Posted on 09/27/2009 5:12:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The New York Times reports on the conflicting advice President Obama is getting on Afghanistan, as he considers whether to go along with commanding general Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops. The Times story is interesting, since it is based on either 1) a dozen or more separate leaks from pretty much every member of Obama's security team and others, or 2) a comprehensive leak from someone in the White House who, in effect, wanted to plant a story in the newspaper.
The more likely alternative is the second. The White House wants people to know that many advisers oppose McChrystal's recommendation, presumably in order to pave the way for an Obama decision to move away from engagement in Afghanistan. Thus, whoever leaked the story tells us:
As President Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, he has discovered that the military is not monolithic in support of the plan and that some of the civilian advisers he respects most have deep reservations. ...
General McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 additional troops for the eight-year-old war, a number that has generated concern among top officers like Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, who worry about the capacity to provide more soldiers at a time of stress on the force, officials said.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a retired four-star Army general, visited Mr. Obama in the Oval Office this month and expressed skepticism that more troops would guarantee success, according to people briefed on the discussion. ...
Mr. Powell is one of the three people, with Senator John F. Kerry and Senator Jack Reed, considered by White House aides to be most influential in this current debate.
That tells you all you need to know.
Mr. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has warned of repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where he served, and has floated the idea of a more limited counterterrorist mission. ...
In the West Wing, beyond Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has advocated an alternative strategy to the troop buildup, other presidential advisers sound dubious about more troops, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, according to people who have spoken with them. ...
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has endorsed the idea of more troops and will be at the table representing the military. But other officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and say they admire General McChrystal nonetheless have privately expressed doubt that additional troops will make a difference. ...
Advisers who have Mr. Obama's ear have raised other questions. Mr. Powell went to see Mr. Obama for other reasons, but his remarks on Afghanistan have been cited in the White House since then. "The question the president has to answer is, 'What will more troops do?' " Mr. Powell told reporters before a speech in California last week. "You have to not just add troops. You need a clear definition of your mission and then you can determine whether you need more troops or other resources."
In an interview, Senator Kerry, who met with Admiral Mullen last week, said that he had not made up his mind about the troop buildup but "we have to ask some very tough questions about that, questioning the underlying assumptions." In Vietnam, he said, "the underlying assumptions were flawed, and the number of troops weren't going to make a difference."
The moral of the story seems pretty clear: when President Obama announces that he doesn't intend to accept General McChrystal's recommendation, we will all understand that this is the prudent course advocated by most knowledgeable military and civilian leaders.
I’m sure glad we didn’t listen to men like Eienhower and Patton....
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/26/mcchrystal-report-officially-backburnered-now/
McChrystal report officially backburnered now
After everyone else had heard what General Stanley McChrystal needs for his mission to succeed in Afghanistan, the Obama administration took official custody today of the report that requests a significant troop increase for the Af-Pak theater. However, Barack Obama will not officially get to see it for a while. The Pentagon says they will hold his request, officially, until Obama officially makes an official decision about the officially official policy he wants to officially pursue in the war:
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has submitted a request for more troops, a spokesman said Saturday, but the Pentagon will hold it while President Barack Obama decides what strategy to pursue.
General Stanley McChrystal hand delivered his long-awaited request to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.
“At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side,” Sholtis said after McChrystal returned from the meeting at an air base in Germany. …
The White House says it wants to review the entire strategy for the region before considering McChrystal’s request.
“Right now the focus is on the strategic assessment itself. It (the troop request) will be shelved until such time that the White House is ready,” a defense official said in Washington.
Er … what? Doesn’t the strategic assessment include required troop strengths? McChrystal’s report should be a key part of those considerations, since the strategic considerations rely on having the force strength required to support the strategy.
Shelving the request makes it clear that Obama and the White House want to conduct a political review of the mission. That’s not illegitimate; after all, part of the consideration has to be whether our allies have the political will to support us in the Af-Pak theater, as well as whether Americans have the political will to continue the fight. If neither exists, then the entire question of strategy is moot, and the focus will shift to retreat from the theater.
The problem with this is that the Obama administration has already had plenty of time for political calculation. They have been in office since January, and Obama campaigned for two years on the pledge to fight in Afghanistan with more resources and focus than the previous administration. The politics of the war have not changed much, at least in terms other than polling.
Obama wanted to be Commander in Chief, and he has had that role for eight months. The question of politics should have already been well settled by this time. So far he has done a good job of fighting the war in Afghanistan, but this very public vacillation undermines the projection of American strength in the region and encourages a defeatist attitude. It’s time to fish or cut bait on the politics and start seriously addressing the strategy, if we’re going to fight and win this war.
This is a no brainer. Emporer Obama’s hard core left wing advisers and supporters are self hating, self loathing Americans who would never support victory in any war. Obama himself ran on a platform of defeat in Iraq in order to get resources to “the good war” in Afghanistan. Now is the time for final decisions on Afghanistan and the Emperor waivers and vacilates as Americans die. Shall we win or shall we continue to send young Americans into a meat grinder for no reason. His military and America hating advisers fiddle while Afghanistan burns.
“The moral of the story seems pretty clear: when President Obama announces that he doesn’t intend to accept General McChrystal’s recommendation, we will all understand that this is the prudent course advocated by most knowledgeable military and civilian leaders.”
The slimes already working to cover for the Emperor and for the coming defeat in Afghanistan. When Obama meets the press, the floor is slippery with drool and spit from the inability to control their bodily functions.
Just a hunch, my extrapolation of publicly-exposed events and reactions, but I’d be willing to bet donuts to dimes that Obama’s advisers don’t just oppose Gen. McChrystal’s request for more troops, they actually, in Clinton/good Democrat fashion, oppose General McChrystal and the entire U. S. Army and the whole United States military. ‘Twould be my guess, for instance, that more than a few of Obama’s advisers would replace the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with, say, an Altar to the Urban Graveyard Voter, if they could.
These Dems are VERY disingenuous.
Remember when John Kerry was running for president ? He kept harping on the fact that we were being distracted from the REAL WAR with the terrorists in AFGHANISTAN who plotted and aided and abetted the hijackers in because of our war on Saddam Hussein.
Now that Iraq is stable and the focus is on Afghanistan, it seems like he and his Democratic ilk are singing a different tune.
All the more reason to pray for our troops.
this is the general that denied his troops that were under fire artillery and air support, resulting in the death of 4 marines and the wounding of more....he deserves nothing less than to have his stars ripped off his shoulders, put up against a wall and shot...
And they were saying that Health Care was Obama’s Waterloo.
They haven’t seen nuthin yet.
If they think we’ll sit meekly by as he pulls our troops out and let the terrorist assume victory, he has another think coming.
The time for talk is over, Mr. President.
McChrystal?
More info..that sure doesn’t seem like him.
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