Last Chance Saloon
What does the dismissal of Stanley McChrystal in favor of his superior, General David Petraeus, imply about 1) the future conduct of the Afghan campaign and 2) the ability of President Obama to impose his strategic vision on the War on Terror? The Christian Science Monitor argues that the appointment of Petraeus, while “something of a demotion” from the Central Command CINC, represents doctrinal continuity. “In announcing the McChrystal firing, Obama emphasized that he remains committed to the current strategy, which calls for a bump-up in US personnel in Afghanistan this year. And Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus – the man Obama picked to replace McChrystal – literally wrote the manual on counterinsurgency techniques which US commanders in Afghanistan have been following.”
But in a sense, the crisis involves a question higher than doctrine. It has indirectly called into question strategy. Petraeus’s appointment suggests the President has been forced to give up his own handcrafted approach in favor of something — anything — that works. What that will be is still unknown. The McChrystal incident revealed the extent of problems which have been kept quiet. If the President has gone to the Miracle Man it is first and foremost in the expectation that Petraeus will save him from himself.
An interview by Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article described the mismatch in understanding between the President and his chosen McChrystal. Asked whether Obama was a wholehearted supporter of the COIN doctrine, Hastings said the President had an almost childish understanding of it.
I think once the decision was made to do a counterinsurgency strategy, they had a pretty clear idea in mind what they wanted to do and I think this is quite interesting. I think this is one of the issues Obama didn’t really understand what counter-insurgency meant and when the military said they wanted to do a counterinsurgency strategy that that actually meant 150,000 troops. Obama thought he could get away with just sending 21,000 over and getting a new general.
Military doctrine was probably never Obama’s strong suit. Politics was his primary concern. One of the reasons McChrystal had been selected in the first place, as Glenn Reynolds has pointed out, was that he was not General “Betray-Us”, burdened with the baggage of the Iraq Surge. But now Petraeus military talent may be more important than his political associations. The Washington Post‘s description of the flurry of crisis meetings before and after McChrystal’s resignation shows the depth of the crisis into which the administration had been plunged.
The idea to name Petraeus had first come up on Tuesday afternoon, in a meeting between the president and Gates. Petraeus was discussed further Tuesday evening as the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up a list of names in case the president decided to fire McChrystal. …
Immediately after meeting with McChrystal, Obama gathered in the Oval Office with his national security brain trust: Vice President Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, national security adviser James Jones, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
For 45 minutes, the group chewed over what to do next, and who should replace McChrystal. A senior administration official said that the group discussed Gen. David Petraeus, who was at that moment waiting in the West Wing, having been asked to arrive early for an afternoon meeting. …
“Many of us saw the very challenge that the president outlined today in how you retain a chain of command given this,” one adviser said. “If you read the beginning of the article, you are left with great concern about how our allies will read this.”
To a large extent the President’s political fate — and his image with Allies — is now in David Petraeus’ hands. But now a further crisis is bound to follow. The key terms going forward are Elkenberry, Karzai, ROE. The Rolling Stone article which precipitated the crisis writes:
McChrystal has issued some of the strictest directives to avoid civilian casualties that the U.S. military has ever encountered in a war zone. It’s “insurgent math,” as he calls it – for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies. He has ordered convoys to curtail their reckless driving, put restrictions on the use of air power and severely limited night raids. He regularly apologizes to Hamid Karzai when civilians are killed, and berates commanders responsible for civilian deaths. “For a while,” says one U.S. official, “the most dangerous place to be in Afghanistan was in front of McChrystal after a ‘civ cas’ incident.” The ISAF command has even discussed ways to make not killing into something you can win an award for: There’s talk of creating a new medal for “courageous restraint,” a buzzword that’s unlikely to gain much traction in the gung-ho culture of the U.S. military.
But however strategic they may be, McChrystal’s new marching orders have caused an intense backlash among his own troops. Being told to hold their fire, soldiers complain, puts them in greater danger. “Bottom line?” says a former Special Forces operator who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I would love to kick McChrystal in the nuts. His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.” …
McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren’t buying it.
Mere hours after McChrystal’s departure it obvious that the larger issues, rather than being settled by the appointment of Petraeus, had in fact been thrown open. SFGate reported that the most basic assumptions of the campaign were already being re-examined. “Hours after Gen. David Petraeus’ appointment as the top commander in Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is already declaring that he will pressure Petraeus to abandon President Obama’s ‘arbitrary’ July 2011 withdrawal date and instead base troop drawdown on the current conditions in Afghanistan.” Ultimately the McChrystal crisis is an Obama crisis. Mike Brownfield at the Heritage Foundation says, “he is reaping the bitter harvest of his failure to take decisive action.”
Those divisions are of Obama’s own making, stemming from his lack of leadership and failure to make a firm commitment to victory in Afghanistan. It took the president 10 months to decide on an Afghanistan strategy, he took a middle road in only committing 30,000 additional troops to the mission, many fewer than Gen. McChrystal had requested, and he imposed an artificial timeline for withdrawal that sent mixed signals to the country, the military, our allies and our enemies about America’s resolve to win the war.
The appointment of General Petreaus isn’t likely to be the end of the bout. It’s the opening bell.
“It’s the opening bell.” As usual, W, you have that dead to rights. But Obama is a contender. The media have assured us of that!
McChrystal has issued some of the strictest directives to avoid civilian casualties that the U.S. military has ever encountered in a war zone. It’s “insurgent math,” as he calls it – for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.
Why is it that whenever WE accidentally and unintentionally kill a civilian, it creates 10 new enemies, but when the Taliban deliberately kill people (even children) on accusation of collaboration, or for being inadequately Islamic, it does not generate an anti-Taliban insurgency?
We need an answer that fully explains this phenomenon before we can win.
The one to watch is Eikenberry. Will he remain, or will he step aside for a fresh diplomatic leader (perhaps a reprise of the successful Petraeus-Crocker team from Iraq)?
And if he stays, will he let Petraeus drive the bus, or will he fight him for the steering wheel?
Dangerous times.
L3
Obama is bypassed.
We win withpout him.
Obama, the place holder in the Big Chair, will be but a footnote in History.
Petraeus is now no longer able to devote full time to Iran –not to mention Afghanistan –a new front has opened on the time and attention of Petraeus & staff.
i wonder, too, about the epidemic of drugs coming over the AZ border. Does USA suddenly have a lot more users? Wonder what the public health stats show. And this –how much of that border epidemic of drugs started off as Afghan poppies?
CINCINNATUS
General David Petraeus has been named to succeed General McChrystal as Supreme Commander in Afghanistan. We remember how Obama and the entire liberal chorus screamed when President Bush sent him to Iraq to surge the fight and win the war, how they took full page ads in the New York Times sliming him as General BetrayUs. But that was then, and the last thing the left wanted was for a Republican to win a war, and so they did everything in their power to see that the country lost, because if the war was lost under the hated Bush then that would mean winning votes for Democrats, and who cares about the country losing a stupid little war when votes for Democrats are at stake. But now it looks like the Afghan war is being unaccountably lost under the leadership of the Light-giver, the Messiah, the sainted Barack Hussein Obama, and so Cincinnatus has been called upon to put down his plow and save the Anointed One the momentary distress of having lost a war, and therefore votes.
General Petraeus now is back in charge
Fighting all the battles both the small and large
Giving clear directions to the gunny sarge
Yes he will show them how
Don’t you think it’s funny that when Pres’dent Bush
Sent him to Iraq Obama tried to push
For his sacking but he’s now in Hindu Kush
Yes O’s all for him now
Remember when the Olbermann and Soros clan
And every liberal chorus gal and chorus man
Said he was BetrayUs and did all they can
To get him stoned to death
But now the story’s changed and now he’s theirs for good
All that he’s BetrayUs was misunderstood
Now the left will fight just like they always would
But just don’t hold your breath
Well, like everyone here I’m sure, I was waiting for days it seemed to read Wretchard’s take on the RS article, and as usual, he finds something more profound to say.
But I’m going to try and push this thread in that direction for a reason.
I agree McChrystal should have been fired, because a man with such supremely bad judgment as to agree to let the RS reporter have such access must have supremely bad judgment elsewhere. (And yes, I would still like to hear others’ take on the reason for this exceptional lack of judgment. 4 possibilities: 1. naivete, 2. such ego as to believe he could charm/con/otherwise win over the RS reporter, 3. such ego as to wish to play with the AfPak war by political means at home, and thought he’d use the RS story to do so, 4. apathy or actual self-destructiveness causing him to not care about the fallout of this interview for the war. 1 is not plausible. 2 is plausible, but doesn’t explain his aides’ loose tongues. 3 and 4 both seem plausible, and especially 3, given how McChrystal got into this job in the first place, but I’m trending to 4, because it seems to fit the profile, and may not actually be distinct from 3.)
So for me the question is: are we failing now in AfPak because COIN was poorly executed by McChrystal, whose ego was more important to him than the mission? Clearly, we were in trouble before McChrystal, but how much of what’s there now is actually do to his bad judgment?
Is Petraeus the only man in the army who not only gets COIN, but gets how to force Army brass not to mess it up?
We seem to have reached a point in military doctrine that depends on the personality of the leader. We’ve been here before, clearly, with Patton and others. Is it inevitably true for the difficult battles? or is it something that happens because of a rot in the institution that only such an outlier can fix?
The “step down” from CENTCOM to AFPAK is less of an issue than some have made it. Douglas MacArthur was Chief of Staff of the US Army before he was sent to command in the Philippines. He handled that problem with theatricality. He put on a hat with more gold than a French Admiral’s and convinced everyone that the job was a promotion because Douglas MacArthur was doing it. Eisenhower later said that he studied dramatics under MacArthur for three years in the P.I. Real military leaders can create the impression that they bring their own parade and hear their own theme music. In the Times Doris Goodwin discusses how Lincoln handled McClellan.
Obama has made himself look smaller by caring what subordinate officers said over a beer in the presence of a reporter. John Kerry of all people got this right and suggested calm. Lincoln was told that Grant was a drunk and he suggested getting whatever the general had and sending a case to his other generals. If anyone had run to FDR with a story like this about one of his Theater Commanders the response would have been laughter. Roosevelt was no softy though, he refused to let Lindbergh serve during the war.
There seems to be a pattern where Obama seems to endorse a nearly centrist position, on offshore drilling or military operations or border security. Then some event is seized upon to invalidate the agreement. The radical agenda that had been incrementally advanced as part of a bipartisan deal is then pushed forward unilaterally. In the case of the border and immigration the pattern is known and Senator Kyle made clear that he was demanding the delivery of border security first. Obama who thought that he could get agreement on a package deal including Amnesty, with the border security efforts likely to be reneged on, is furious at having his bluff called.
Will Petraeus fall into Obama’s trap or will he force through the measures needed to protect the troops the supply lines and the nation? If he can do that and then leave after a year then David Petraeus may prove to be Obama’s 2nd worst nightmare. As it is the Republicans look set to pick up 45-50 House seats and 7-9 Senate seats. If Obama refuses and Petraeus quits in 90 days then he becomes Obama’s worst nightmare and the Democrats may face a loss of over 60 seats in the House and a dozen Senate seats. To be clear I do not know what the General’s politics are and I am not hoping that he rides in on a white horse.
Sounds like MacNamera with the F-111 program and Vietnam all over again. It’s not that the basic concept handed down from on high is wrong; it’s the fools who can’t seem to implement it right. That’s it. Fire the lot of them and have the SECDEF and POTUS exercise direct control. Only Gates is not stupid enough to try to be a Mac and Obama does even not want to be “The USAF can’t blow up an outhouse without my personal approval” Johnson. All that targeting would interfere with his golf and fundraising.
If we are lucky, this will all serve as an excuse to bail out of Obama’s “Right War” strategy and let everything but downtown Kabul go back to it’s natural state of Hades with less competant management. If we are unlucky then Gen Petraus will actually try to implement Obama’s vision of Iwo Jima on the cheap using the Boy Scouts and Civil Air Patrol instead of the USMC.
Petraeus is both a military and political thinker. I wonder which half dominated his decision to accept what the President ‘offered’
We are losing in Afghanistan. Not unrecoverable, but winning is not the expected case at this point. Victory will be even harder to pull off than Iraq was when Petraeus turned that one around. Largely because the CinC is not committed, with the attendant effects on resources, morale, Afghan commitment, allied country motivation, and enemy morale.
If the general had his political hat on, he may have extracted very valuable concessions from his boss to take this mission…maybe whatever troop count he needed, more likely more time and control, maybe even controlling the President’s political messaging regarding the war…demand that he stand up and commit to winning ‘the war of necessity’: no wishy washyness, no withdrawl timelines, slap down his idiot VP if sabotages the mission again. Maybe even a public commitment to do whatever it takes to win, no matter how long it takes.
If he had his military hat on, he may have simply saluted and said “Yes, sir!” as he perceives it as his duty to his country and to his fellow soldiers currently fighting and dying while their CinC does his political calculus.
While I respect the military perspective, I hope the General was a politican about this one…because if we lose, it will not be because we are beaten militarily, it will be because we are beaten politically. Again.
The problem is after this day’s furious activities, the president is going to revert back to form, i.e., back to politicking and milking crises for all their worths.
Being CinC is as second (or third, fourth) thoughts.
What’s the latest on Petraeus’s health? I have seen some concern expressed elsewhere about his undergoing treatment for prostate cancer last year. It’s an eminently curable cancer, particularly if caught early, but nonetheless one hopes the General has a clean bill of health right now.
Now that Petraeus’ success will redound to the glory of Obama, Move On thinks he walks on water.
Obama Fires McChrystal, Selects Petraeus to Oversee Opium Fields in Afghanistan
–
This World Cup is like World War II. France leaves early, USA turns up at the last minute, and England is left fighting the Germans.
The appraisal of Obama from the Rolling Stone Correspondent is a hell of a lot more damming than anything McChrystal said. After all, President Obama spent months studying and planning so as to get the Afghan strategy right — or so we were constantly assured at the time. And after months of study we get: “Obama didn’t really understand what counter-insurgency meant…”
I don’t buy it.
By attaching the time table for action in Afghanistan to a political calendar, President Obama was so clearly undermining the surge he ordered that it had to be deliberate decision. It was military hash but political steak and potatoes — a way to keep Afghanistan from falling to the Taliban before the 2012 election while still withdrawing US forces before the vote. People and soldiers would die to improve his electoral chances — and Afghanistan would fall during his second term.
