Posted on 10/11/2009 10:09:18 AM PDT by kristinn
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) strongly criticized Barack Obama for dithering over accepting the recommendation for troops increases in Afghanistan by his handpicked Aghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and blamed the delay for contributing to the deaths of eight U.S. soldiers at a small base in Nuristan that was nearly overrun by the Taliban last week.
Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, made her remarks on a panel discussion on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos this morning:
I don't know how you put somebody in who was as crackerjack as General McChrystal, who gives the president very solid recommendations, and not take those recommendations if you're not going to pull out.
If you don't want to take the recommendations, then you -- you -- you put your people in such jeopardy, just like the base in Nuristan. We lost eight of our men. We didn't have the ability to defend them, and now the base is closing, and effectively we're -- we're retreating away from it. And so I think the decision has to be made sooner, rather than later.
Feinstein participated in a meeting at the White House with Obama and other members of Congress earlier in the week. She told Stephanopoulos her take:
Well, what he revealed was his thinking up to this point, and that the fact that he wanted to hear from various members, and some of us spoke up. And I'll tell you what I said. I reviewed all of the intelligence and looked at the situation, and it was pretty clear to me that violence was up 100 percent, 950 attacks in August. The Taliban now controls 37 percent of the people in the areas where these people are. Attrition in police is running 67 percent, either killed or leaving the service.
And the mission is in serious jeopardy. I think General McChrystal, who is one of our very best, if not the best at this, has said a counterterrorism strategy will not work. The president said to us very clearly, just as you said, George, we will not pull out.
Now, if you're going to stay, you have to have a way of winning. The question is, what is that way? And I think the counterinsurgency strategy, which means protecting the people, not shooting from afar, but securing, taking, holding, and providing security for a period of time is really critical.
Feinstein also described her view of dealing with the Taliban:
I think it depends on what you mean by "Taliban." I think if you take the Haqqani network, which I gather was generally responsible for the bombing of the interior ministry in Kabul, I think they're hardcore fanatics.
If you look back, too, at Taliban control, when it had more in the earlier days, and I've got to tell you, I particularly worry about women in Afghanistan, acid in their face of children, girl children who go to school, women who can't work when they're widowed, huddled on the streets, begging, women beaten and shot in stadiums, you know, Sharia law with all of its violence, I mean, that's one element of the -- of the Taliban.
I think we need to look for those warlords that we can work with, those Pashtuns who want to work for stability, for good, solid governance. I don't think we can make the country into a Jeffersonian democracy, but I do think you -- you've got to stabilize this country.
You leave this country, and the Taliban are increasing all of the time. They're taking over more. It will have a dramatic impact on Pakistan one day. I really believe that.
She also stated she did not want U.S. forces to stay in Afghanistan for another decade or more. She thinks the American people would not support it.
However, Feinstein's sharp criticism of Obama is sure to inflame the debate at a time when both the right and left are questioning Obama's competency as president.
She’s not up for re-election... WTF?
Apparently, our military is being put in terrible situations in Afghanistan without proper equipment again....
How much did the new tariff on Chinese tires cost her husband? :)
Feinstein is as close as we have to an old-style Democrat...much more statist than Republicans (in theory), but not anti-American at heart. The old Dems didn’t necessarily hate their own country, the way Obama and the modern ones do.
I’m glad she’s speaking out.
Hard-core left-wingers like those who occupy the White House love to see our military take it on the chin. They delight in the sight of the coffins returning to Dover. The anguish of ordinary, traditional American families grieving over their fallen children gives them an erotic thrill. That they “died for their country” makes them snicker.
HOLY MOSES! You know the Mr Voted Present has hit a new low when DI-FI blasted him like this.
I disagree with most of Feinstein’s positions, but it has long been clear that she has more balls than most male California politicians, including the current governor.
Maybe she is worried about the gravy train coming to an end.
Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict
http://www.bohemian.com/metro/01.24.07/dianne-feinstein-0704.html
She's spot on - which is a first for her...the bambolina must be furious with her - she's showing herself to be a 'typical white woman."
Obama is not a decision maker...period.
I truly believe that a big factor in his non-decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan was that he knew that this BS Nobel Peace Prize was coming. If so, IMO it would be the most despicable act a US President has ever committed!
Wow
She's an old-school leftist who'll hit it out of the park every now and then.
I’m shocked and think this is a good thing.
I figured most liberal Dems would stick with the Baraqqis to the bitter end.
Perhaps they sense Messiah is fading fast in the polls?
It's all about phony good-cop-bad-cop posturing. Axelrod & Emmanuel are attempting to bring up the jOker's approval numbers by showing how (don't laugh) 'tough' he is. DiFi couldn't care less; she's a surrendering dhimmi pacifist.
Major Mañana.
General Lee Indecisive.
This Rat is indeed deserting the Obama ship (ark), but I believe gubernatorial politics might be behind her excoriations today. DiFi for guv?
You are correct.
Are you in California or have you just followed Feinsteins career in politics? I ask because you hit the nail on the head. Feinstein is an untouchable.
Just two days after six neomarxist Norwegian politicians gave the Great Equivocator the World Messiah award for pledging not to resort to the use of military force to deal with terrorists like the Taliban, DiFi's smacking him for not putting 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan.
