Posted on 09/21/2009 3:04:40 AM PDT by SE Mom
It’s heartbreaking. Our country needs a leader. Instead, it has a thoroughly unqualified, racist Socialist who hates our country, and envisions himself to be a mix of Mussolini and Nipsey Russell.
McChrystal says: “Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support.”
0’s ‘justification’ yesterday was that he didn’t want to risk sending another military man/woman into harm’s way without a plan for victory. So he has no problem risking the lives of troops already there and the probability of total mission failure.
I honestly don’t know- given the current leadership- what is the wisest course for our defense and safety.
I can argue it either way at this point- but my distrust of this administration is so profound I can’t imagine them waging a successful war anywhere.
Now, back to watching the Prevaricator in Chief continue his tango with the media and the American people about how much smarter he is than his generals
God Help our troops over there struggling while the incompetent narcissist muses out loud about not yet having a “strategy” (ie, whether to win or lose)
remember Colin Powell backstabbing Bush because he didn’t send enough troops to Iraq.....
when Powell was on the talk head circuit prevaricating about sending more troops?
Where is Colin Powell now? Sitting in the chicken sh!t gallery?
So O doesn’t want to risk the lives of reinforcements, but the tens of thousands calling for support over there are just supposed to wait until wisdom falls down and hits this jackass TOTUS on the head?
Kind of a macrocosm of the 4 US marines who died this week in a withering taliban ambush, after calling and waiting over an hour for support- because of obama ROE restrictions
Obama wants to wait until McChrystal’s report is fully flushed from the news cycle.
I can see the future now. Obama denies the request for more troops and we start pulling out of Afghanistan leaving them to fend for themselves. Then “The One” blames it on Bush by saying he took his eye off the ball by going to Iraq and now it’s too late to win in Afghanistan..
Ping. But the larger issue is overall US security. If Onada pulls us out of Afghanistan and the Al Queda murderers hit us again on our own soil, it’ll one more negative for The Dear Leader.
I don’t think much of McCrystal’s sitting still for Onada’s ROE, but on the larger point I like the pressure he’s putting on the Marxist occupying the WH.
I am almost in favor of the military taking Obama in exile to Honduras and giving Biden the Presidency. You are either going to fight to win or get out and not pander to the leftists in your party. Fighting a war is not a political decision. This president is extremely naive like none other.
so if it was confidential..who leaked it and why?
And isn’t this some kind of crime to leak this kind of info?
By Anne Gearan
WASHINGTON — The situation in Afghanistan is growing worse, and without more boots on the ground the U.S. risks failure in a war it's been waging since September 2001, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan says in a confidential report.
"Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," Gen. Stanley McChrystal wrote in a five-page Commander's Summary. His 66-page report, sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Aug. 30, is now under review by President Barack Obama.
Details of McChrystal's assessment were first reported late Sunday by The Washington Post. The newspaper posted a link to the report on its Web site, with some operational details withheld at the request of the Pentagon.
"Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall effort is deteriorating," McChrystal said of the war's progress.
While asserting that more troops are needed, McChrystal also pointed out an "urgent need" to significantly revise strategy. The U.S. needs to interact better with the Afghan people, McChrystal said, and better organize its efforts with NATO allies.
"We run the risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical wins that cause civilian casualties or unnecessary collateral damage. The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves," he wrote.
In his blunt assessment of the tenacious Taliban insurgency, McChrystal warned that unless the U.S. and its allies gain the initiative and reverse the momentum of the militants within the next year the U.S. "risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible"
Gates spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed the Post report, but said the Pentagon would not release McChrystal's assessment.
"While we would have much preferred none of this be made public at this time we appreciate the paper's willingness to edit out those passages which would likely have endangered personnel and operations in Afghanistan," Morrell said in an e-mail statement.
The Pentagon and the White House are awaiting a separate, more detailed request for additional troops and resources. Media reports Friday and Saturday said McChrystal has finished it but was told to pocket it, partly because of the charged politics surrounding the decision. McChrystal's senior spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told The Associated Press on Sunday the report is not complete.