When I heard that General McChrystal voted for President Obama even I began questioning his judgment. I wonder if he and his staff got into Bush bashing a few years back when the New York Times guys were around, and they would all laugh and the New York Times would run stories about the great commanders and the lousy White House. Then a few years later, when they talk down President Obama, they find themselves out of a job right quick. You would think military men could tell an alliance of convenience from a Best Friend Forever.
brain trust: Vice President Biden
That’s why we’re screwed: brain trust a guy who has no brain.
2. Michael – ‘Why is it that whenever WE accidentally and unintentionally kill a civilian, it creates 10 new enemies, but when the Taliban deliberately kill people (even children) on accusation of collaboration, or for being inadequately Islamic, it does not generate an anti-Taliban insurgency?’
I and My Brother Against My Cousin
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/947kigpp.asp?page=2
I don’t really get a le général Boulanger vibe from Petreaus.
well Walt has set me rhyme a-hunt,
upon his hearing false heart cheering
coming from those former fearing
any GOP thing steering
toward the political front.
Tho sometimes they have memory searing
(as in a congress Kerry hearing)
other times it goes blank nearing
any truth that’s blunt.
I expect most observers and commenters to still proceed from the premise that Obama actually does want to succeed in Afghanistan, at least in some fashion. I don’t believe that is the case. It is my belief that Obama and/or the interests behind him intend to manipulate Afghanistan into a Vietnam-type defeat to break the US military. It is, after all, the last, ultimate obstacle to the final solution of his domestic agenda.
To the contrary, I believe Petraeus has been put in a trap with the intent of scapegoating him for the eventual humiliating denouement of Afghanistan. Besides giving Obama cover this will have the added benefit of destroying any political ambitions he might have.
Right at this moment, however, Petraeus has a chance, albeit a slim one, to break free of the trap. Petraeus has the good will and support of the public right now and Obama desperately needs him. Thus he has the maximum leverage he is ever going to have against him. He should use it to forcefully and as publicly as possible make his case for the resources he really needs to do the job, and whatever sane and militarily sound changes in the strategy and tactics are required.
That window of opportunity will close rapidly, though, and if he lets it pass Obama and his delegated overseers, e.g. Eikenberry et al. will restrict, hamstring, undermine and sabotage him to whatever degree is necessary.
ic/15, you’re just spelling it rong –it’s ‘brain trussed’.
10. Daedalus Mugged
Of course Petraeus is an accomplished politician. He may even have extracted significant promises from Obama as a condition for accepting the mission.
Unfortunately, promises from Obama means absolutely nothing…
Greifer. I think you are missing an option. I am not convinced it is right, but only that it is distinctly possible. McChrystal is not stupid. He is politically saavy. And he has a spec ops backround, which includes psyops and civil affairs and messaging. He was not a non-political person who stupidly didn’t realize what he was doing. He may have figured that the Afghan war, as currently configured, was unwinnable. He may have had a small enough ego to self sacrifice himself in order to put Obama into a situation where the CinC had to recommit to the mission, and give it the political support needed to make victory even possible. McChrystal may have taken one for the team. He would get fired, but his successor would get what the mission needed. The list of possibles must include him jumping on a grenade.
The question is whether Petraeus can get what he needs to win from Obama. Even more than troops and time and money…it is the credible commitment of the President to do whatever it takes. I don’t know if Petreaus can get that. But McChrystal definitely could not. And if Petraeus succeeds…it will be because he successfully puts Obama in political box domestically. That doesn’t bode well for the Republic, win or lose in A-stan.
More than 100 years ago, Churchill, in his “The Malakind Field Force”, discusses actual reality in them thar Afghan hills. The English Parliament was very upset that that Brits destroyed a number of villages and blew up several towers and forts. To quote:
“Many misconceptions, some of which are caused by an extraordinary ignorance, exist on this subject in England. One member of the House of Commons asked the Secretary of State whether, in the punishment of villages, care was taken that only the houses of the guilty parties should be destroyed. He was gravely told that great care was taken. … Another member asked “Whether the villages were destroyed or only the fortifications.” “Only the fortifications,” replied the minister guilelessly. What is the actual fact? All along the Afghan border every man’s house is his castle. The villages are the fortifications, the fortifications are the villages. Every house if loopholed, and whether it has a tower or not depends only on its owners wealth. A third legislator… comments on the barbarity of such tactics. They were not only barbarous, he affirmed, but senseless. Where did the inhabitants of the villages go go? To the enemy of course. This reveals, perhaps, the most remarkable misconception of the actual facts. The writer seemed to imagine that the tribesmen consisted of a regular army, who fought, and a peaceful, law-abiding population, who remained at their business…. Whereas in reality, throughout these regions, every inhabitant is a soldier from the first day he is old enough to hurl a stone, till the last day he has strength to pull a trigger….” (pp 164-5)
You see, the US isn’t in Kansas (or Iraq) anymore. Another thought (mine own): Afghanistan has never been beaten because, folks, it has never been worth the trouble. And I really doubt that the USA has the stomach to go all Butcher-Cumberland-in-the-Highlands either.
Superior filling an empty box below him is a non-move. Petraeus may have someone in that box in two weeks.
I don’t see how this involves strategy at all. I *wish* it did involve strategy, because I strongly believe the McChrystal statement is dead wrong and COIN is entirely inappropriate to Afghanistan. It is also PETRAEUS’ STRATEGY. So, how can it be an issue?
Finally, to complete the hat trick, I’ll say that the surge strategy won in Iraq, as far as it did, by pure luck when the Sunnis just happened to get sick of al Qaeda at the same time. The best I can say about it is that it is a coherent strategy, that replaced utter chaos and nonsense in Iraq that preceeded it. But it’s a poor strategy out of the ones available.
What’s better? Nation building. Converting the Afghans to secular Moslems-In-Name-Only. Killing a heck of a lot of civilians as collateral damage in the mean time.
Try it, General Petraeus, not a few by accident, but a lot by policy. It will save hundreds of American lives and shorten the war, it will WIN the war. You’re welcome.
–
Obama hasn’t a clue, does not want a clue, wouldn’t hold onto a clue if it fell in his lap.
21. thakun:
Agreed, the key is whether Petraeus can get the promise publicly enough that Obama is hand cuffed to the mission. If Petraeus manages to get Obama to the point where Obama throwing the general and the mission under the bus pulls Obama with him…I will think even more highly of him than I already do.
Under the bus is the most crowded place in Obama’s world, but Obama has never gone there.
Obama can afford to lose in Afghanistan. It may even be his preffered outcome, as suggested above. But he cannot afford to lose it this way at this time. That is the only political fulcrum Petraeus has, and he only has it for a moment. I hope he finds a long enough lever and uses it to move Obama into the “Do whatever it takes to win” camp permanently. It may be a forlorn hope, but it is the only hope I have. The brave men and women struggling, fighting and dying for us deserve at least that hope.
Inspector Obama conducts staff meeting
Some wag wrote that the President can spare 10 minutes for Afghanistan, 20 minutes for the oil spill and maybe an hour for the economic crisis. But nothing gets his attention like a threat to his prestige and authority. For that he will meet with aides both day and night. What the McChrystal crisis turned up was that this was one of those things which he was truly scared would get out of hand. This was an ‘ouch’ pressure point.
What follows is pure guesswork and is based on nothing but a hunch. Petraeus was sent in part because of his prestige with the men; one his main tasks is to get all the sneerers and infighters under control. He is there to restore faith and morale and maybe, discipline. Probably Petraeus knew this already but couldn’t act until the top brass got scared enough to take it seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t warning signs all along which we are going to belatedly discover. Now he’s got his hunting license and he’s going.
Lastly, my guess is there is a collision on the ground between the strategic imperatives of Washington empires. Petraeus will go down there and pull one wriggling critter after the other from the drain and exhibit it to his superiors, forcing them to make hard choices among their monstrous progeny, which they won’t make. In other words he will inevitably open a can worms. I can’t think of a better man to do it. The only problem is: where will it go?
My understanding is that the US and etc (including CANADA) are in Afghanistan because that bleak and mountainous power vacuum nurtured Al Qaeda and 9/11. So, what is the aim? You can’t have a strategy without an “aim”, can you? Invading Iraq was smart: an urbanized actual country between Iran and Saudi Arabia! But Afghanistan?? At one time, before the USSR invasion, left to itself, Afghanistan was a pleasant space on the map, with tribal areas, clans and a couple of “cities”, a tourist destination for hippies. But really: the locals bomb and burn girls’ schools!!!
If the aim is to prevent another takeover by the likes of Al Qaeda, well, maybe a couple of airbases plus regular drone flyovers of Pakistan, ie, a holding pattern?? Why not?
In other words [Petraeus] will inevitably open a can of worms. I can’t think of a better man to do it. The only problem is: where will it go?
Sending Obama’s poll numbers plunging further downward, most likely. According to the Wall Street Journal, “For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve. . . . Support for Mr. Obama and his party is declining among centrist, independent voters. But, more ominous for the president, some in his base also are souring, with 17% of Democrats disapproving of Mr. Obama’s job performance, the highest level of his presidency. . . . Half disapprove of Mr. Obama’s handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats.
‘As a Democrat and as a woman, I am disappointed in him,’ said poll respondent Melissa Riner, a 42-year-old law clerk from Mesa, Ariz. Referring to the oil spill, Ms. Riner added, ‘I don’t think he’s handling it. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He just talks.’
James Ciarmataro, a 23-year-old stay-at-home dad from Macomb, Mich., said it was difficult to relate to Mr. Obama, because the president is ‘eating steak dinners at the White House and playing golf’ while the country is suffering.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703900004575325263274951230.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories
Daedalus Mugged,
Thank you for the 5th option. It is worth considering. It is at least not inconsistent with the rest of what I’ve read about McChrystal. And maybe it will work. But why is it only that Petraeus can possibly do this when no one can? Is it the nature of warfare that demands such personalities? or something else?
My concern is not that Petraeus did or didn’t extract promises. I’m sure he did. But what then? Every Obama promise has an expiration date. I am concerned that Obama extracted them too, and Petraeus is honorable, so he’ll feel the need to live up to them. Can Petraeus really take the political downfall when AfPak goes to hell? Is this also a way to triangulate him away from 2012, from Iran?
It’s not just the horribleness of knowing how a president’s staff may deliberately strangle success in its cradle, it’s the horribleness of knowing Obama hasn’t thought enough about the consequences to make any decisions at all.
Most likely outcome is that Petraeus points out the relationship between Taliban and Pakistan, between Iran or DPRK or Hezbollah and insurgents in AfPak, and the US dithers. Dithering being worse than even the most cynical “realism” in foreign policy.
Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place for the wrong reason, and any idiot who can read a map could tell you it is going to turn out badly. It is destabilizing Pakistan and bleeding an underfunded undermaned military. Obama upped the ante for political and electoral reasons. The war of choice versus war of necessity my butt. The Southwest Asian landmass has always been controlled by whoever controls the fertile crescent whether it was Persians, Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Britain, or some other invader.
I don’t know if McChrystal was smart enough or sly enough to save himself from being the guy who lost Afghanistan by dissing the CIC on the eve of defeat or if he is just an insubordinate snuck, or if he is just an indiscrete ninny, but I do know that Obama has bought this disaster lock stock and barrel. The last President to lose a war was Nixon. Curiously he also broke the budget and brought on a decade of stagflation.
Leave Afghanistan to the CIA and send the troops back to Iraq. we are going to need them there for the coming war in Iran.
‘Crush’ a milblogger at Blackfive notes that as this blow up is happening, a Congressional investagative report is released finding that millions in taxpayer funds have gone to the Taliban and Afghan warlords.
Something stinks.
Buddy at 5.
You must be thinking about a different border. Janet Napolitano assured us all today that the US / Mexican border has NEVER been more secure. Of course an Arizona sheriff immediately gave a ton of statistics showing the opposite is true but who are you going to believe?????
I just finished reading “Bugles and a Tiger” by John Masters. He describes a frontier war in Waziristan in 1937 in which the Indian Army was tied in knots by its own elaborate rules of engagement. It was OK to shoot armed Pashtuns in the open when they could be clearly identified but if they took refuge in a house or other fortification the Indian or British troops were not permitted to fire lest they harm any hidden noncombatants. Pashtuns took advantage of this rule by sending out “a few useless old women in the hope of collecting blood money for them.” The women would be dressed as fighters and tethered in place so that they couldn’t be missed by riflemen and machine gunners.
This sounds like a Pashtun variation on cash for clunkers. How about cash for mothers-in-law?
Does anybody think these bastards aren’t doing the same exact thing today?
PACat/29;
well he should’ve had a notion
that promising the Land o Goshen
to antsy folk bought with emotion
would need delivered measured motion
not daily rubs with feel good lotion
…
Obama Shave!
===
OF/33; judging by the way that Sheriff looked into the camera and spoke frankly, vs Napolitano’s herky jerky sweating mumble-stumble oscillating volume eye-rolling batting side to side like a meth-punk’d duck, i’d say, got to believe the Sheriff maybe?
Petraeus has experience “negotiating” with weasels who only keep their word as long as you have their nuts in a vise. If you and I can read Obama’s character, I suspect Petraeus can read it too. He knows what sort of creature he’s dealing with.
So, does he have some sort of hidden vise? Of does he fully expect Obama to bail on his promises and has a contingency plan in place?
What better way to kick off the run for 2012 than resigning because the Admin failed to live up to the commitments it made when you agreed to pull their bacon out of the fire.
“My fellow Americans, I am not a politician, but the politicans have let us all down. And so I reluctantly ask you for a promotion…”
Gov Brewer said the other day that she –her office –had “evidence of about a thousand ‘drug-gang’ cells, set up in American cities”.
–that, and some other things (*cough* gulf *cough*) made me remember this old Nyquist column, Grey Terror –
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2004/0513.html
===
There’s websites, spy video, sometimes on tv (Fox) –these ‘drug gangs’ are route-marching in single file column, carrying automatic weapons. The voice-over always says the heavy weapons are ‘for defense against other drug gangs’. ok, fine, but tho these guys are wearing civvies, they’re in pretty good shape, and look trained to me.
===
too much dirty money –some say equal to a USA GDP –sloshing around the world. The drug laws need changing, and fast.
wretchard, if you’ll permit me a simplistic summary of your post: “If you keep failing, try succeeding”.
Teresita (#13): “This World Cup is like World War II. France leaves early, USA turns up at the last minute, and England is left fighting the Germans.”
Heh.
David (#17): “I don’t really get a le général Boulanger vibe from Petreaus.”
I would most certainly hope not.
Witty, are we not Mr Larsen? Well you started it so here is my message to General McChrystal: “Well, it’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley.”
