured out how to deal with the self-governed but non-sovereign 30 million people along the Afghan border among whom ISLAM is the only claim to something approaching post-Neanderthal civilization.
How do these gaping holes go unaddressed by the shining intellects of the Smart Good People? Eh? First, the Ho Chi Minh trail; now, the FATA. The FATA, of all things, has become a strategic weapon inflicting damage measurable in megatons, without all the nasty fire or political baggage. In fact, just the opposite. And a slutty Asiatic clique in Islamabad (apropos!) is chuckling away, while the Smart Good People beat down their own closest natural *allies* on the face of the Earth (that the Useful Idiot in Chief likes to talk so vapidly about). Meanwhile, our guys, trying to protect and enlighten the savages *in a way that is acceptable and pleasant to themselves* sink into despair, because they can see and feel what is coming.
If you don’t think the USA has been subverted, you are truly an idiot.
It seems neither you, nor the Jarkarta post, nor Richard Fernandez read the actual transcript of Obama’s speech to the IOC in Copehagen.
Remember the “President’s speech” includes the question and answer. Here’s a YouTube video showing Barack Obama saying the words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0cLihiBpfY
Here are two of many links found on Google quoting what I referred to as his apology:
http://www.france24.com/en/20091002-obama-copenhagen-chicago-bid-olympics-rio-chicago-madrid-tokyo-2016-ioc
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/games-would-restore-us-reputation-obama-20091002-ggft.html
In general, run this search
Watch YouTube video, Mr. Herman Szig. As to your challenge: So let me iterate the challenge, can you, Mr. Fernandez, actually supply any quotes or links for Obama’s speech in Copenhagen, or did you create this out of your own deranged hate?
The search would take an average person about two or three minutes, I reckon.
Since taking office, President Obama’s administration has tried hard to break with Bush-era ‘them and us’ rhetoric and reach out to ordinary Muslims around the world.
However, I don’t think that anyone thought this policy would include publicly sucking up to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group which, much like al-Qaeda, aspires to create a global, totalitarian and expansionist Caliphate.
And yet, as Counter Terrorism News website reveals, this is precisely what has now happened.
Read the rest here.
ADE
reading Obama’s speech gives me an uncontrollable urge to listen to a group of Vikings singing “spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam Spammity Spam! Wonderful Spam!!!”Spammity Spam! Wonderful Spam!!! spam spam spam”
Ignore. Responding to a post that was aparently edited while I was writing.
Good posts and commentary.
My head spins.
I find this discussion very strange.
Why does everyone think they are smarter than the generals who won in Iraq?
Iraq was extremely complex. Al Qaeda, Sunni and Iranian backed Shiite terrorists were pouring in across several borders. There were millions of dollars of terrorist financing and trained bombers and thugs left over from Sadam.
And yet these troops and these generals won.
Why not just give them the resources they need to win in Afghanistan and let them work?
This is the way America wins wars. We fumble around until we find the correct generals and then we win. Is that so hard?
If Obama’s Chicago crew of cronies, doesn’t know what they are talking about, why not let the adults, the professionals do what they do best. These are winners, let them work.
Maybe they should have described it as “…like being rudely awakened by a leg waxing” instead of “sticker shock”,just to, you know, punch up the text lust a little, to get the point across.
sometimes the simplest answers are the best:
“why not let the adults, the professionals do what they do best?”
Because winning is not the goal. Don’t take my word for it; Obama has already said that directly. You don’t need generals to pursue “non-victory options.”
GP/75; punch up the text lust a little, to get the point across –right–get it all straightened out!
Well, Obama’s ‘strategy’ is now clear:
“aides stress that the president’s final decision on any changes is still at least two weeks away, the emerging thinking suggests that he would be very unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal…
Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government — something it is now far from being capable of — and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government — though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…
Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary? the official said.”
As ALLAHPUNDIT states: “In other words, rather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists, rather than invest another 40,000 troops, he’s going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.”
Much like how he was focused during the campaign on “the good war” in Afghanistan rather than “the bad war” in Iraq.
I wonder how long it’ll be before he decides that not everyone who’s in Al Qaeda is an enemy either — or, better yet, that AQ’s been “substantially defeated” or something, which has been the unstated thrust of all those WH-leaked pieces in the press lately about how weak Bin Laden’s gang has become.
Why, I’ll bet in a year or so we’ll be told that they’re so weak that we can start pulling out of Afghanistan altogether. Things sure have improved over there since Bush was president, huh?”