Obama is re-evaluating whether the renewed focus on hunting al-Qaida that he announced just months ago has become blurred and whether more forces will do any good.
"Are we doing the right thing?" he asked during one of a series of interviews broadcast Sunday. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"
A spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said Sunday the Afghan government would not second-guess international military commanders on the need for more troops, but said that the greatest need is actually on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
"The focus should be on those points and areas where the insurgency is infiltrating Afghanistan," he said, referring to the Pakistan border region where Taliban and al-Qaida fighters hide and plan attacks.
In Congress, the war has taken on a highly partisan edge. Senate Republicans are demanding more forces to turn around a war that soon will enter its ninth year, while members of Obama's own Democratic Party are trying to put on the brakes. Obama said in the Sunday interviews that he will not allow politics to govern his decision.
Nor has the president asked his top commander in Afghanistan to sit on a request for U.S. reinforcements in a backsliding war.
"No, no, no, no," Obama responded when asked whether he or aides had directed McChrystal to temporarily withhold a request for additional U.S. forces and other resources.
But he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether to send more Americans into harm's way.
"The only thing I've said to my folks is, 'A, I want an unvarnished assessment, but, B, I don't want to put the resource question before the strategy question,'" Obama said. "Because there is a natural inclination to say, 'If I get more, then I can do more.'"
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week he expected McChrystal's request for additional forces and other resources "in the very near future."
Other military officials had said the request would go to McChrystal's boss, Gen. David Petraeus, and up the chain of command in a matter of weeks. The White House discounted that timeline, but has remained vague about how long it would take to receive the report and act on it.
In the interviews taped Friday at the White House, Obama mentioned concerns about the "mission creep" that befell former President George W. Bush's attempt to build and prop up a viable democratic government in a country unaccustomed to central rule and sensitive to foreign meddling.
Obama said he's asking this question now of the military regarding his plan: "How does this advance America's national security interests? How does it make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot attack the United States homeland, our allies, our troops who are based in Europe?"
"If supporting the Afghan national government and building capacity for their army and securing certain provinces advances that strategy, then we'll move forward," the president continued. "But if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way, you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration."
Obama spoke on CNN's "State of the Union," ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," and CBS' "Face the Nation."
The true context of McChrystal's call, (piss be upon him,) for more Troops is in the first line of a paragraph far down the aricle.
It is NOT his goal to protect our WARRIORS.
It is NOT his goal to defeat the Taliban.
It is NOT his goal to protect the National Security of this country!
The headline for this article is GROSSLY misleading.
Me to McChrystal:
YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE UNIFORM! YOU ARE BETRAYING OUR WARRIORS!
ME TO THE PENTAGON: When are you going to do the right thing by our TROOPS?????
a mix of Mussolini and Nipsey Russell.
Lol!
“Because there is a natural inclination to say, ‘If I get more, then I can do more.’”
And he should know.
McChrystal is not fighting a war. This is insanity. BEYOND insanity.
This is not what our brave Troops should be engaged in. They will be killed doing this. They are already being killed doing this.
It is inexcusable.
Some of the comments at the WP illustrate what an uphill battle lies ahead. Most support cut & run:
Of course, if you read or watch the American MSM (or McChrystal “top-secret” report, for that matter), you may reach the same conclusion: more troops are needed in order to succeed in our noble goal of saving Afghanistan from those bad, ugly barbarians who enjoy killing our fully-armored troops.
But,
If you take a look at other sources (for instance mainstream European, Asian, Middle-East media), you may understand something pretty obvious: those ugly barbarians are fighting against foreign invaders who have installed a corrupt puppet government.
Is the U.S. military/industrial complex crazy or just blood thirsty. Who is in charge the CIA or our elected government? Does Gates realize he is no longer in charge of the CIA?
Republicans have been “cutting and running” on health care reform for 70 years!
Now - it’s a quagmire.
But Republicans will GLADLY support more war spending in THE country where empires go to die.
Those are fairly representative...that is what folks hear in the Beltway.
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