A working title for the drama might be, “McChrystal channels McClellan”.
Now seriously, here is what is wrong with McChrystal’s Rules of Engagement: Grabbing balls so that hearts and minds follow requires that certain forms of behavior
become seen as hazardous in the extreme while other forms of behavior become seen as
bringing about a large measure of safety, comfort and prosperity.
“Nuking them all” means that the indig cannot please these Americans so might as well
try to kill them. McCrystal’s ROE are but the flip side of that coin. No matter
what you do to Americans, they will not harm you. So since the Taliban want the Americans harmed, might as well do Taliban’s work for them. No risk that way.
McChyrstal is a Keynesian. Hopefully Petraeus will prove an Austrian.
Lincoln had a hard time with mcClelland –made him general of all the armies in late 61, but demoted him for pace of action in early 62, but retained him general of AOP, which he took on Lee in the Seven Days Battle and was destroyed, skedaddling the battlefield tho not under fire, to get back to DC and be the first to tell how Lee with two or three hundred thousand crack troops had blown thru his own poor hundred twenty thousand (Lee had actually about sixty thousand). So Lincoln left him chief of AOP but stripped AOP of many units, and gave them to Pope’s Army of Virginia, who with them promptly lost Second Mannassas (or 2nd Bull Run if you must). So back to AOP goes the heavy combat power, and with it McClelland checks Lee at Antietam, Lincoln’s first big win –and THAT’s when he finally dumps McClelland –after he finally wins one. he ‘failed to pursue’ was the given cause.
Oddly, on the day McChrystal is fired by the guy who is said to see himself Lincolnesque, the Google algo pumps way up high this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2257666
examining Lincoln’s poetry –of which an example given is for a fact very excellent. Seems about all the really larger than life leaders have been wordsmiths from early age.
examining Lincoln’s poetry –of which an example given is for a fact very excellent. Seems about all the really larger than life leaders have been wordsmiths from early age.
We have fallen from that high standard. Today’s spells against evil are more prosaic.
– Taken from the chant against evil in the “Book of Souls”, Bubba-Ho-tep
Anyhoo, re Stanley as Laurel, there’s also the Stanley and David –no not McChrystal and Petraeus, but adventurer Henry M. Stanley, who in the 1870s famously rescued the lost-in-the-Nile-headlands Dr. David Livingstone, giving us the phrase, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”
===
w, speaking of Bubba Ho-Tep, have you seen the statue just installed at the Denver International Airport?
http://photos.upi.com/slideshow/lbox/ee9b93774519adb5a9dd8c5de4d7a2cc/-Egyptian-God-Anubis-Statue-in-New-York.jpg
===
It goes along with the one already there:
http://extraordinaryintelligence.com/files/2009/07/denver-airport-bronco-sculpture-night-view1.jpg
===
gird your loins! them critters the 13th warrior had to fight –they’s Baaack!
Regarding wretchard’s second question above (about “the ability of President Obama to impose his strategic vision on the War on Terror” ) – it takes quite a leap of faith to think he has one. As noted later, it’s the threat to his prestige that freaks him out, in this case as CinC. As for the war in Afghanistan, he’s not looking for a way to win, or even to end it, he wants to save face and get it off the front page.
Remember just before he took office when he said the plan was to convince Pakistan to forget about India and commit to fighting Al-Qaeda for us? It was an obviously hopeless (dare I say stupid) venture but he tried to put it over at the time as General Petraeus’s idea. It’s something to keep in mind during the days ahead. Afghanistan is an albatross around his neck and he’s not above scapegoating the man who proved him dead wrong about Iraq.
http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/Anubis%20at%20DFW%20Airport%20Dec.%2019,%202008.jpg
Mr. Anubis, in situ.
can you imagine being a person who is scared of flying, and you do not know that there’s a three story tall statue of the Egyptian god of the dead nearby the runway easement, and you’re in your seat in the takeoff roll, and you look out the window –say it’s night time too –and all floodlit standing there staring at you as you’re going past at 150 mph is –Mister Anubis ?
Afghanistan became a strategic sinkhole the moment the mission changed from killing as many AQ types as possible in the shortest amount of time to “nation building” or whatever else you want to call it. The cultural backdrop of individual liberty and limited representative government are as alien to Afghans as they are to Obama.
We would be much better off lavishly bribing the warlords who enjoy killing Taliban for fun and profit, and even more lavishly bribing those who hate Iranians. Offer $10 billion to the tribal leader who can make Tehran scream “foul” and we would have accomplished something in Afghanistan.
Any expectation that Afghanistan can be anything other than a 7th century tribal backwater is bound to disappoint. The only thing we should care about is that the AQ cannot use it as a secure base of operations. Either back the tribal leaders who agree with that and give them the means to make it happen or depopulate the Taliban regions enough to eradicate the threat.
#44 buddy larsen
You think a three-story-tall statue of Kali would be an improvement?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
jeez, PACat, that’s Calamity Jane –don’t give ‘em any ideas –them other two are there, in place, already –too late for them, but i’m sure the Art Committee is still on the prowl, looking for something else to desecrate, i mean, decorate
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/101715/
Congrats, OZ!
KEVIN RUDD WILL BE MISSED BY FEW: Julia Gillard is Australia’s new Prime Minister.
Posted at 9:27 pm by Glenn Reynolds
The “proper” name for Antietam is Sharpsburg.
Before the war, General Pope had tried to drill some water wells in West Texas.
That effort came up short too.
Pope was in the habit of dashing off messages to Washington datelined “Headquarters in the Saddle”.
This caused Abe Lincoln to comment that the trouble with Pope was that he kept his headquarters where he should have kept his hindquarters.
I guess I had better go read about that OZ election. Know nothing about background to same.
i was thinking about the atom bomb, and thought i’d jes go ahead n use Antietam fer the oncet. Yep, i need to read up on Ms Gillard, Rudd-slayer, too. Dunno much about her yet but they say the women are pretty wild below the equator
Does anyone on the thread have an opinion of General Mattis as Petraeus’s replacement at CENTCOM? Just saw this over at WSJ:
“General Petraeus also needs a replacement at Central Command (his nominal superior) who won’t undermine his efforts. That is precisely the situation General Petraeus faced when he served in Iraq under then-Centcom Commander William Fallon, until Admiral Fallon was pushed out. We’re partial to General James Mattis, who previously ran the Marine component of Central Command, served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and helped write the Army’s counterinsurgency manual with General Petraeus.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575325073086949444.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Uh, before popping the champagne cork, see this comment from Gateway Pundit:
Sounds a bit like replacing Obama with Hillary.
(OK, I wasn’t able to link to the comment itself. It’s #8.)
After reading the article I don’t think McChrystal had any quotes that were a fire-able offense. He should probably be fired just for being dumb enough to allow lefty reporters to get in the position to take that shot at him in the first place, probably thought his status as an Obamabot would protect him from their hate.
I believe he was taken down by his staff, probably intentionally as his strategy wasn’t working and men were dying for no purpose. Now Petraeus is sent in to take the fall so as to eliminate a potential political rival. It’s like we’ve turned into the late Roman empire.
This to me says some scary things. Breakdown in military discipline, loss of respect for civilian authority (even though it’s richly deserved), an administration that is thin skinned and vain enough to elevate some little article into a crisis to exploit and has sent our boys into a combat zone with objectives other than winning.
Because our goal over there is not to win, we probably won’t. I am not sure anyone knows what winning over there looks like at this point.
I believe 0bama should have resigned and McChrystal should have stayed on.
The Big Zero is shamefully deflecting blame from himself to the military. McChrystal is his latest scapegoat.
Look at what the Big Zero does and not what he says. Getting rid of McChrystal is politically expedient and basically berates the military. Replacing with General David Petraeus is politically expedient and smells of fear. It eliminates a political adversary in 2012.
It is obvious that Gen Patraeus will take “something of a demotion” and the Big Zero will install one of his own above Petraeus. The stage will be set for the classic “We gave it our best General but he fail. We must withdraw.”
Naturally, Patraeus demotion will cause ripples through the chain of command and probably cause damage to the entire military establishment. Further, as the ROE’s tighten tension will build between Patraeus and his boss and/or the Big Zero. It’s a political windfall/power grab for the Big Zero.
There are other things to consider such as the news that Afghan warlords have profited under the Big Zero and that new must be buried.
BlackFive:
“The Host Nation Trucking contract for moving NATO supplies into Afghanistan is worth $2.16 billion. And much of that money, has ended up in the hands of corrupt Afghan warlords as well as the Taliban. But thanks to the media circus surrounding McChrystal, a major story that incriminates not only the DoD, but also the Obama administration has gone virtually unnoticed. This major story isn’t on the front page of any newspaper or website that I can find. No mention at any think tank or influence group. Coincidence? Entirely possible.”
http://tinyurl.com/3ytpl5x
There are other possibilities as well. McChrystal may have realized that Afghanistan is “Obama’s War” and wanted to leave the sinking ship. But, what ever the true reason the Big Zero has gain the political upper hand and put a General he hates behind the eight ball (and off the political playing field).
We know that the current COIN or any Counter Insurgency strategy has it foundation on the bedrock of staying power and slow destruction of the enemy. The Big Zero has stated he will withdraw in a relatively short time and broken that very foundation.
Now, it is a race to draw in and destroy as many terrorists as possible. I believe Petraeus must realize this.
Thus, to win Patraeus must both loosen the Rules of Engagement and renew the doctrine of staying until the job is finished. That will prove very difficult given The Big Zero’s huge ego and hatred for the military.
What happens to loggy tail if the balloon goes up over Iran and we find ourselves seriously nose to nose with Ivan? Are we playing with fire just for kicks? or what. i mean, with CiC a drop of mercury on a mirror on a tilt-a-whirl –
Holbrooke Says U.S. End to Afghan Drug Eradication Gets Results …Jul 30, 2009 … Holbrooke Says U.S. End to Afghan Drug Eradication Gets Results … is
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aqmxssVg5ji8
(we da undersigned agrees wit Holbrooke dat da new policy Gets Results –signed, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, Willie Moretti, and Carlo Gambino)
===
how to breath in soup
If Petraeus must step down from global, strategic, Combatant Commander to assume operational command of ISAF and USFORA and Operation Enduring Freedom, that’s a demotion, unless the new ComCENTCOM works for Petraeus instead of the other way around.
Unity of command means that all the forces are under one responsible commander. It requires a single commander with the requisite authority to direct all forces in pursuit of a unified purpose.
Petraeus can only succeed if he is given carte blanche to do what needs doing, change what needs changing, bribe who needs bribing, kill who needs killing and win over or neutralize the rest. The C-in-C may have promised him that. We shall see.
General Mattis would make an outstanding CENTCOM, but SECDEF passed him over for Commandant of the Marine Corps. Does Gates not like Mattis, or was he saving Mattis for this?
Pogues in DC are going to have to STFU and let the professionals get to it.
Most of the strap hangers on the big box FOBs will have to be reassigned to Combat Out Posts and Joint Security Stations.
ANA kandaks must be task organized and cross- attached and integrated into Regimental/Brigade Combat Teams.
District and village defense forces must be recruited, trained and integrated into provincial defence commands.
Force Protection must be reined in and risk must be accepted. Can’t go everywhere in four MRAP convoys with a minimum of 16 shooters in full battle rattle and sunglasses.
More later, gotta go.
From a military perspective, there are no doubt several if not scores of senior generals who could step into the role. Petraeus is the only one who can do it because it is a political problem, not a military one, and Petraeus is the only name anyone knows. Keep in mind, Obama rather uncerimoniously dumped the previous commander, spent 10 months coming up with his strategy, and put his handpicked supporter in to execute it. And it failed. Obama, at this moment, needs to be seen giving the military every possible advantage, including giving the task his ‘best’ general (ie the only one who most voters ever heard of).
Petraeus is smart, he understands all that. The question is, to use JMH’s metaphor, whether Petraeus thinks about the CinC as just another slimy petty local Shiekh who can be relied upon only as long as his nuts are in a vice, an environment Petraeus has proven adept in, or whether he salutes with a, “Yes, Sir!” as he heads once more into the breach for his Commander in Chief and his fellow soldiers. I don’t know the man personally, and I would guess only those who know him well could predict with any confidence.
I expect we will know the answer soon (<60 days). I believe the only leverage Petraeus can bring is to extremely publicly tie Obama's fate to mission success. That is the only vice he has access to. Any other promise isn't worth anything.
Petraeus is the only one who can possibly do this because because he is the only one who can put Obama's nuts in a vice to get him to commit to victory. The whole situation is bad for the Republic…I don't know which is worse, whether Petraeus is enough of a politician to control his duly elected civilian commander, or whether we lose our war of necessity. But the situation is not Petraeus' fault, Obama's is to blame for putting Petraues in the position to make that no win decision.
Too little, too late. What was it Napoleon told his Generals? “Ask me for anything except time”. Or as Patton said, ‘A good plan done today is better then a perfect plan done tomorrow’.
The first thing a young officer learns is that one NEVER gives an order that you know won’t be obeyed. The second thing is that giving the wrong order is better then giving no orders. Error isn’t as dangerous as hesitation. Your NCO’s will keep the wrong order from being to harmful. If you give no orders, your NCO’s have no chance to do anything except to give their own orders.
Yes, Petraeus was demoted, as he should have been. McCrystal was his protege and subordinate. That makes Petraeus responsible for his actions from the military POV.
That isn’t the problem. As Charles De Gaul said; ‘The graveyard is full of indispensable men.’ Yet somehow we muddle through.
IMHO, the problem is that the strategy in Afghanistan is flawed. Fatally so. It doesn’t matter who the General in charge is, it won’t work. The politicians have failed to diagnose the problem, so they can’t have the correct solution. Sort of like going in for a bypass and getting your Leg amputated.
The entire War on Terror needs to be given a top-down look. We need to re-assess the objectives, and how we accomplish them. First step is realizing who the enemy is and just what the war is about. The current administration isn’t going to do that. They are more into hiding under the bed and hoping the bad guys go away.
Wasn’t the removing of McChrystal a political move for the next congress elections, say, a gesture to appease Republicans ?
interesting articles here:
Switch to Petraeus betrays war crisis: General Stanley McChrystal and his tight inner circle of fellow… http://bit.ly/a1asZ5
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ackerman-mcchrystal-20100623,0,7659730.story An increasingly politicized military
There were a couple of odd news items in the last six weeks. According to the London Times the ISI had up to 7 of its members on the talibans 15 member shura council. Then there was a second widely reported story that up to 1 trillion dollars in mineral deposits have been found in afghanistan.