For in depth analysis, see: Al Qaeda is the tip of the Jihadist spear
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/analysis_al_qaeda_is.php
58 & 75, Two loud laughs that made my wife come check on me. VERY funny!
Obama will do EXACTLY as Michelle wants him to do. Nothing more or less. And in the end the U.S. military will pay for his lack of cajones. My sympathies to the other Mothers and Fathers of servicemen and women who will watch this Cluster F proceed to it’s foregone conclusion. I pray that none gets that knock on the door from the man in the dress blues. I also pray that Obama gets all of the nightmares he so richly deserves.
JF.
zero’s putative nightmares will never happen. You need a certain portion of humanity in your personality to be impacted by the results of selling out honorable men for political or ideological purposes.
zero will not be affected.
@ 66 (Engineer)
Good summary of the whole sad affair.
* Obama tells us how tough he’ll be in Afghanistan to assuage concerns he’s just a typical soft-lefty Dem.
* Obama continues the tough talk after being elected.
* Obama finds out the general he appointed to lead the effort took him at his word & wants the troops to do the job.
* Now he’s stuck – if he follows through on what was really only a campaign ploy, he’s going to tick off his base; if he bails (which is what he’d do in a minute if there were no political ramifications), he pumps up the right’s adrenaline even more & ticks off most everyone else.
“Sticker shock” my fanny.
Robinsolana #74:
I don’t currently have the time to answer your question adequately because it seems you’ve made a bunch of erroneous assumptions. Not at all stupid, just ignorance shared by many who haven’t examined the issues in depth. Our involvement in Afghanistan has been debated here at the Belmont Club for quite a long time now, and a lot of folks who comment either have personal experience in the area or have applicable personal knowledge from other occasions. I’m sorry if that sounds preachy.
To sum up quickly and incompletely, with no detail at all:
Iraq and Afghanistan are two very different conflicts.
The terrain is incredibly different, this effects the local economy, military tactics, strategies, equipment, nation building, etc. , etc.
The people on the ground are extremely different as well.
The logistics situation is orders of magnitude more difficult in Afghanistan.
The overall strategy, which is set by the U.S. civilian leadership in our military, is worlds apart from the previous administration.
The current administration is run by out of control micro-managers who believe they’re smarter than everyone else about practically everything.
Look for General McChrystal to resign or be replaced if he is a man of integrity, with someone who sees things through the administrations rose tinted lenses. That is, if they can find a senior flag officer who is that out of touch with reality and their proper responsibilities.
Counterinsurgency’s COIN of the realm
It worked very well in Iraq
But now that we have a new guy at the helm
It seems definitions are slack
When they jawboned the problem way back in the Spring
They thought they could buy on the cheap
A bounce in the polls that a victory would bring
They’d no clue that the price would be steep
So they texted the generals, no need for a chat
And told them to write up a plan
To beat up al Qaeda and then after that
To take out the weak Taliban
So now they’re all sitting ‘round watching the clock
Obama more clueless than most
Complaining they’re stunned by the big sticker shock
According to Washington Post
On top of it all now the Pakis now say
They want all the drones that we have
And buckets more money before they will play
They’ve hurt feelings you see we must salve
The Obamistration is flailing the air
To leave or to stay in those lands
They haven’t a clue as to why they are there
The country’s in very best hands
“It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…
Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary? the official said.”
This is so wrong it is brilliant. A brilliant way to get American troops killed without a purpose. A great way to demoralize our armed forces. Mission accomplished!
I was wrong when I wrote Buraq doesn’t care about the lives of American soldiers. He does care. He wants them massacred in a no win situation in barren Afghanistan.
Oh I don’t know Richard. His narcissism is very fertile ground for the growing of nightmares. They may not be nightmares of seeing dead soldiers. But there will be nightmares. His hair is already going grayer.
If the Pakistanis are complaining about us giving them 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS, what are they going to say once Linebacker III starts up?
When the camp at Wanat was being over-run, did they put out a Broken Arrow like Hal Moore did in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965? If they did, doesn’t sound like they got the same kind of response.
President Obama appears to be handling “war” like any number of another issues in his in-box, none more important than “healthcare reform” for God knows what reason.
God bless our troops. This looks like LBJ in ’65, only LBJ paid a hell of a lot more attention than this guy. But they share a fatal view of ROE and thinking that war is a matter of “sending a message.”
It is chilling to see our “War Council” with a crooked lawyer as SecState, a complete and utter jackass as VP, an obvious yes-man as NSA, and a unknown guy who came to fame on his demand for immediate surrender to Al Qaeda in Iraq as C-in-C.