Meanwhile Difi has conveniently forgotten that it was a decisive Republican president who had the courage and fortitude to commit military force to break the back of the Taliban thugocracy that had consigned the lives of millions of Afghan women to a worth less than that of domestic animals.
Excuse me, but, when did hell freeze over?! WOW!
Feinstein must not have gotten the memo from Democrat Central that their posturing about Afghanistan being the good war for the past 8 years was just a tactical ruse and meant nothing.
Well she is probably going to run for Governor in 2010, but still this was absolutely spot on!
Props to the Senior Senator from CA!
“big factor in his non-decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan was that he knew that this BS Nobel Peace Prize was coming.” Should be the “No Balls - No Peace Prize”. He earned. But at what cost? We’ll see for years to come.
This is very interesting, considering that Feinstein is a respected senior Democrat who is a master at games of palace intrigue.
She wouldn't do this, unless some hidden tectonic shift wasn't already happening.
For her to publicly state such disagreement with Obama's leadership is a serious vote of no confidence - and yes, it's a signal to other Dems that it's now safe to go "off the reservation".
“If you look back, too, at Taliban control, I’ve got to tell you, I particularly worry about women in Afghanistan,” _____________Women in Islam
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles.htm
Exactly bump.
Unlike Barbara Boxer, Feinstein occasionally comes out with something admirable and to the point, as she certainly does here.
I’m not what you’d call a fan of Feinstein, whose faults are obvious. But like Ed Koch, she can be solidly good on some issues. And actually honest.
Exactly. She's calling him out because he won't take responsibility for the troop decision and wants to share it with Congressional Democrats so he can duck and cover later if things go badly. As a California conservative I really dislike DiFi. But she has phenomenal political instincts and she can smell Zero's blood in the water.
Watch for a press release tomorrow: “Ms. Feinstein’s office wishes to clarify her statements, which have been mischaracterized in the media...”
Her hubby must be needing more of those government contracts she slipped him before without them going up for bids.
Response: He is inept. Some people attribute malice to this clown when it is simple incapacity. I can understand the confusion as negligence and malice often achieve the same result. His entire life has been one gigantic EEOP.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Feinstein rips him a new one. You don’t want to p!$$ off a woman!
Did she vote for impeachment?
If she keeps this up the Obama is going to need another date night with his wife or a vacation.
Maybe he’ll discover he left his umbrella in Copenhagen and needs to return there to pick it up.
He may need to take a pre-survey trip to Stockholm before he receives his joke prize.
Putin smiles.
Chaves grins.
Obama dithers again and again and again . . . .
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Friday, 09 October 2009
snip....
The conversations at the Cosmos Club this week were very subdued. As it has been for generations, this is where the true power elite of Washington gathers. Whether it was in the East Garden Bar, the Old Club Room, or the Members Dining Room, the savviest veterans of Capitol Hill and K Street - Democrat and Republican - had a tone of fear and seriousness you didn't hear the week before.
Something had scared them. Scared them like an earthquake had fractured their political foundations. The one whispered word you could overhear more than any other was "Copenhagen."
For them, President and Mrs. Zero flying off to Copenhagen to beg the International Olympics Committee for Chicago and being rejected was not a matter of humiliation. It was scales falling off their eyes, and in an eye-blink realizing the enormity of the mistake America made last November.
And at breakfast in the Garden Dining Room this morning (10/09), there were hardly conversations at all, just shocked silence. The consequences of giving a president afflicted with pathological egomania combined with pathological amateurishness the Nobel Peace Prize were so grave they were speechless.
These grizzled hard-nosed guys can handle egomaniacs and ideologues, for DC is overrun with such folk. What they can't handle, what actually scares them, is off-the-wall bozo sophomoric amateurs in positions of real power. And if the amateur in question is at the apex of real power and is so nutso narcissistic that he can't be educated to be less amateurish, now they start to freak out.
One basic rule that all presidents adhere to, Dem or Pub makes no difference, is they never risk the prestige of the presidency on a negotiation that could result in public humiliation. It's always negotiated by White House Sherpas in advance so it's a done deal, and the POTUS just shows up for the applause and photo-ops.
The Copenhagen Fiasco has scared every pro in Washington because it was Total Absolute Amateur City by a presidential ego run amok.
So Cosmos is quiet this morning, as everyone realizes this pathological ego is now on steroids with this farce of a peace prize.
***
You won't, however, hear any conspiracy talk at Cosmos. For that you have to go to the GOP's favorite watering hole, the Capitol Hill Club. Not a few Pub Congressistas were speculating there over a quick cup of morning coffee that George Soros must have paid off the Norwegian Nobel Committee to counter Zero's humiliation in Copenhagen and being ridiculed on Saturday Night Live.
Maybe. Becoming an object of ridicule is often irrecoverably deadly to a politician. For a long time, comedians just couldn't tell jokes about The One. Then Bill Maher on HBO had this zinger:
Yep, I’ll guarantee you this support of hers is a trade off for something...she wouldn’t buck Dumbama if getting her way on something else wasn’t much worth it to her.
I’m betting her reason is one of two...a run for the governorship, or an exchange vote possibly on health care or cap ‘n trade.
Wow, rare kudos to a Democrat. See, DiFi, I didn’t even capitalize the last three letters as I do 99.5% of the time. Thank you for seeing this clearly.
EEOP???
Do you have a link for that, please? Signed, too lazy to search. :)
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