Think about that for a second.
If its true that the ISI has “up to” 7 members on the 15 member taliban shura council, then what the hey. Since the USA is already being played 100% why not play the game properly and make a deal.
After all the makings of a deal are there.
Petreus turned the western sunis — kissing cousins to the saudis — against AQ. Because the Iraqui western sunis were the center of gravity–that turned that war against AQ. Now the Iraquis are cheerfully pumping more and more oil and getting ever richer.
I would argue that the ISI is the center of gravity in the afghan war and if they can be turned — that war can end satisfactorily–with the afghans and the pakis getting richer. likely the pakis would have to be given an interest in afghan wealth or some US surveyors would have to take a hike in the mountains of the paki northwest frontier and find another trillion or so in natural resources.
The people who post on this thread (not including me) seem to have the smarts and experience to fight and win a pretty good-sized war. Great perspective and insights. I am grateful to you all: both for your generosity today and for the service that enables you to speak with such authority on matters of mortal importance to us all.
On the political side, this is a double down on one last throw of the die. Petreaus has been given a very difficult task. What makes it so tough is the timeline.
If he doesn’t get the job done it removes him from the political arena in ’12. If he does, he is the next POTUS.
All or nothing. The Chicago way, Keys to the city or sleep with the fishes. Rham knows how that works.
Actually, the battle of Afghanistan is VERY winnable within the time frame.
We just need to forget about the nation building. Change the definition of winning. As massive Ad campaign explaining to the ‘gani’s that the Taliban have been killing our women and children and we are getting revenge. That is something the ‘gani’s understand.
Show the average ‘gani the WTC going down and they won’t understand what is happening. The tallest building in Afghanistan is 17 stories. I doubt that 10% of the citizens have seen it. So there is no way they can comprehend 100+ stories crashing down.
Explain to the natives that we are not there to steal what little they have, we are there to kill the nutters that are killing us. That once the Taliban are stomped flat we will be taking our toys and going home. They can go back to cattle lifting and other traditional rural pastimes. Then offer rewards for Taliban to stomp and see if that doesn’t win hearts and minds.
Traditionally ( since Wales) the best time to destroy guerrillas is in the winter. Catch them when they are cold, tired and hungry.
Cannoneer: Right on the money.
The biggest problem that we have with doing COIN in Afghanistan is that we are trying to drive the process from the top down rather than from the bottom up in an environment that has a unique and longstanding resistance to any form of centralized authority. It is another question, of course, whether or not COIN itself is a viable strategy….
If one were to conduct a COIN campaign in Afghanistan, the only chance for it to work is to engage at the tribal level. As far as I can tell, this has been ignored due primarily to political considerations. For whatever reason, we have felt the need to involve large, bureaucratic organizations such as NATO, the UN, and the State Department to become deeply involved in both the strategy and execution of the war in Afghanistan. The top down approach is justified in the name of unity of effort and control but only succeeds in adding a greater degree of chaotic instability to the system. Sooner or later this approach tends to bite one in the ass. Your observations re: pogues and strap hangers in this context are well taken. The only objectives they care about are career objectives. Young American lives be damned.
Paul Vallely, a former Army Civil Affairs officer with long experience, succinctly observed in a recent Op Ed piece on Fox News that we had committed to a counterinsurgency strategy before we had defeated the enemy. We cannot defeat the enemy if we are unwilling to leave the FOBs, get out in the sticks, talk to some real people, find out who and where the bad guys are, and send the shooters to roll them up or kill them. Just look at what is happening after the cameras have left in the aftermath of our “big win” in Marjah….
I agree with your point as well regarding MRAPs, which are marginally useful for CA work in Iraq, and completely unsuited to getting out where CA types would have to go in Afghanistan. Smaller and lighter M1151s are a much better idea. The increased risk is worth accepting, but only if our leadership is fully committed to finding, fixing, and destroying the enemy wherever he is found. Period. Otherwise, you are simply wasting the blood of fine young American men and women. There is no more treasonable action that an American leader, at any level, can make.
I have to wonder if GEN McChrystal was so invested in the concept of COIN that he could not truly analyze the process, see that the current effort is failing, and recommend a different course of action. If McChrystal needed to go, his staff similarly tainted, and potential replacements too far behind the curve to get up to speed in a fluid and unforgiving situation, then the only recourse is to bring someone down from the next higher level of command, clean house, grab the wheel, see where the f*** you are at, and get control NOW. That is why GEN Petraeus has been name to the post, and he is the only logical choice. However, I pray that he has the necessary combination of vision, insight, fortitude, and political savvy to see the situation for what it is and adjust to it, quickly and with precision.
I agree with most here that COIN in Afghanistan is probably hopeless, and that a counterterrorism strategy would not only preserve Amercian lives but give us greater strategic maneuverability vis-a-vis Russia, China, and the Islamic world. But if, after a reasoned analysis, GEN Petraeus determined that counterinsurgency was still viable and could stong-arm our political leaders to clean up the beauracracy, keep the pogues in check, simplify the lines of control, and get the men and resources he needs to prosecute a COIN strategy and get it right, I am prepared to trust him, and go take those risks. But if this administration has a hard time with the idea of, at a minimum, 100,000 more troops and 10 years, then I hope that he has the fortitude to tell our leadership to get the hell out, and try something else.
McChrystal went in to see Obama and the President said “Look, there is no need to discuss this. You know what you did. I am removing you as commander, and frankly, if not for some important limitations, I would not just fire you. I would send you for a stint in Leavenworth.”
McChrystal leaves and then calls his wife. “Hi, honey. Yes, I’ve been fired. But it turns out that it’s a good thing I decided to retire when I did. Things are a lot worse than I thought. The budget situation is so bad they can’t even send people to Leavenworth any more.”
Teresita
“This World Cup is like World War II. France leaves early, USA turns up at the last minute, and England is left fighting the Germans.”
Say, you like the shortensights now, you used to had better analyses sometimes ago.
Though I’m going to enlight you on that one:
Our Black and Algerian players, (that are “primadonnas” and playing in foreign clubs, mainly in UK, Germany, Spain, Greece…) and that are majority in the today official french soccer team, come from the third generation born in our suburbs (or were just granted french citizenship), that one that is rioting against us too. So these guis were lucky to have a skill that they developped through our sport schools, and went aborad at the first opportunity, because of the money that foreign clubs offer, much more than they could have won in our clubs. Then if these guis were in UK, Germany, Italy, to a lesser point in Spain, the medias aren’t quite fair and like to bash the French at any occasion, and probably that the people they frequent there too, so that’s globally makes that these players haven’t the patriotic fiber. Unlike players that still play in french clubs. And the coach was the ever baddest we ever had, no charism, nor authority among the players, sold to the old federation clientelism… so the mixture ended into blowing up ! Good, Sarkozy is holding the deal now, A new federation will be created, a new team, and a new coach that was a player that won the world soccer cup in 1998…
check what Alain finkielkraut thinks, if you can understand him, very far from your appreciation!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdrfkc_crise-du-football-francais_news
and I still prefer Rugby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfrEeWS3_Ss
the problem with the “deal” I mentioned is that the USA would enable the worst actors in the world to cash in.
It looks like the Rolling Stone piece was composed of three different stories with the last part being embellished by the vile reporter looking for a scalp.
1. “If you read the Rolling Stone article carefully, you can see that the reporter, Michael Hastings, has woven three stories together. One story is the story of General McChrystal trying to keep up morale in a tough war with his troops thinking he is too worried about civilian casualties and he is forcing them to accept too many risks as consequence.”
2. “The second story is Hastings’s rather tendentious reporting on what McChrystal’s enemies and critics say against him — their complaints, and their doubts about the war.”
3. “This third story was an accident – serendipity for the reporter and a train-wreck for McChrystal… story of McChrystal and his staff on an unexpected layover in Paris when a plane is grounded because of the volcano. This part of the story has a “weekend in Vegas” feel to it. The staff get drunk. The French get dissed. Holbrooke gets dissed. McChrystal and his staff joke about how they would answer a tough question about Vice President Biden’s theories about the war. Without having access to Hastings’ notes, I can’t be sure, but I am willing to wager that 95 percent of the really objectionable material comes from that layover.”
See:shadow foreign policy
http://tinyurl.com/26luv2o
See Blackfive:
http://tinyurl.com/2elk5wm
Re # 4. Jerry “Obama is bypassed.
We win withpout him.”
Can you define “win?”. If it is a rapid and severe clean-up of talibs, forcibly making locals to afraid us more than they afraid of talibs and forgetting about nation building nonsense, than “yes, we can”. Otherwise we inevitably slide into idiotic ROE.
51. PA Cat – “Does anyone on the thread have an opinion of General Mattis as Petraeus’s replacement at CENTCOM? Just saw this over at WSJ:”
And
57. Cannoneer No. 4 – “General Mattis would make an outstanding CENTCOM, but SECDEF passed him over for Commandant of the Marine Corps. Does Gates not like Mattis, or was he saving Mattis for this?”
Mattis would be a great choice, for Obama that is, and would fit right in with Obama’s agenda to grind down our military and lose Afghanistan.
He’s no perfumed prince, and up until recently he had an outstanding career, stellar reputation and was universally admired and respected by all ranks. Then he threw it all away and dishonored himself by his shameful actions in the Haditha Marines trials. When Mattis was assigned as presiding officer it was viewed throughout the ranks as a good sign because of his reputation for fairness and honor. That is what made his betrayal of those marines so shocking.
He demonstrated that he’s more than willing to throw his men under the bus to advance his career, so yes, he’s just the type of general Obama needs: a widely accepted public reputation for excellence and integrity (by the uninformed) to give the regime cover, but a deeply flawed character willing to put his career ahead of his men.
Dave: The “proper” name for Antietam is Sharpsburg.
The Federals named the battles after the nearest stream, the Confederates after the nearest town. So the “proper” name for Bull Run was Manassas, Stones River was the Battle of Murfreesboro, and the Rebellion was the War of Northern Aggression.
31. Joe Hill
“Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place for the wrong reason, and any idiot who can read a map could tell you it is going to turn out badly.”
Succinct and accurate.
The Afghanistan debacle has not yet reached its final state of entropy, but I’ll go ahead and pen my epitaph for it now:
“Rarely in the field of human conflict was so much fubared for so many by so few.” (with abject apologies to Winston)
Ledger #68:
I reached similar conclusions – BUT after their Weekend At Bernie’s in Paris McChrystal and his staff invited their new drinking buddy, Hastings, to come back to Afghanistan and spend some time with them.
Were I the mucky-muck for strategic planning I would be more concerned about our preparedness for a conventional war with Turkey-Iran-Syria than whether or not a few Afghan tribesman could pronounce ‘Jefferson’.
I would also be courting the Russians to define common interests in the Balkans and making it known to them that the US does not oppose Russian hegemony in the Black Sea if that means that no Islamic country will ever have the opportunity to flex its muscles or even have free military transit in the region.
I would make it clear to the Jordanians and Saudis that they either openly choose sides and act accordingly or be prepared for dynastic change and the confiscation and return of their of ill-gotten dynastic wealth to the rebuilding and liberalization of their former countries.
The overwhelming, brutal efficiency of the US military is the ultimate reality check for authoritarian dreamers, Islamic and otherwise. We’ve given a lot since 9/11 and now it’s time to get a little back. Either we have a world where free trade and a semblance of order prevails, and where ME oil gets distributed around at a fair price, or we don’t.
Somebody has to start speaking out about the kind of world WE want and where the limits are. All I see are Obama types scrambling to grab as much as they can for their ideological cliques before the walls come down.
@73 RWE Yep, the Weekend drinking in Paris was the first mistake. But, inviting that ink stained assassin back to the Stan was a greater mistake. I’m sure that back-stabbing wretch Hastings collected more dirt from McChrystal’s enemies and embellished it.
A few post’s back Wrechard included a quote from Napoleon which read: “Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.” I’m not hearing much from the enemy these days.
OT
BreakingNews
Supreme Court sets aside fraud conviction of former media baron Conrad Black, sends case back to lower court – Reuters
Can Scooter Libby ask for his reputation back next?
What’s the story with the Iranians – again? There was news out that the Iranians to the West of AF where training and equipping the Taleban. Was McChrystal pressuring them too hard?
Will Petraeus find Sunni allies and push back against the Iranian heretics?
Also, how about a little credit here? I first suggested that Obama was using the war to humiliate and delegitimitze potential political competitors when P and McC were initially appointed. Looks like this concept is gaining currency.
Petraeus can not engineer a “win” without much more enthusiasic support from Obama. Hence, Obama will continue to ration support. Eikenberry will stay and continue to work against the General.
Pity the grunts who will continue to die for no good reason.
BTW, Franklin was Franklin to both sides as was Atlanta.
Buddy,
I knew (briefly, through a friend) Robert Pinsky (author of the piece on Lincoln’s poetry in Slate) in Berkeley in the eighties. He also praised one of my poems once.
So I don’t know that we ought to trust his judgment on Lincoln!
Jamie Irons
The appraisal of Obama from the Rolling Stone Correspondent is a hell of a lot more damming than anything McChrystal said. After all, President Obama spent months studying and planning so as to get the Afghan strategy right
Who’s surprised at that? Rolling Stone is an ‘anti-war’ rag, a committed tool of the far political left. Obama may have been a saint to RS when he hectored General Petraeus as a Senator, but now that he hasn’t cut and run from Afghanistan, he’s fair game.
Yes, Petraeus was demoted, as he should have been. McCrystal was his protege and subordinate. That makes Petraeus responsible for his actions from the military POV.
But the POV was Obama’s, not the military’s. Obama abolished the general who commanded in Afghanistan to install General McChrystal, his hand-picked Al Queda slayer. McChrystal’s fall is also Obama’s, and his call for help to the guy he condescendingly lectured as a Senator is another sign of dizziness at the top. Nor is it dizziness from success.
Tharkun, all but one Haditha Marine beat that rap. Murtha’s dead now. Staff Sergeant Wuterich’s court-martial some five years after the incident may very well never happen lest it become “a distraction.” History will show whether General Mattis’ lawfare successfully countered MSM’s propaganda.
uh, why am I falling on such articles, when I was on the money crisis inquiries ?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/afghanistan-pentagon-payments-to-warlords-undermine-central-government.html
Highlander, if Americans are going to run with the indigs, Up Armored Humvees aren’t much better than MRAP’s. Unarmored Toyota Hilux crew cab pickups with the back doors off and shooters oriented sideways, a SAW on the roof oriented forward and a pedastal mounted DaSHka oriented to the rear. Scary as hell. No protection at all from IED’s. Would impress the locals and give the Taliban second thoughts. Would also blend in better with ANP & ANA units. SF was running that way in 2005.