God bless our troops.
yah, Rex
Afghanistan is complex.
I did not mention the drugs or corruption.
That the last election was bungled, frightens me.
Pakistan is two-faced. But Pakistan has actually been killing Taliban. This is new.
If I sounded simple or dumb, that was not my intention. They killed Ben Ladin’s son you know.
What I did want to do is cut through some of the media spin and information war ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric. I do not consider the war on terror in Afghanistan lost.
I do think abandoning Afghanistan, will lose us Pakistan. A country that is maybe more important, because of the nukes.
The ‘violence’ that so occupies the media is because we have been pushing into the Taliban and drug areas hard against the Pakistan border. Like Helmand. And the Taliban has been pushing back trying to distract us.
When I was over there, the piles of rocks that represent new house starts where all over the place. My friends just want a little peace and to get on with their rebuilding and farming. Millions of refugees came home. Remember, they have had 30+ years of chaos and war. The Taliban are trying to ruin their chance for a future and they know it.
Taliban are only part of the Pushtuns and Pushtuns are what 40% of Afghan population.
They might produce chaos, but are unlikely to ever control the whole country again. Too many tribes hate them.
Obama can lose it. He can leave chaos. He can revive Al Qaeda. That is the risk of weak policy.
But I also think our generals, Petraeus and McKrystal, can win it. I repeat they have done this before.
The idea of Biden setting war policy makes me want to puke. What exactly has he ever done?
You are wise to mention terrain and logistics. I saw incredible mountains and lots of dirt roads. Motorbike paths follow goat trails through the mountains. How do you deal with that?
I have Pashtun friends over there. They hate the Taliban. The Taliban rocketed their village. I have Hazari friends over there. When I visited deep in the mountains and desert of Hazarajad; no Taliban. Different tribe with a grudge. These are farmers with amazing irrigation systems down in their valleys.
They have opened an agricultural PRT in Gazni. Finally something smart.
The governor of Nangahar claims that province is poppy free. Well maybe. I visited the Chief of the Border Guards there and saw only one. I would guess they would be a little hard to hide, if there were a lot.
So its up to Obama.
He can go with proven winners or he can punt and leave chaos.
Cross your fingers and maybe pray a little for our soldiers.
T/86; did they put out a Broken Arrow
http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/exclusive-apache-pilots-shocked-size-attack-camp-keating/story?id=8785878
Here’s another version:
Battle of Wanat – Inside the Ambush –
—
Less than ideal terrain.
A mini Dien Bien Phu.
Like Khe San, abandoned after the fight
Would that our pols had the courage and perspicacity of this young woman. Lara Logan lays it out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/08/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5372306.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Dave Katz #40, wow, what an excellent analysis. Walt #83, you’re in the zone. My own chief concern is the logistics. I’ve never been near A’stan but from all accounts we are at the wrong end of a long and fragile chain of supply. Big footprint, heavy metal, expensive and vulnerable strategy. I worry that Obama will dither and slide, losing good soldiers and burning morale (and whatever credibility he still has). And then he’ll leave. So we’ll get the worst of both worlds. After we leave, and the Al Q come back and maybe hit us back home? Do we return? I doubt it. I think at that point, if we’re sufficiently provoked (e.g. we lose a city) we’ll just launch a salvo of sterilizer airbursts. A couple of dozen 20-kt shots along the main watersheds might send a message. Or start the Big One. Not a good prospect but Obama is helping us move in that direction.
The Pakistanis are laying out their negotiating positions. That is fair enough, The have attacked Al-Qaeda linked Taliban. They are demanding that we grant them an exclusive contract for prosecuting the war complete with technology transfers, useful if they are worried about our technology tracking their nukes, and in addition we toss India and the Dalai Lama under the ever expanding bus. Maybe we should also buy everyone who is a field grade officer in the ISI a villa in Baja while we are at it. The alternative they can threaten us with is choking off our army, opening supply routes to their chosen clients among the Taliban, accelerating confrontation with India, and open rather than covert alliance with China. In other words the downside they threaten us with is to do what they are doing anyways only faster.
What are our desires? We want Afghanistan free of al-Qaeda or any other group that would pose a similar level of threat. We want the Pakistani nukes secured and no threat of WMD proliferation to terrorists. We want secure supply lines.
What are our options?
1) We can capitulate to the Taliban or Pakistan or anyone willing to accept our sword.
2.1) We can try to buy supply lines from Russia to lesson dependance on Pakistan.