All our body and vehicle armor reduces our casualties along with our credibility.
You can’t fool me. A few months back Michael Yon referred to McCrystal as a CRAZY MONKEY. And, he said, unfortunately, the pentagon was full of these jerks. (Strap-hangers-on in DC.)
The good news is that Obama is now aware that he’s FAILED. Which means ALINSKY’s methods didn’t work. They’ve backfired. And, Obama’s popularity ratings sunk to a level that matches: LBJ’s slide. Nixon’s terror walk into darkness. And, the peanut farmer’s EPIC failures, including the loss of Iran for no sane reason at all. But ideology that failed to produce presidential timber, here.
What will happen, now, in Afghanistan? Can’t bring the troops back if there are no jobs! What do you want things to look like, when we already know what the returning Vietnam vets got greeted by … except for gigolos. McCain and Kerry did well through marriage.
Petraeus still has the problem in that the republicans “might” want him to head the 2012 ticket. John Kerry will do everything possible to LEAK and destroy any sane options Petraeus might actually have. On the other hand?
What with Alinsky’s methods failing the White House; it’s just a question of what’s possible. And, what’s not possible. DC is a swamp that will probably claim democratic seats, ahead. And, it’s only the incompetence of the tanned hacks within the republican party that will manage to snatch defeat, again. (Only a sweep in November, where the YOUNG BLOODS come in and bite the tanned hides of the incompetents, will change the DC power structure.)
Can this happen? Sure. The legacy media is dead. But not buried. They need a fancy cathedral. And, promises of lots to drink when they hold the wake.
CH @ 85: You can’t fool me. A few months back Michael Yon referred to McCrystal as a CRAZY MONKEY. And, he said, unfortunately, the pentagon was full of these jerks. (Strap-hangers-on in DC.)
The good news is that Obama is now aware that he’s FAILED. Which means ALINSKY’s methods didn’t work. They’ve backfired.
Well look, I honor McChrystal for his work and efforts, as I do Michael Yon, but I don’t need either of these guys calling the other a crazy monkey.
What I want in either case is someone who can see with clear eyes, and not imagine Afghanistan is going to look like Rochester anytime in the next hundred years, and understand the very different thought processes of the citizens of Afghanistan – and then make appropriate plans taking that into consideration. I think even Yon tends to starry eyes more often than not.
–
As for President Obasmus, Alinsky’s methods never fail, you just double down on them when the poor ignorant public fails to respond properly to early efforts.
/sarc
Josh said:
“As for President Obasmus, Alinsky’s methods never fail, you just double down on them”.
The Ozzy socialists are Saulling themselves; doubling, tripppling down.
The “pundits” were supplized.
It’s Mao’s Chow Time in Oz.
““There has been speculation that Mr Rudd, a former diplomat and fluent Mandarin-speaker, will be offered the foreign affairs portfolio.””
…-
““Deposed Rudd opts to stay on”
KEVIN Rudd has defied modern political tradition by opting to stay on in parliament after being deposed as prime minister.
Yesterday, a tearful Mr Rudd surprised pundits by declaring he would re-contest his Brisbane seat of Griffith, fuelling speculation that he would accept a senior role in a Julia Gillard-led cabinet.
And, in a gracious and emotional departing speech, he dedicated himself to the re-election of the government that just hours earlier had dumped him with unprecedented brutality.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/deposed-rudd-opts-to-stay-on/story-e6frgczf-1225884014121
82. Cannoneer No. 4
“Tharkun, all but one Haditha Marine beat that rap. … History will show whether General Mattis’ lawfare successfully countered MSM’s propaganda.”
With respect, your assessment is not simply wrong, it is woefully lacking as to the facts and extremely misleading.
General Mattis participated in UCI (Unlawful Command Influence) in the investigation phase, and even after the presiding judge Col. Folsom had ruled in the Chessani trial that said UCI was present from the beginning of this sordid mess, Mattis continued to acquiesce in the prosecution’s trashing of the UCMJ during the Wuterich hearings by reiterating his same dissembling, carefully-parsed version of events which Folsom had already ruled constituted the appearance of UCI.
You say Mattis was engaging in “lawfare”. If so, then it was self-serving lawfare which contributed to the degradation of the morale, faith and trust of our military personnel in the UCMJ, the ruination of the careers and financial impoverishment of innocent marines and their families, and an incalculable PR benefit to the enemies of this country, both foreign and domestic.
Mattis could have prevented it all, simply by doing the right and honorable thing at the beginning when the stench of UCI was already overwhelming. For whatever reason, political pressure or even threats, the promise of that promotion to Marine Commandant, or whatever else, at the critical moment in his life and career he failed the test.
As I said previously, Mattis would make a perfect choice for Obama…
>>Why is it that whenever WE accidentally and unintentionally kill a civilian, it creates 10 new enemies, but when the Taliban deliberately kill people (even children) on accusation of collaboration, or for being inadequately Islamic, it does not generate an anti-Taliban insurgency?<<
The difference is that when we do it everyone can complain and the American soldier is disciplined or excoriated. When the Taliban does it if you complain your neck and that of your family is on the line.
An EXCELLENT article popped up, via Instapundit, with practical discussion of what should and could be done (and what hasn’t been done):
http://outsidethewire.com/blog/insurgency/the-times-aren-t-a-changing.html
I wonder if McChrystal was a very good black ops guy. The census taking described at the above “outside the wire” article would (I think) be too boring for such as the General.
If we kill an innocent civilian, we create ten new enemies. If we kill a not so innocent supporter, sympathizer, and collaborator, that’s progress. If we kill them fifty at a time, that’s efficiency, especially because it tends to turn the heads of those who survive towards not attracting more of the same kinds of attentions.
–
So what’s this, that Petraeus is NOT just org-chart filling the Afghan position, but he is being pulled from CentCom? That’s a very different thing, folks. Is it a demotion, even if he agrees to it for the best of reasons? Is it a good idea?
Answer to that last: NO
Why would he agree to it? Because it is after all his plan, and because he feels he might be the best man for the job, and will take one for the team? But the effective demotion is BAD for any future political plans he has, even if he wins in Afghanistan … as he will NOT.
I’m not liking this at all.
Cannoneer: “All our body and vehicle armor reduces our casualties along with our credibility.”
As usual, someone here has put it more succinctly and eloquently than I could! Haven’t made my way to A-stan as of yet but based on prior experience, I must fully concur. I always thought that some of the private security guys had it right when they would roll out in armored Suburbans and Land Rovers, but NTVs armed to the teeth with belt-fed weapons works nicely, too. Also nice to be able to buy tires and parts off of the local market if you need to. Besides showing the locals that you want to do business with them, you can build relationships (most I’ve met are very nice folks and very curious about Americans) and ask some discreet questions while that tire is being fixed. All very conducive to fulfilling GEN Petraeus’ guidance to separate the insurgents from the population, right? Yeah….
Personally, I would trade being fast, light, and inconspicuous for extra armor every single time. It’s actually safer, but requires more risk and a higher degree of proficiency and training. No problem, the typical “Joe” (A term of extreme affection!) is more than up to the task. But that idea, unfortunately, never rolls with a risk-averse “higher”. So, you have to go with the realistic: 1151s.
When I saw the first picture of a MaxxPro MRAP in Afghanistan, I shuddered, shook my head, and said a prayer for the poor driver and gunner assigned to the thing. All of the impressive electronics and armor technology in the world will not do a bit of good if you get it stuck, roll it, or have the shoulder give way beneath you and inflict casualties on the enemy’s behalf that way. And then you have to send a wrecker, with escorts. And the bad guys know exactly where that gaggle is going. Nice. But you know how the system works, my friend! Ah, well, “drive on”, I suppose….
Best regards,
Highlander
heathermc @ 90: that article is interesting, and I think entirely wrong. we cannot play their game. the article is this much right – Afghanistan “does not change”. Well, we can change it, or we can destroy it, or we can waste our time on it. Those are the three choices.
heathermc @ 90: Johannes is spot on, IF you want to do counterinsurgency and do it right, which takes a lot of time, manopwer, and patience. However, I do share Josh’s skepticism regarding that. Nonetheless, a very interesting article. Thanks for sharing!
The McChrystal Affair is unique because both Obama and McChrystal were faced with an identical problem. Obama was faced with a general who publicly questioned his judgment on the pages of Rolling Stone and Hastings reports that McChrystal was faced with troops who publicly questioned his judgment! But Obama and McChrystal handled the problem in totally different manners.
As we know Obama ordered MsChrystal to the Oval Office. Next, Obama talked for 20 minutes. Then, he fired McChrystal. There were no reporters present.
Hastings reports that McChrystal went to the troops and sought out their questions and explained the reasoning behind his orders, then asked for comments and answered those as well. Does command involve more than giving orders and demanding obedience?
continuing #57 above:
Petraeus as COMISAF will have to nail down exactly what the non-US contingents can be held responsible for, then hold their feet to the fire to do what they signed up for. The fewer caveated, salsa-dancing consumers of Cl I on the head count, the more bullets and go-juice we can move.
He’ll need to institute spartan Command Supply Discipline even more austere than McChystal. Fewer lobster nights at the DFAC, more barbequed goat. Adios Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Popeye’s, Cinnabun, Tim Horton’s, and, yes, even Green Beans Coffee. That will suck, but there’s a war on.
He’ll have to bring all the contractors under control, bust a few COR’s to encourage the rest, send some non-performing expats home and put the fear of God (or Allah, as applicable) into all of them. Then he’ll need to defend the clean contractors from the critics.
Afghanize the war. Round up Afghan truck drivers, draft them into the ANA Transportation Corps and put the convoys under military discipline and escort. Afghan TC KATUSA’s.
Pashto ain’t Arabic. Americans can pick it up fairly quickly with some effort. That effort must be made. A quasi-fluent Pashto-speaker for every company-sized element.
Control the message, control the media, beat the Taliban and their enablers in the infowar.
#94: I agree with you: rooting out present day Taliban requires dull boring census taking, which can and should be done. BUT. Afghanistan, as long as it is an association of tribes, will be a power vacuum, useful only as a stage for confrontations among Pakistan, India, Russia and etc etc. The West’s problem is to ensure that anti west forces don’t gain a foothold there, however temporarily. Unlike the Scottish Highlands, Afghanistan is NOT isolated from the day’s Great Powers. And the USA is not the British Empire. Any “solution” can only be temporary.
Perhaps there is the potential for loads of minerals in the Hindu Kush; and perhaps a pipeline linking central Asia to the south will stabilize Afghanistan and bring some kind of indigenous wealth. However. BUT. You still have a tribal society, one that isolates its women in the home and therefore from any real engagement with post-tribal worlds.
The true problem lies with the very parochial ruling class in Washington. An American political type said something to a Canadian: “They (the Iranians, etc) use religion…” The Canadian said, “They don’t USE religion, they ARE religious…”
Also, what is with this sniping at Karzai? He is Afghani and acting like an Afghani. Making him into an enemy is just plain stupid.
PB/45–exactly right. How would it be if we spent $1 million a day paying and equipping Tadjiks to go hunt Talibs for us? Think of the money we’d save. Or paying Pashtuns, for that matter, if there are certain tribes that are interested.
Hate on Mattis all you want, tharkun. He can handle it.
There’s another problem here too: Obama has concentrated on dissing his strongest MILITARY allies, ie, the British, the Canadians and the Australians. Not to mention, India.
Maybe Chavez will come through with some soldiers to back up the Americans???? Or maybe the Americans like the idea of being the only Western military interest in Afghanistan?
Myself, as long as that wimp is in the White House, I want Canada to pull its soldiers out of that mire.
I have often wondered if we are doing the right thing in Afghanistan. It might be simpler and cheaper to make deals on a tribal level. Go the tribal leaders and tell them that a bounty will be placed on foreigners who come into Afghanistan that intend or incite people to do jihad against the west. For each head a certain amount will be paid redeemable in money or weapons. All we would need are a few special-ops in the field to verify claims for rewards and arrange to make the payments.
Forget about hearts and minds–make killing jihadi’s a lucrative local industry. Markets work. And I think its something the common Afghan might embrace. Kill a member of the Taliban who’s not from my tribe and get more money than I would otherwise see in a year? What a deal.
@97 heather mac
All good points. As for Karzai, I doubt if corruption is really an issue for Afghanis. In most of the world outside the West, corruption among the powerful is endemic and taken for granted. His biggest problem is likely the perception that he is the puppet of the Great Satan. And ultimately that’s the real issue in the war of hearts and minds. An indigenous tribal culture is one thing, dar-el-Islam is another. Islam is probably the one thing that can trump tribal allegiance or personal gain. Whatever we may attempt or accomplish there in the short term, it’s the enemy our leaders refuse to name that can undermine it all in the end.
OT – a Jewish dance troupe in Germany was stoned by a gang of Muslim teenagers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10406344.stm
heathermc@ 97 and 100:
Beautiful analysis. Once again, much more concise than my often feeble efforts.
Agree that our Anglophone allies have done far more than their share and have received far less credit and thanks from our leaders than they will ever be due. Please understand that those of us in the ranks who have worked with our counterparts from these countries admire their professionalism, and great sacrifices. We also recognize that, man-for-man, the Canadian Army has taken the heaviest losses. Agree with your sentiments there…time for someone else to step up and as Cannoneer said keep their feet to the fire, but only as long as we are all pursuing the right strategy, for the right reasons.
Best regards from “Ft. Living Room” in sunny California.
Highlander
So McChrytstal is gone this week.
Ten days ago D. Blair left.
Maybe they didn’t like what was being planned.
Andy McCarthy gives a creditable explanation of why McChrystal let in Rolling Stone.
“”Now it can be told,” elaborates Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic “The story about [McChrystal] voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really.”"
O/T but please take a look –save for when can run thru w/ care (ht Instapundit)–
http://powip.com/2010/06/big-oil-maneuvering-and-vestiture/
Lots of sunshine spreading thru this, at last –
37. buddy larsen
Gov Brewer said the other day that she –her office –had “evidence of about a thousand ‘drug-gang’ cells, set up in American cities”.
–that, and some other things (*cough* gulf *cough*) made me remember this old Nyquist column, Grey Terror –
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2004/0513.html
———————————————-
buddy, that’s the second time I’ve seen you post that. Spetznatz gangs?
I get the feeling that America has pulled in our own Trojan Horse (across the border) and left the reigns untended. Perhaps after we are all drunk with a successful op in Iran, our real “civil war” will commence.
And all our combat power in place…somewhere else, may find out that they have ten times the number of opposing forces that we thought they did.
How delicious would it be for the Soviets (AKA Russians) to count coup in Kabul.
Imagine 50,000 John Muhammads let loose all over America – at once. Yikes!
Of course, I’m paranoid…remember the al Qaeda promise? Something that will make America forget 911.
So, with its inherent ROE, the COIN strategy isn’t working, nor will it work, as you can’t beat an enemy when the ROE prevent fighting that enemy. Gen. Petraeus appears committed to that strategy and certainly Obama is, so this war is already lost.
Not that it matters.
For even if Gen. Petraeus achieved victory, it would avail us nothing beyond denying Al Qaeda one of the many refuges available to them.
Obama will start the troop withdrawals in July of 2011. By the election of 2012 Afghanistan will have returned to Taliban control and Pakistan will be at risk as well.
Obama will be a one term President for many reasons not least of which is that Presidents who lose wars are not reelected.
What to do then? As the larger issue never was Obama. The larger issue is the lack of clarity which results in the public electing an incompetent, appeasement minded Obama or a Bush so lacking in understanding that he based his strategy upon the false premise that Islam is a religion of peace.
Destroy Al Qaeda by denying physical refuge in Yemen, Sudan and any other Muslim country and Islam will simply create a new Al Qaeda for the tip of the spear.
Just look to Israel’s 62 yr long struggle for a preview of our future. Though nukes shall shorten the time-frame into either proving Wretchard’s 3 conjectures prescient or initiating the West’s surrender into dhimmitude.
Islam’s fundamental incompatibility with individual freedoms is the problem, it’s theological nature makes an Islamic reformation impossible and its religious precepts demand eternal war upon the West and all non-believers.
Until we face that truth, the only difference between us and Israel is that we’re farther away from the gallows. Once we accept reality, then strategies emerge for effectively confronting Islam.
“Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all!…Islam says: Kill the [ non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. … Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! … Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!
There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” Ayatollah Khomeini, 1942
“… those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law].
“Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years. It is only the mullahs who can bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam– begging to have their blood shed for Islam.” -Ayatollah Khomeini
“There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun [or] joy in whatever is serious.” Ayatollah Khomeini
99. Cannoneer No. 4
>”Hate on Mattis all you want, tharkun. He can handle it.”
Now you’re just attempting an ad hominum evasion. I don’t hate Mattis, I pity him. I simply accord him the scorn he has earned by his actions, and which is clearly demonstrated by the facts and evidence on the record. He is, in his own way, a tragic figure.
SD/107; re the 2004 nyquist, it’s less any details i was trying to speak of, and more an alert on the concept of such an attack. i don’t know anymore where common sense leaves off and paranoid madness starts up –but better to stay frosty and eyes peeled than to horse-laugh at the straws in the wind and find a sudden Beslan down the street. Either we’re being conditioned incrementally, or more likely conditioning ourselves defensively, to accept more and more system decay as some sort of force of nature, as in what goes up must come down, and so forth. If so, so be it –but, damn, human agency is hanging out all over the place –what nature, what inevitable?
Just for example, where did the sudden gigantic dope demand come from, that would result in a ‘drug gang border war” –and a very worried Governor of Arizona telling the world that she has evidence of a thousand drug gang cells set up in American cities?
Cells ?
And who was Jimmy Harrell talking to?
–and as you know, that’s just for starters, and barely, barely that.
90. Heathermc
“Out there I’m a useless guy, unemployed and cursed by my family,” one militant said. “Here I’m a commander. My words have weight.”
Funny, that sounds exactly like the closing scene in the first John Rambo movie, First Blood.
So what does it say about how we treat our warfighters?
Don’t be sorry:
General McChrystal’s Next Job http://yhoo.it/9Sbwto
as far as me, we were sold that McChrystal was a man of the ground, that he knew all about afghanistan, and the involvment of the Nato alliees nations, looks like the man was inflating his skills, and was just a troopfarter !
uh, I don’t expect much more improvment there, just that Petraeus has more diplomatic skills.
Speaking of which, can Belmont Cluber describe the Obama Doctrine?
I know a similar question stumped Palin and she’s been forever stigmatized as ‘unprepared’ (or something).
But a doctrine implies that there is a set of core principles, no? I need some enlightenment.
Of course looking at this from a different aspec – maybe this was not about McChrystal. Maybe McChrystal had to go so Petraeus could be tarred with Afghanistan before the next presidential elections.
On a partisan issue – 50 days to start work on the largest oil spill in US history. One day to respond to derogatory comments in a hack magazine (Sorry. Like the tabloids Rolling Stone sometimes does groundbreaking journalism).
No wonder the media and political hacks are saying Obama is showing how to lead with his decision to sack McChrystal.
Speaking of which, can Belmont Cluber describe the Obama Doctrine?
Its really pretty simple. Whatever position makes him look good at the moment. Beware that it can and does change with every dawn and every sunset.
110. bl Agree. I’ve been “frosty” since 1/20/2009 and jr is the quintessential motivator. I’d rather be scared for a reason than Fat, Dumb, and Happy, without one.
Back in January of this year I left a link to a Washington Post reprint of Petraeus COMISAF Initial Assessment (Unclassified) RE: Afghanistan.
Read it and then decide if Petraeus will stick to his own assessment and plan or…? As many on this thread have said, he is between a rock and a hard place. Will he now act as a independent quasi Politician/Warrior or as just a Warrior Commander doing his CIC’s bidding?
Here is just the WP article, in case you don’t want to find it in my January comment:
“COMISAF Initial Assessment (Unclassified)”
I also want to leave a link to five – five minute videos. Excellent viewing for an understanding of Afghanistan or as far as that goes – Pakistan and many other places on this planet. Places that we who live in a “plastic world” never see or will most likely never understand – even if they are actually the “real world” as J.D. Johannes has said on his most excellent blog.
From Steven Pressfield’s Agora Website:
“It’s The Tribes Stupid”
These videos are an excellent presentation of a subject that is most important if we are to emerge from the AfPac with any kind of acceptable results or learn how to manage the many “insurgent” tribes all over the world.
Be it in ten months, ten years or… more likely it will take a hundred years. Regardless war will always be with us.
Papa Ray
Obama doctrine?
V.I. Lenin’s “Worse is Better”
***
thanks for the effort, papa ray –it shows and it helps –
US Congress Approves Unilateral Sanctions on Iran, Sends Bill to President
Obama to Sign Into Law
Wait a minute, I thought we weren’t going to do unilateral foreign policy any
more once Bush was voted out. Weren’t we going to just all get along or
something like that?
US Congress Approves Unilateral Sanctions on Iran, Sends Bill to President Obama to Sign Into Law
Yah, we promise not to send them any more JDAMs.
115. Tcobb @June 24, 2010 – 2:35 pm
Whatever position makes him look good at the moment. Beware that it can and does change with every dawn and every sunset.
Thanks for answering. It is not a rhetorical question at all. How many in the US can answer that? Not even Obama knows the Obama Doctrine.
Somehow the song “How do you solve a problem like Maria” comes to mind. Too bad we can’t ship him off to ‘marry a rich guy’. /yeah I know, I’m being silly
“This World Cup is like World War II. France leaves early, USA turns up at the last minute, and England is left fighting the Germans.”
Viral bon mot. I’ve been in Manchester, UK, the past two days. This morning, 8 a.m. UK time, the chap I was with got this exact quote via text on his mobile. Seems to be making the rounds.
However, unlike WWII, this time the Germans will beat the Brits. I have to say, it’s nice to see the outpouring of support for the team and the English flag all over the place. On the other hand, as I waited at customs the other day, the flight right before me was from Pakistan, and there was an army of Paks on line entering Britain. Among them were at least five fat old Paki ladies — grossly fat — in wheelchairs, cutting the line. No doubt coming over for a free visit with National Health.
And today as I was crossing the shipping canal over a bridge a bunch of English boys, about 11 years old, were daring one another and climbing to the top of the bridge. Along the top of the span. Very high, very dangerous. Boys will be boys, and they seek danger, and I was happy to see that SOME spunk remained in the British gene pool.
Maybe the lights aren’t out quite yet.
Google has removed MoveOn’s Betray Us from it’s Cache!
peterike/122; –change the incentives tonight, and we’ll be back to normal tomorrow. It ain’t the gene pool, it’s the miasma.
hmm peterike, tell your friend about Dunkeerke, where the Brits were the first to leave the ground
hmm, marie claude, would it have been better for the British to have remained at Dunkirk and you be speaking German today?
robin4test, yeah, but you wouldn’t have had your best legend about how brave your grandfathers were, to be told to your grandchildren
always right@121: ok, I’m semi-inspired:
“How do you solve a problem like Obama?
How do you catch the clown and pin him down?
How do you find the words that mean Obama?
A socialist misfit
Alinsky-ite
from Chi-town?”
(Chime in anytime, Walt)
Marie Claude (#127):
Quite the quandary, to be sure.
Fox News
Source: Administration Weighs Bypassing Congress to Let Illegal Immigrants Stay
Charles…
The fact that the regime is even talking shop with such notions indicates that the Republic is morphing into the Empire.
In an empire the chattering class ( legislators ) hang around providing the right optics while the government is orchestrated from on high.
The Emperor has ALWAYS taken the path of least democracy. No reason to expect any change.
Wildly OT: Who recommended the movie Southland Tales on BC? I got it from Netflix and tried to watch it twice, but it made no sense at all. Just sayin’.
MC, the way us Americans understand Dunkirk as “The Miracle of Dunkirk”; one that perserved the core of the British Army to continue the fight against Hitler. My generation was taught that French lives secured the escape. Heroism had nothing to do with it. Sheer luck, utter stupidity by Hitler and the grace of God. Dunkirk has never been considered “Their finest Hour” and I doubt elderly Brits tell their grandkids anything else other than it was Saint George himself watching over the British Army.
As far as the trouble in the Stan goes I like the proposal I read in late 2001 that the U.S. should raise two full divisions (50,000 men)of Afghan soliders. The US would train, equip, supply and pay them. The pay would be on par with what US soliders make, and in Afghanistan that would be a princely sum. Part of the deal would be that each US paid Afghan solider would have to take a wife. The idea being that the wives would tie these Afghan soldiers to their communities and make them have a stake in the future of the country. Receiving their pay from the US government instead of the Afghan one would eliminate graft, corruption and political favorism. Nine years later I still think it a great idea.
I still do not think I have read of any credible reason for General McCrystal doing what he did with the Rolling Stone Reporter? What beneficial object did it accomplish, what did he intend for it to accomplish? No way it was done blindly, no way the General could not guess the outcome.
Can (any) Belmont Cluber describe the Obama Doctrine?
Strut proudly and carry on about a big shtick.
#115 Tcobb
Speaking of which, can Belmont Cluber describe the Obama Doctrine?
I will try. The Obama Doctrine, which as of now is the operative template for the entire Democratic Party [They support him, they enable him, and any Democrats who claim to be "moderates", "conservatives" (there IS NO SUCH THING as a conservative Democrat), "Blue Dogs", or whatever are lying because we have seen in the end that they will all fall in line and support the hardest Left position and betray everything they have told their constituents when push comes to shove. They have no principle but Democratic Centralism. ( http://tinyurl.com/244z3zr ) ] can be roughly described as follows:
The Obama Doctrine
1). The traditional concepts of American exceptionalism and of the intrinsic worth of the individual is an historical aberration that is a diversion from the progress of mankind towards a universal, rationalist society.
2). Only trained, educated, and ideologically correct people should be making the decisions in our society; based on ideology. Any attempt by the American people to oppose a transition to this state, especially if it is based on outdated concepts of individual rights, freedoms, or personal standing against the State; must be opposed and suppressed.
3). The United States should be removed from any position of leadership in the world; geo-politically, economically, and most especially militarily. Any means to achieve that are acceptable. Any means to discourage the world from looking to the United States and its false individualist paradigm are to be encouraged.
4). To that end, those who oppose the United States are to be encouraged and aided. Those who look to the United States as currently constituted for leadership, support, or aid are to be weakened or destroyed.
5). To that end, military defeat and impotence is the desired situation. Government control of all means of production, direct or otherwise, is a prime tool to humble the United States and prepare for the permanent rule of the best and brightest.
Obama is, in fact, begging for defeat in Afghanistan, and doing his best to ensure it. There are some who say that due to the current uproar, and the fact that this is now Obama’s war, that the Democrats have no choice but to support the war or face even larger losses in the elections. I myself discount the coming elections as a factor, because both Obama and the Democrats so far have refused to moderate either policy, arrogance, or their public contempt for the will of the voters in any way, on any subject, as the elections approach. They literally are operating as if they are immune to any reaction by the voters; which behavior has raised other fears amongst aware observers.
Petraeus may have extracted private promises of support, additional time, the sun, the moon, the stars, and a first lien on the tooth fairy’s left goolie. But none of it is public, any such promises can be denied, and Petraeus can be ordered to stay silent. Based on his own statements and actions since the 2008 campaign began; Buraq Hussein Obama has personally added previously unknown dimensions to the words ‘mendacity’ and ‘Taqqiya’. It is literally impossible to name one promise made by Buraq Hussein Obama that he has kept.
The war is winnable, ONLY IF the terms of victory are very narrowly defined, AND if the political masters of the military actually want victory and will actively support it, even at the expense of political correctness. Neither of those conditions obtain.
The logistics pipeline for the entire effort is totally dependent on one port, and a few land routes in and through a hostile territory subject to interdiction by both the host government that is heavily infiltrated by the very people we are fighting, and by Taliban attacks en-route. Our foreign policy initiatives alternate between attacking those who would be on our side, and toadying to and displaying weakness to those who would attack us. The Pakistanis could turn on us in a heartbeat, and we seem to work on micturating in their Wheaties at random intervals. Amateurs talk tactics and weaponry. Professionals talk logistics. The Logistician draws the line beyond which the Tactician dare not tread.
Add to that a refusal to allow us to take the war to the enemy, and the White House and State Department working to undermine the Afghan government our forces are supposed to be supporting; and Petraeus will be envying Sisyphus.
Maybe Obama will reverse every policy he has had up until now, and start working for an American victory. But the last time such a profound revelation occurred was on a road from Tarsus to Damascus to a guy named Saul. I don’t think the same factors are operational in this case. Absent hard evidence to the contrary, I personally believe that Obama and the Democrats have every intention of hanging Petraeus out to dry. Their ideal end for the Afghan war would be a replay of the Battle of Gandamak from the British First Afghan War.