2.2) That is the feeding the Bear to avoid the Crocodile plan.
3.1) We can float the idea that if Pakistan proves obdurate we can plump for India regarding claims on Sind,
Punjab and Kashmir.
3.2) We can hold very secret meetings, that everyone knows about, with Baluchi nationalist leaders.
If we even entertain discussions about undoing the twin sins of the Durand line and Partition the ISI and the Pushtun will have to examine just how small a set of cards they have to play. They have talked so loudly about uniting the Pushtun nation that we could remind them to be careful what they wish for. If the map was really redrawn the neighboring despotisms would all feel threatened. The Pushtuns now get to dominate two countries in which they are the most powerful minorities. They have much to lose if those other ethnic groups were removed from their control.
There are good reasons not to attempt to break up Afghanistan and Pakistan. For one thing it sounds to much like Joe Biden’s plan for Iraq. That might make it a good idea to have loquacious Joe muse about the idea just to get the ISI worried. While redrawing the map to free Hazaris, Tadzhiks, Baluchis, Uzbeks, Punjabis etc, from Pushtun domination may destabilize the Iranian regime and thwart Russian ambitions it might also provide fertile grounds for their influence to expand.
Here is a link everyone should read. It’s evidently by a Journalist that replaced Michael Yon when he was kicked out by the Brit MOD.
A Month In Helmand
Read the comments…they mirror some here.
Papa Ray
India! India is the key here. Afganistan and Pakistan are nothing but scribblings on a map, one with some nuclear weapons. They are not failed states because they never were states. Secure or destroy (better) those weapons and back India to the hilt. GWB managed to get some credibility with us to them and it sorely needs to be expanded upon. They are the big player there. The ‘stans are just road to be driven over and there is no one left from the north to do any driving, the east maybe, but not the north.
Ned
Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages
Great Military Minds @work:
Emanuel, Axelrod, Obama, Biden…
—
Ned,
Yon is currently in India researching something relevant to Afghanistan.
93 Papa Ray,
Good post
95 Doug,
Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out.
Ned
From Papa Ray’s link:
“ In April this year it became 2 Rifles’ dubious fortune to be sent to Sangin on a six-month tour. By mid-August their battle group, a composite force from various units built around a core of several hundred riflemen and fusiliers, had the worst casualties of any British brigade sent to Helmand, with just over 100 soldiers killed or wounded: a fifth of their total patrol troops.
The trend suggested that by the time the battle group’s tour ends this month as many as one in four of these infantrymen will have been slain or injured, a figure that compares with British infantry casualty ratios in Europe during the later stages of the Second World War. “
I tend to agree with NahnCee that “Herman Szig” is ether a lawyer or an Axelrod “communications” specialist.
It looks like big zero is directly attacking anyone criticizing him:
[Time]
“…a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to “fact-check” Obama’s many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits… the White House blog now issues regular denunciations of the Administration’s critics, including a recent post that announced “Fox lies” and suggested that the cable network was unpatriotic for criticizing Obama’s 2016 Olympics effort…”
See: White House is going to start calling out opponents
http://tinyurl.com/yfyfwgw
40. Dave Katz:
My idea was for the US to focus on getting power/food/clothing supplies internally from Afghanistan as they fight. And create an Afghan constituency around that afghan supply chain.
Your theoretical model could be made to look like what I suggested on an earlier thread.
However, perhaps you had something else in mind.
Care to put flesh on the bones of your idea?
Looks like TPM Barnett is even calling them out. For someone as definitively a party-line Democrat to start calling BS on the McChrystal/Biden back and forth is a clear tell. Here’s his phrase, and I was shocked to see this as explicit as it is:
…if the administration doesn’t go along with the recommendations of its handpicked commander (and there were signs this afternoon that it was leaning away from the McChrystal plan and back toward Biden’s strategy), then it will have effectively repudiated McChrystal’s command with a highly publicized vote of no confidence. By extension, the White House will have completed its marginalization of McChrystal’s boss, General David Petraeus. Which, given that the Iraq surge hero and Central Command chief has been urged to run for president in 2012, may be politically hard to resist for Obama’s politically savvy advisors. But, again, the political savvy is getting the best of Team Obama when it comes to Afghanistan — this is a war, not an election, with many more lives at stake than a few of the best and brightest, and they’d be stupid to muddle or confuse the two.