If Petraeus stays in the position of command and tries to fight it out, he will be out of position for any theoretical political activity in 2012, assuming elections occur. If the stress of the job causes a recurrence of his cancer, fatal or not; this will serve the same purpose for the White House. And if the lack of support and Rules of Engagement ordered by the White House cause a defeat of American arms in Afghanistan it will be a perfect trifecta in their view; weakening the military, disgracing a possible political rival, and convincing the world not to depend on the US.
#130 Charles
Fox News
Source: Administration Weighs Bypassing Congress to Let Illegal Immigrants Stay
Fiat justitia, ruat caelum.
Subotai Bahadur
jW/132; –Here’s a much better filmic experience, roll the video imbedded. Very Avante-Garde and profound as all get-out too.
http://townhall.com/blog/g/11f7fc84-7883-438a-acc7-119709f882d8
(open quote)
Thursday, June 24, 2010
RE: M. Stanton Evans’ Brilliance
Posted by: Chris Field at 7:52 PM
Before Glenn had Stan Evans on his show tonight, Stan’s book “Blacklisted by History” had an Amazon ranking of #305,678.
As of 7:52pm tonight, the book’s at #14.
Nice.
UPDATE: As of 8:31, it’s at #1. Double nice.
(end quote)
***
From #305,678 to #1, in about three hours, due to an interview on the Glenn Beck show at 5pm EST. mercy. no wonder in that Drudge pic today of Rahm, Jarrett, and Obombed they have that red ‘dawning’ look on their faces.
“Uh oh!”
Tarnsman
but how many of you were/are honest like you ? I haven’t read many
#135 Subotai Bahadur.
Superb summation. You have put in concise terms what I have been trying to say to family and friends for a long time. They used to roll their eyes when I would get “on my soapbox.” They don’t roll their eyes anymore.
Why BHO sent the Bust Back
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die.
But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.
Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith.
It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
134. whatdayameanitstoohot
One factor was that nature intervened:
Neither the General nor the Rolling Stoner anticipated that volcanic ash would strand them together in Paris for a month.
But it did.
At The Corner:
Petraeus Can [Michael Yon]
The United States has again called upon Gen. David Petraeus during crisis. There have been other times, the most remarkable being in January 2007, when we were on the cusp of losing the war in Iraq. The chances against success were increasingly remote. I was there through the entire surge, and more, and saw the remarkable transformation under the command of General Petraeus and due to the incredible efforts of our armed forces and their civilian counterparts. No book that I have read, including the one that I wrote, has fully conveyed the magnitude of those days. You simply had to be there.
Here we are again, this time on the cusp of losing the war in Afghanistan. The situation is worse than ever before. Again, the United States has asked Gen. David Petraeus to step into a situation that seems hopeless to many people. It is not hopeless, just extremely bad. All is not lost, just nearly lost. Our people can turn this war around.
—
Yon, kicked out by ‘Crystal’s clan, is in communication with Petraeus and has been invited to embed with the troops once again.
After things settle down, Yon will inform the General about what the troops really think and feel.
(info that would not be shared within the chain of command.)
Another great thread. But still just a molecule of reality in the three dimensional universe of man’s folly. But that should not give us pause because it is said that God only helps those who help themselves.
How we are going to have to fulfill that notion is yet to be seen clearly. But there are those of us who are planning on how to do it or at least how to survive long enough to try.
To the thread.
Tarnsman reiterates a proposal about training and paying and facilitating Afghan soldiers to fight the bad guys. I suggest that he read the links that I have previously supplied about the Afghan tribes and such. He might also want to ask if the Chinese will loan us the money to do this or if they might think it would be against their best interests. They want those precious minerals for their own use and their soldiers are not paid anywhere what ours are.
whatdayameanitstoohot Says the General could not guess the outcome of their mini vacation to Paris. I’m not so sure that the General was paying that much attention to what his aids were saying. Acting stupid while drunk is not something that just rednecks do. But any explanation is hinged on what the General knew and his mindset. I think we will just have to wait for his book and even then read/take it with a 16 ounce container of salt. (Chase with the same amount of Vodka)
Subotai Bahadur sometimes I think you must be one of the exceptional sages of our time and/or even a time traveler, who has knowledge that the rest of us don’t. Or maybe you are just another guy of exceptional intellegence and the ability to see past all the bs and dig out what ever truths happen to be found that the rest of can’t see or understand.
But I really don’t think Obama will have any revelations until his ol’ lady has her spiritual “come to Jesus” moment and jerks him out from under his handlers and into the light of what America is and what our founders dreamed for us. He is too deep now into the vapors of his narcissism and his handler’s deep rich pockets.
buddy Let’s just hope that his communications continue down this path. It will harm him more than us.
Yep, Glenn has the bully pulpit and finally seems to be figuring out how to use it. Any guesses when Rahm or even Jarrett will be cast under the bus?
On other matters:
This is a great read if you like details and those personal thoughts of people who are put into an impossible situation but fight and find and endure all the while fearing defeat:
“Inside the Surge: One Commander’s Lessons in Counterinsurgency”
Also,there is this somewhat telling release:
“Obama insists on unity after McChrystal exit”
Note the choice of words or at least the choice of quotes by various officials. By no means believe that is all that was said. In a decade or so we might read more.
OK, I let my girls sleep late this morning because they were up late due to my oldest grand daughter’s cheer leading exhibitions and such last night and a late supper and then a late reading of books and then a late tooth brushing, potty and finally a late laying there talking to them and shushing to go to sleep and have sweet dreams.
Time for them to rise and shine…Give me strength.
Please, please hurry up sweet school time…..
Papa Ray
I reformattd this paragraph from Wretchard’s post:
McChrystal has issued some of the strictest directives to avoid civilian casualties that the U.S. military has ever encountered in a war zone.
It’s “insurgent math,” as he calls it – for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.
He has ordered convoys to curtail their reckless driving, put restrictions on the use of air power and severely limited night raids.
He regularly apologizes to Hamid Karzai when civilians are killed, and berates commanders responsible for civilian deaths.
“For a while,” says one U.S. official, “the most dangerous place to be in Afghanistan was in front of McChrystal after a ‘civ cas’ incident.”
The ISAF command has even discussed ways to make not killing into something you can win an award for: There’s talk of creating a new medal for “courageous restraint,” a buzzword that’s unlikely to gain much traction in the gung-ho culture of the U.S. military.
But however strategic they may be, McChrystal’s new marching orders have caused an intense backlash among his own troops.
Being told to hold their fire, soldiers complain, puts them in greater danger.
“Bottom line?” says a former Special Forces operator who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I would love to kick McChrystal in the nuts.
His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger.
Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.” …
McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren’t buying it.
—
When I hear praises heaped on this General, I think of the fathers whose young sons were sacrificed in the name of his PC ROE’s
He was great in his previous post, killing AQ Bad Guys.
Not so great in Afghanistan.
Then there was his participation in the coverup of the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman.
In Afghanistan, let U.S. troops be warriors
There was an international uproar when, on Sept. 4, in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province, an American fighter jet under NATO command bombed a group of Taliban fighters who had hijacked two fuel tanker trucks. The trucks exploded, the fighters were killed, and so were a still-undetermined number of Afghan civilians.
The civilian deaths sent shudders through the American military command, already fearful that civilian casualties would further alienate the Afghan public. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, was said to be angry and determined to tighten the U.S. force’s already-strict rules of engagement even more to avoid future civilian deaths.
Then something odd happened. When McChrystal met with local leaders in Kunduz, a few days after the bombing, he got an earful — but not what he expected.
According to a detailed account in The Washington Post — a story that has received too little attention in the ongoing debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan — the local Afghan leaders told McChrystal to stop being so fussy and to go ahead and kill the enemy, which they said would help bring stability to the region.
Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran was given extraordinary access to the bombing investigation. According to his account, McChrystal began the meeting with a show of sympathy for those who had been killed or wounded. The general didn’t get very far before he was interrupted by the provincial council chairman, Ahmadullah Wardak.
The security situation has been getting worse in Kunduz, Wardak told McChrystal. American and NATO troops haven’t been aggressive enough in pursuing and killing the Taliban. In Wardak’s view, the bombing of the fuel tankers, rather than a mistake, was the right thing to do.
“If we do three more operations like was done the other night, stability will come to Kunduz,” Wardak said, according to the Post account. “If people do not want to live in peace and harmony, that’s not our fault.”
Chandrasekaran reported that McChrystal “seemed caught off guard.” Wardak clarified a bit more: “We’ve been too nice to the thugs,” he said.
So instead of receiving an angry lecture on America’s disregard for Afghan life, the general received an angry lecture on America’s hesitance to go after the enemy.
—
Now cut again, this time to Sept. 8, when four U.S. Marines were killed when the Taliban ambushed their patrol in Kunar province. The Marines were taken completely by surprise and pinned down under heavy Taliban fire. McClatchy reporter Jonathan Landay was with them and wrote a harrowing account of their desperate battle to survive.
The rules of engagement again played a role. “U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and treelines,” Landay wrote, “despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.”
desert rat said…
Three rounds to the forehead, from under 20 meters, doug, is not friendly fire it’s murder.
Tillman’s autopsy raised doctors’ suspicions
Medical evidence ‘did not match’ military’s account
By MARTHA MENDOZA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
There was a cover up built within the cover up. Multiple layers of lies and deception.
Expertly done.
If Stan was not a part of it, he at least knew of it. Warned his political supporters, in Congress, not to go deep into praising Tillman.
The awarding of the Silver Star, pure politics, as well as part of the cover up.
—
… the Associated Press reported that a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after his death wrote, “The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” also noting that the wound entrances appeared as though he had been shot with an M16 rifle from fewer than 10 yards (9 m) away.
Visions of evil intent and planned failure….
“You want fries with that?”
We have fallen so low…so fast…it is long past being a failure, a joke, on us and the rest of the world. America, her pride, her power, her stature reduced to this:
This has to be planned and enjoyed by those who wish to destroy America.
Papa Ray
God All Mighty…! give me strength for my children.
You’re just a racist that doesn’t like Dark Meat, Papa Ray!
Russia to Lift Ban on U.S. Chicken Meat, Obama Says After Medvedev …
Jun 24, 2010 … “It’s odd, when you’re sitting in historic meetings with your Russian counterpart, to spend time talking about chicken,” Obama said.
Rapid Relief
Dark-meat chicken prices “should improve fairly rapidly” as Russia resumes buying, said Joe F. Sanderson Jr., the chief executive officer of Laurel, Mississippi-based Sanderson Farms.
“We needed the Russian market back,” Sanderson said in a telephone interview. “Dark-meat values were coming under some pressure. This is going to take that pressure off. This is good news for the balance of the year.”
Negotiations with Russia to enter the World Trade Organization may be wrapped up as soon as September, Obama said. Obama didn’t provide details of the poultry export agreement during his speech.
“It’s odd, when you’re sitting in historic meetings with your Russian counterpart, to spend time talking about chicken,” Obama said. “But our ability to get resolved a trade dispute around poultry — that is a multibillion-dollar export for the United States — was an indication of the seriousness with which President Medvedev and his team take all of these trade and commercial issues.”
doug whatever the medical examiner said, he was NOT there. He knows nothing about what actually happened, even if he is correct in the physical circumstances. But I even doubt that. How many examiners have actual experience or creds to determine reliable info from only the deceased body’s evidence.
Regardless, until you have been there and done that, you have no idea about what happens when people are engaged in war and people are trying to kill each other.
I can envision many circumstances/situations that could have tragically led to this. But only because I have been there and and know the chaos that war/killing is.
Killing and trying not to be killed is not like the movies. There are no retakes, no script changes, no special effects, no pause to think what the censors nor the audience would be able to handle or endure.
It is your survival and your split second decisions that dominate and rule. If they are wrong you are dead or your friends are.
Anyone that has not been there and done that has no way of knowing or understanding.
Myself, I know he was not killed on purpose by his own buds. What happened is what happened and those that were there will live and suffer with it for the rest of their lives.
Papa Ray
135. Subotai Bahadur
Excellent as usual. Thank you.
“McChrystal has issued some of the strictest directives to avoid civilian casualties that the U.S. military has ever encountered in a war zone.”
Yep, and he issued those orders because his CIC backed by the US State dept and even some NATO commanders and insisted on by Afghan President Hamid Karzai – wanted a drastic change in ROE.
He wanted to reduce civilian losses but never at the expense of his troops that resulted from those orders.
Shit rolls down hill in the military too.
Why do you think he was so upset and risked and lost his job? Don’t answer that you and others think he is just stupid and doesn’t care about his troops. You have no idea just as I don’t for sure, but I’m willing to bet that his resistance to the ROE and the interference from the State Dept and others is behind his actions.
Did he do the right thing in resigning? Ask again in about ten or twenty years.
If anybody cares then.
Papa Ray
OK, everybody is fed, my two girls are now building excellent things with Leggos, much better than I did at their ages. So I was able to wander the web and found this by accident.
Do you have an extra fifteen dollars plus shipping? Well even if you have to borrow it, order this book now:
“Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse-Filled Presidency of Barack Obama”
Read it to your kids and grandkids and even your stupid liberal neighbors.
Papa Ray
Jeez, read this and weep or maybe pay to ship them guns.
“Why Oliver Stone’s ‘South of the Border’ Flopped South of the Border”
Venezuela we weep for you but will have to reserve our ammo and resolve for our own emergency.
Perhaps later after we dispose of our own tyrant.
Before he destroys America and our Children.
“We are going to change it, we are going to re-arrange it.
We ARE Going to Change the World”
Papa Ray
Now this from just a commenter “Guy Fawkes”.
“Breaking Fox: Petraeus To Change Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan”
From the FOX link:
Petraeus to Modify Afghanistan Rules of Engagement, Source Says
Ah…media battles, bloodless? sometimes, but sometimes not. More likely just propaganda. Call Subotai Bahadur to get his read on it. I don’t have a clue and I would bet most “journalists” don’t either.
Papa Ray
@122 peterike
I just finished reading “Among the Believers” by VS Naipaul. It was written 30 years ago and reading it now many of his observations seem prescient. One of his major points was the strange dichotomy in Muslim thinking, regardless of which country he was in, that counted on the continual existence of the same Western society and economy they seek to undermine and replace with a “pure” Islamic polity. Pakistan was a great exemplar of this – the entire economy was based (still is, so far as I know) on remittances from overseas, Pakistanis who’d sought work in the West and were simultaneously expected to spread the faith. The newspapers were full of ads for such workers, calling the process “manpower export”.
On page 101, he writes:
“The business was organized. Like accountants studying tax laws, the manpower experts of Pakistan studied the world’s immigration laws and competitively gambled with their emigrant battalions: visitor’s visas overstayable here (England), dependents shippable there (England), student’s visas convertible there (Canada and the United States), political asylum to be asked for there (Austria and West Berlin), still no visas needed here, just below the Arctic Circle (Finland). They went by the planeload.”
He goes on to describe the now-familiar process by which the immigrants would then appeal to the Western ideals they despised at home and make whatever use they could of civil liberties organizations with claims of racial discrimination, economic deprivation due to Western imperialism back home etc. Elsewhere he records conversations with clerics and civil officials who brag about the Pakistani role in bringing Islam to the West, citing Scandinavia and Britain as particularly successful areas.
OT, but I’m in that kind of mood.
By the way, I do get out once in a blue moon. The other night I was in the saloon and guess who walked in? It was a really weird night, I even tapped my boot.
For you younger generations I imagine it will get your blood up.
Enjoy:
WASP! “Blind in Texas”
Gotta go, chores await and the temperature is rising outside. It’s 95 degrees already.
Damn…
Papa Ray
to Subotai, Papa Ray and others,
Often when I read your posts, I am humbled at the clarity of your thinking. Even more to realize that some of you came to wisdom through the crucible of combat.
There are few these days who even know any families with members in the military service of this country. But a lot of us are the children of those who went to war to defeat the NAZIs and the Imperial Japanese military, or the North Koreans, Chinese, NVA, VC, or Republican Guard. In the United States, most people who go through military training have been folks who place a high value on the traditions and qualities of Liberty, citizenship, and lawful government that starkly distinguish our country from those that send their people fleeing.
Thank God, though… military training isn’t the only path to discipline, or readiness to serve and sacrifice.
It’s worth remembering that the last century has seen hundreds of millions of deaths caused by international conflict, countries invading and attacking each other. But even more people have been murdered by their own oppressive governments. The victims have almost without exception been populations whose governments had stripped’em of any right to weapons with which to defend themselves.
Now only an idiot can be blind to the swift approach of catastrophe. Some parts of that catastrophe, like the imminent collapse of credit and the monetary system, result from deliberate policies imposed for decades by the “Progressivist” left – Community Reinvestment Act and the prolonged extortion of banks to violate long-established principles of lending, followed by years of looting of Fannie May and Freddie Mac by political whore pals of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. How many hundreds of millions of dollars -of taxpayers’ money – did Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick award themselves as bonuses for buying up worthless mortgages – again, with taxpayers’ money?
But as the United States economy falters, and we can no longer help other countries as we have for over a century, chaos and strife will become the defining aspect of the next decades. Meanwhile, the hardline Marxist revolutionaries currently dominating the administration are trying to subjugate the majority of their fellows who think the U.S. Constitution is worth saving, or precipitate a crisis they can use to justify suspending the Constitution indefinitely, or both.
The current administration and legislature, dominated by Leftist and Marxist policy makers, has distorted and trampled on Constitutional procedures to enact oppressive laws that lawmakers sneeringly joke they haven’t even bothered to read. The dominant party legislators have brought union thugs in their purple shirts to intimidate and assault grandmothers and law-abiding citizens protesting the abuses at scheduled public town hall meetings. The President’s Attorney General has contemptuously refused to prosecute the most blatant act of voter intimidation of the last two generations, done by New Black Panther Party members in paramilitary gear, brandishing clubs and shouting racist insults at a Philadelphia precinct during the presidential election of 2008. He has insulted and demeaned the United States military, while continuing to send them to risk death in combat.
Obama continues to frustrate, forbid, and deny every attempt to contain the leaked oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil well, and he has denied and interfered with every attempt to protect the affected marshes, inlets, and beaches. He is deliberately doing everything he can to aggravate and multiply the damage. Months of his sickening work will create destruction orders of magnitude greater than it would have been if he would just allow people to begin cleaning up. The only possible rationale is that he wants to use the resulting multiplication of destruction as a rationale for further oppressive and self-mutilating policies. This is PROVEN by the proposals he has put out since, to stop all U.S. oil platforms in the Gulf.
This is deliberate sabotage. He might as well be in the wheelhouse of a capital ship, tying the hands and feet of the captain and navigator while the ship plows on toward a crowded pier. He CAN NOT BE SO STUPID that he does not understand precisely what he’s doing.
It’s INSANE. Since drilling started in the Gulf, there have been 42,000 wells from thousands of drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, of which only a fraction are subject to Obama’s dictates. Shutting down U.S. platforms would still leave hundreds or thousands of wells operating. Besides which, this is the ONLY significant leak in the Gulf for decades.
Plainly, there are evil bastards working to provoke bloodshed and civil strife, even to the point of civil war, thinking that they will be able to direct and profit from the chaos.
They despise the people who believe the gun ownership right guaranteed in the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is meant finally as last resort protection from a tyrannical government. Exactly, because THEY are the tyrants.
But the people who are so intent on bringing America to its knees are out of their reckoning. They do not seem to consider the historical certainty that a great power beset by internal strife has always invited opportunistic attack from outside.
As other folks have commented, having outside players funnel their support to domestic opponents is even sure to be more dangerous and damaging than the civil strife per se.
It’s likely to be like the robot wars they used to televise regularly staged in San Francisco, where the machines tear each other to pieces, with sparks and flying shards of metal, while the drunken crowd cheers. With a lot more bleeding.
We need to pray and prepare.
15. ic beat me to it, but I still have to ask: have the words “brain trust” and “Joe Biden” every before appeared related to each other in the same sentence?
Hot damn, fiddler –i’m ready to MARCH –you sound like Patrick goshdang Henry!
but you’re right –nearby thread has a Marl Steyn quote in comments –about how disengaged this prez seems –look, if you were layering on the demoralization like coats of paint one by one, how would you personally have to seem to be? knowledgable and active? No, absolutely not –you’d be crazy –it would be like admitting you “read the bill” –far better to be a quaint eccentric than a stalinist conspirator.
No, you’d have to affect absent-minded professor lofty otherworldliness –”i didn’t read the bill” –which is zackley the face we see turned toward the deep south — the resource-rich “Ukraine”.
“Now only an idiot can be blind to the swift approach of catastrophe. Some parts of that catastrophe, like the imminent collapse of credit and the monetary system, result from deliberate policies imposed for decades by the “Progressivist” left – Community Reinvestment Act and the prolonged extortion of banks to violate long-established principles of lending, followed by years of looting of Fannie May and Freddie Mac by political whore pals of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. How many hundreds of millions of dollars -of taxpayers’ money – did Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick award themselves as bonuses for buying up worthless mortgages – again, with taxpayers’ money?”
—
Not to worry, Fiddler:
Financial reform has now been passed.
2000 pages worth.
Produced by…
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Buddy,
Dennis Prager was talking to Andy McCarthy about how the left and Islam enable one another.
Prager brought up the anti anticommunists in the Cold War.
They weren’t commies, but they battled the anticommunists.
Says that’s currently the most powerful weapon of today’s left:
They are not Muslims, but they effectively discredit and silence those warning of the threat that promoters of Sharia represent to the West.
Useful way to look at it as PC Speech Police continue to weaken our First Ammendment Rights.
“Liberals” banning everything from dodgeball in schools to the mention of the word Islam in any story involving violence against the West.
Taking a break, clouds building, hot wind getting up, radar shows thunderstorms forming.
Storms coming in more ways than one.
I read your true words Fiddler with profound regret and have the same disgust with the criminals and traitors that are forcing these unbelievable, (but true) despicable actions on us.
Times are changing for the worse and I’m afraid most will not be prepared for them.
As a companion piece I would like to recommend this.
Another heads up on more skulduggery – from Subotai.
“Tyranny Unfettered”
More and more…month after month. Like you say it is INSANE.
As Subotai and Fiddler say, evil times are upon us. It is up to each of you to prepare and protect not only your family – but come the day – Our Republic.
Papa Ray
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
re: Second Ammendment -
Our Secretary of State, The Honorable Hillary Clinton, has signed onto an International Treaty regarding the banning of guns.
The Left knows there’s more than one way around the Constitution.
Doug here is a short video that says it all:
“UK jihadist misunderstands Islam, says it’s not a Religion of Peace™”
Because of reasons stated in the video and by you and others most people in the world don’t understand Islam or it’s aims.
My belief is that most just don’t want to understand, they just want to ignore Islam and hope it goes away. They don’t want to know the truth.
Because that is just too much for most of them to handle.
Nobody wants to think that over two billion people want them to submit and convert or be be slaves under Islam, pay to stay alive or if they won’t submit…
Want them dead.
That is just too much.
Papa Ray
Ref: treaty. I think there is a little bit more to it than her signing anything to make it stick. In fact I’m sure of it.
I’m guessing someone may mention surge, as in larger surge into the cauldron. Pre-emptively, I state doubling the number of troops would quadruple the number of burning supply trucks. There be partisans guarding that encirclement.
I’d have advised Petraeus to decline the demotion. O don’t really want a win, he wants to weaken USA any which way but loose. He may also want to dis-credit this fine specimen of a general. Lulling him to step into a pair of blue suede shoes, then finding sure ways to generate failure…
Food for thought: I really worry that huge amounts of wealth transfer, to foreign entities, may have resulted in our wonderful military being _sold_ as mercenaries to those agreeing to buy our debt. Who really wants USA in Afghan?
Duh?!
Yeah, Obama is doing to his own countrymen what Ronald Reagan did to the Russians.
He is racing to bankrupt us.
Funny, one would think you’d only do that to your enemy.
You’d think…
PR, I missed the context of the interview, now having slapped my forehead with an open palm heel, I have gone back and reread the piece by the RS writer Hastings.
What most astonishes me is that the people on Obama’s staff would give any credit at all to the author of the thing. Having played fast and loose with fact and events, tying the General first to the torture scandal and then to nancy ROE makes it obvious the author hasn’t a clue about things. Tossing about the term Counterinsurgency and its shortened version COIN as though there were only one way to do it and only one definition of it in the same way many reporters deal with the idea of force multiplier, believing it only means more guns and more bullets.
The report itself only reinforced for me the sad reality that the president and vice president do not understand the art of diplomacy, and especially do not understand how to use as powerful a diplomatic tool as the US military. If indeed the president had a clue, he would have reprimanded the magazine and freed the generals hands to pursue the war with vigor.
“You better be out there hitting four or five targets tonight,” Then add, “I’m going to have to scold you in the morning for it, though.” are not the words of a general that has free reign over his AOR.
I don’t know if the article’s intent was to mess with the General or not, as I don’t think the author understood (then or now) what he was writing. The happy, if unintended, consequence may be to lift an oppressive ROE from off the soldiers backs.
I would join you in the salt provided it is sea salt, but I’m afraid you’ll have to drink alone. Not to be rude but I don’t want to be rude either.
Pakistan is now monitoring Google, Yahoo, MSM etc for ‘blasphemy’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10418643.stm
Question is, how will they respond?
Michael Yon invited by Brits and US to embed again
It’s a Saturday morning and I feel good. Kids are fed, playing outside, bills are paid, larder is overstocked, I’ve got plenty of protection and resolve. Sissy our dog is happy, healthy and playing with her two happy, healthy sisters. I feel better now than anytime in my earlier life. I have more than I deserve.
But I did have a disturbing dream last night. Not too bad but this tune kept going, and going and going in my ol’ feeble mind.
Guess I made the mistake of listening to it on the radio yesterday. It evidently kinda stuck.
Pardon my sharing, but sometimes it helps and sometimes not.
Have a great weekend. Give and show your love to those around you. Life is short and most times you never get the chance to say I love you or goodbye.
It’s never the wrong time to tell those that you love, how much you love them.
Papa Ray
Goodbye
I remember holdin’ on to you
All them long and lonely nights I put you through
Somewhere in there I’m sure I made you cry
But I can’t remember if we said goodbye
But I recall all of them nights down in Mexico
One place I may never go in my life again
Was I just off somewhere or just too high
But I can’t remember if we said goodbye
I only miss you every now and then
Like the soft breeze blowin’ up from the Caribbean
Most Novembers I break down and cry
Cause I can’t remember if we said goodbye
But I recall all of them nights down in Mexico
One place I will never go in my life again
Was I just off somewhere or just too high
But I can’t remember if we said goodbye
No I can’t remember if we said goodbye
Goodbye goodbye
(Emmy Lou Harris sings Steve Earle song)
***
{sometimes they sing it together}
–for late night, way past whiskey-thirty
– MajGen J.D. Lynch USMC (Ret.)
cannoneer/170; damn –at last –straight talk –i wish he’d point out also that the strategic reality seems to many observers to be that the entire expedition is very near to being an actual physical hostage –and that such condition seems to be falling now to the whim of a few people –some of them inside the highest levels of the US government –who would love to see America fall.
Gen Petraeus has that one prong fork, and one year to eat an unknown quantity of spaghetti.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTZhYTc5NjM5ZjNhNDE0YjcwOWVmOTdjOGVjN2Y5ZWM=
(ht Instapundit, Rumsfeld speaks)
(snip)
This country – which has treated me so well, and which offers so much opportunity for us all – exists and prospers because the members of the United States armed forces, have stepped forward and volunteered to protect it. In a very real sense, America is their gift to the future.
Papa Ray (#142): “it is said that God only helps those who help themselves.”
In which case, God help us!
“where the government refuses to stand for reelection”
Alternatively, they can gerrymander themselves into tenure. I am reminded of a quote from the Cromwell movie: “An immovable Parliament is more obnoxious than an immovable King!” (The entire address to Parliament is a classic.)
Sgian Dubh>/b> (#164): “Obama is doing to his own countrymen what Ronald Reagan did to the Russians. He is racing to bankrupt us.”
Ah, but we’ll be the healthiest indigents ever!
Cannonneer: Solution is to recruit the indiginous forces from the local populace. Entice them by paying them. This allows to “hold” with a minimum of US manpower/tax dollars.
The areas being held can then be made to network with each other through various and sundry agricultural and animal husbandry projects and whatever else that can be turned up.
Then these networked groups combine to form the national government.
Means that Karzai and company are relegated to Mayor of Kabul. Their proper function. Marines did all this in VN via their CAP Teams.
Problem: Our own government, especially Foggy Bottom is instinctively opposed to
federal principles. Problem worsens with current administration and congress.
Nonetheless, the physical problem is very solvable.
PS: Gotta go now. Hot date tonight. A dynamite chick name of Chiquita.