The more profound consequence of choosing the Biden option, however, would be to repudiate what is working in Afghanistan. The troops are already pissed off at the anti-McChrystal hyperbole, and limiting our footprint for more drones amounts to a public discounting of the American armed forces’ tremendous effort in recent years to transform into an effective instrument of “small wars” counterinsurgency — especially the Army and Marines. Again, by extension, such a decision would tarnish Gates’s legacy-in-the-making as bureaucratic godfather to this stunning institutional evolution. I mean, if this was a capacity our military lacked going into Afghanistan and Iraq, only to subsequently develop it under extreme duress, will it be the decision of the Obama administration to immediately shelve our hard-earned capability in a “war of necessity” just because Joe Biden said so?
Worse yet, the world will interpret any “half measures” (John McCain’s fighting words) as a signal toward our inevitable withdrawal (watch for the phrase “exit strategy”). And once that happens, world leaders — friend or foe — will immediately start interpreting any statements by Obama that threaten to use force as, you know, threatening to pin-prick with fancy robotic bombers. Waffling, in other words, doesn’t answer that Pentagon-wide concern.
More at http://www.esquire.com/print-this/obama-new-afghanistan-strategy-100809
Turning off italics – my mistake. This edit app does not work at all – each click of a second resets the text to the top. Maddening.
Well, that was quite some body language between Reid and Pelosi. At least he didn’t treat her the way “James Bond” did “Dink” in Goldfinger, i.e. dismiss her with slap on the backside so he could engage in “man talk” with his colleague.
http://www.youtube.com/v/ynoiBF7OjkI
It is understood what needs to be done to win the WAR in Afghanistan. It was understood what was required to steady the popular government in Iraq. The progress was real and was not token in either place. The challenge is still there for the taking and a great victory can be credited to president Obama if he is so inclined. But he has to show he is willing to support the effort, and willing to show that once the decision is made, it is in the general’s hands.
If, and I have to preface this with a big “IF” as the president has not officially made his decision other than the one to not make a decision yet. So anyway if the president accommodates the Taliban he has as much as raised the white flag in Central Asia. Make room for a whole lot of refugees. Make way for a lot of pissed off soldiers.
I cannot think of a more humiliating way to cap a presidency. It is not an honorable man that would agree to talk to or accommodate the despised by Afghanistan Taliban. I will turn my back on any member who supports such a decision. I will work to unseat any and all who cannot see their way to supporting the fight in Afghanistan. It is not easy, it is a ten or even a twenty year battle, and it never could have been intended any other way except that we set up a government with a warning that if further US involvement is required it would be done from the a Nuclear bomber. But that was not a quarantee that another version of Al Queda would not rise from some cesspool and reignite radical Islamist sick displeasure at an human activity. So in the attempt to ensure a better opinion of the West, in the attempt to aide the Afghanistan citizens and arm them with the knowledge and understanding and respect to grow beyond the Taliban we stayed to help them succeed.
Any decision to stall the matter is bad enough, but a decision to quit the fight will be a decision that will haunt every USA Citizen for generations to come.
I would suggest that if president Obama wishes to curtail the outbreak of lying he should begin by telling the truth and having his office tell the truth.
I will not be intimidated by lies, nor will I be put off by lying scoundrels. So if you say you are going to post a bill so everyone can read it, post the bill. If you promise you will actually read the bill, read the bill. I am not certain who the “guest” was, but I wonder why he thinks the only reason for the display of distrust is hate?
Wretchard @ 70:
“Over the past few years the fundamental truth of the United States has been lost.
“The Olympic Games could restore it.”
Here’s what you fundamentally miss about Obama, Mr. Fernandez: this is not an apology, especially for what YOU refer to as HIS CULTURE (Fernandez: “So when an African-American President gets up on a stage in Copenhagen and dons sack-cloth and ashes; apologizes for his culture and all the rest, he is really telling two stories.”). It is not an apology either lexically or semiotically, for there is no expression of REGRET or CULPABILTY or RESPONSIBILITY. It is not an apology semiotically because Obama does not feel a need to defend the Bush administration. Bush is not HIS culture. An apology would associate him with the past, and he has no desire or need to do so. Bush is old and busted, he, Barack, is the new hotness: multicultural, progressive, multilateral. Triumph does not need to apologize for defeat.
Why apologize for the discredited past? Saying that truths have been forgotten is saying that he is sorry that those truths were overlooked, and he is not, for it was that climate which led to his presidency. . . and the Nobel prize! You will not be able to comprehend the phenomena of Obama if hate continues to cloud your perception. Look within your heart and you know I’m right.
“Triumph does not need to apologize for defeat.”
Wasn’t triumphalism supposed to be a bad thing?
Sorry, sometimes I just can’t keep up.
from Dr. Thomas Sowell @
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGQ3Y2YzZmQ2YzE0NzlmNTkyYTAxMDc4YTAxMmFlZWY=
(open quote)
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Think things, not words.” In words, many see a need for “social justice” to override “the dictates of the market.” In reality, what is called “the market” consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called “social justice” is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong.
(close quote)
Herman/105; of course Dr. Sowell has the big piksha on us jargon generators –however i myself have published some modality work on heuristics and the semiotics of the Transgressive Fantastic. –i link to it in your honor as i do believe you have me beat.
luddy,
I’m at a loss for words from sheer, unrestricted, awe inspired word lossness, or should I say, significant signifier awe.
thanks, programmer. like most geniuses, i just snapped it off, seemed like in mere seconds. not as in seconds meaning, you have another plateful of dinner (or i suppose, breakfast and/or lunch) but seconds such as in there’s sixty (60) in a, or one, minute.
luddy, ………… (<–even more word lossness).
mezzrow@101:
Try clearing your browser cache. The editing, I suspect, is implemented by client side Ajax (yeah, I know, that is a redundancy) and recent updates may not have overwritten previous cached javascript. YMMV!
Very impressive discussion.
The discussion of logistics and the limits on how many troops we can support in Afghanistan sounds like some of what McKrystal has been reviewing.
Mezzrow on the weakness of the Biden option; and the new army that we have build is especially interesting.
We have re-structured and retrained our army. We have rebuild it to fight wars like we face in Afghanistan.
The generals who rebuilt our army, then fought and won in Iraq.
We have the best troops and winning generals.
Petraeus, McKrystal to begin with.
Give them what they need.
Let them work.
Don’t get all wee wee’d up.
Don’t go wobbly.
Don’t let some 30s something Czar in the White House, focus group the policy.
Let the generals do what they do best.
Win.
@98 ledger
Interesting, and very disturbing. I saw something similar in the Philidelphia Inquirer recently, only in that case it was the DNC promising “a reign of hellfire” on Obama’s critics. Bad enough, but what the heck, they’re a partisan outfit and no need to apologize for that. But the White House itself?!? So the same administration that doesn’t have a strategy for Afghanistan is so worried about a threat to Obama’s media profile that it has one for Americans who don’t love and admire him… And they actually wonder why not?
mezzrow,
Are you attempting to run IE Explorer 8 under XP? Bad things are rumored but not all who have dared the venture have returned to tell of it.
Zig,
The proper response to your excremental outpourings is a visit to the proctologist.
You are clearly overdue, I estimate 42 weeks.
Might I recommend a good laxative? Some perfervid New-Age followers of Edgar Cayce recommend a grape-juice high-colonic.
In extreme cases, for which descriptive yours might qualify in spades, a claymore up the sigmoid regions might be most appropriate.
Some here will chide me for “feeding” but my conscience informs me that my primary duty is to offer my best recommendations for the good of the recipient’s education and improvement.
113@LOTM
In the words of Lily Von Schtupp, “It’s twue, it’s twue!” Back to FF.
JJR/114; –Right, Zig needs rectitude.
rectitude: rec·ti·tude. n. 1. Moral uprightness; righteousness. 2. The quality or condition of being correct in judgment. 3. The correct, formal bearing often adopted by proctologists.
mezzrow, someday, we’ll have a term for Mel Brooks comedy. probably “Mel Brooks comedy”
‘schmuckschtick’ ?
So who did he think was going to protect the people rebuilding the country since the troops there have their hands full just fighting the enemy. My old company was involve in rebuilding Iraq and that was hard enough. Where are the adults in this administration? Is there anyone who has served in the past but, while non-professionals in the military, have a basic understanding of military matters. This is much worse than Clinton and their inter circle seemly despised the military.
AR/118; if some folks’ worst fears are true about the intentions of these moonbats (read #24 for starters), i sure hope the uniformed services will make a subtle demonstration early enough in the moonbat sequence of induced crisis to maybe back these tarantulas off and send them back to their academic spiderwebs come next election day.
Luddy,
allow me to observe that #107 is the ultimate in cool,
which is your treating of the Transgressive Fantastic.
Awe inspiring work, truly poetic justice does exist.
Wrechard’s guest should beware organic mushrooms,
surly they are not what they seem.
So too the president’s get-over-it-ness,
Is a whatever-ist fantasy of non-arable attitudinous carborundum.
It has loosely been translated to mean fatuitá nidor non.