Official Resigns Over Afghan War (Marine Officer fed up...my words)

The Washington Post ^ | 10/27/09 | Karen DeYoung

[Grumpybutt]

A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.

But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

[Grumpybutt]

The actual resignation letter can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf?hpid=topnews

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I still firmly believe that if our troops aren't going to given what they need to win, then bring them home.

[fso301]

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I still firmly believe that if our troops aren't going to given what they need to win, then bring them home.

Why not demand that hussein make good on his repeated campaign promises to vigorously fight the "good war" in Afghanistan while simultaneously hunting down bin laden?

[Crim]

exactly...Oduma knows if he drags his feet long enough...even some conservatives will want to cut and run...

JOHN F’N KERRY is advising Oduma....any questions????

[freeangel]

“if our troops aren’t going to be given what they need to win, then bring them home”

They won’t be given what they need and they won’t be brought home. Obamination is in need of big distractions right now that the polls have him going down the toilet. I believe his game plan is to let as many of out guys die as possible while trying to spin it as still the fault of Bush. He’s going to still play the victim.

[Malesherbes]

My views have evolved/devolved/goneeverywhichway, but this is where they are now. I do not think Commandante Zero has the guts or political will to do what is necessary to win. He will just continue to waste the lives of brave Americans while he improves his golf game.

[nathanbedford]

I confess I find myself torn asunder on this one. On the one hand I react viscerally against every overture of this administration. If the administration says this is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time, I want to fight it to the bitter end right now. If The Washington Post produces a former Marine officer who was opposed to the war and who is meeting with administration officials and thus building up his credibility, I assume that the administration is creating a stalking horse. I assume the administration will use this Marine just as it has used John F. Kerry to lay the groundwork to get out of the war.

This is because I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the integrity of this administration and the commander-in-chief to knowingly act in the best interests of the United States as they understand those interests to be. I believe that Obama has been dithering on this issue now to buy the time to prepare the ground to quit Afghanistan in substance if not in form.

But I am torn because I do not see where the road to "victory" in this theater lies and for the reasons expressed in these two posts of a couple of months ago:

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and we cannot kill all of them. The way to deal with any Islamic (Islamicist) movement is to enlist the sane Muzzies to liquidate the insane Muzzies because we have convinced the sane ones that if they do not police the crazies in their midst, we will kill them if the crazies do not. Even if we could kill them all, the mothers of America will never tolerate the kind of casualties required to do so unless you want to go nuclear in which case we in America will not be able to tolerate ourselves.

It’s time to get down to the business of thinking about America's strategic interests. What do we want to accomplish in Afghanistan? Obviously, we want to leave a country in place which does not support terrorism. That would be nice, but does it make us any safer? No. Because, so long as Waziristan provides a sanctuary for terrorism, it doesn't matter whether the terrorists also have Afghanistan. The problem compounds, if you want to leave Afghanistan a place which is not safe for terrorists you must also convert northwestern Pakistan into a place which is not safe for terrorists. If one of these places is not permanently "pacified" the other will equally not be pacified.

How do we propose to do that, with American boots on the ground? With 50% of America against the war in Afghanistan, what percentage of America do you judge will support putting troops into Pakistan? Assuming you can get public support for putting troops into Pakistan, can you be sure that the Pakistani government will not oppose our troops? Can you be sure that the Pakistani government will not threaten to use nuclear weapons against our troops? Even if such a threat were hollow when made, can we afford to disregard it? Can you see an end game to the pacification of Waziristan? I cannot. Neither could Winston Churchill more than a century ago.

Could it be done with drones and conventional air power working in close alliance with the Pakistani government and with some tribes in Waziristan? I do not know. As in every war America fights, we are in a foot race between our own casualty count and the enemy. Some might argue that the Serbs were pacified by air power alone, but is Afghanistan the same as Yugoslavia? Does not history teach us that "pacification" unavoidably means occupation? Have we figured out how to do that in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan without unacceptable casualty counts?

If casualty counts are not problematic enough, do we have the money? How broke are we? Is the debt growing to $11 trillion? Will the entitlements inexorably carry us to $26 million, as recently reported? It has now become a real question whether we can finance such a war.

While we are exercising our vision about how to pacify Waziristan, can we be sure that our efforts will not radicalize the reasonably sane portion of the Muslim population of Pakistan further against America? Will it turn the military against us? The Secret Police? What about those people who control the nukes? How much would take for people like A. Q. Khan who sold nuclear secrets to turn over some nukes to the Taliban or other terrorists in retaliation?

Would an American invasion with ground forces into the Northwest of Pakistan make that more or less likely? How do you know? But can we conduct our foreign policy out of fear or should we simply pursue our own best interests and let the chips fall where they may? According to Michael Scheuer, ex-of the CIA and responsible for watching bin Laden, we are not acting and have not been acting in pursuit of our own interests for years. He says that's why we are fighting these wars in the first place.

So we come back to my initial premise which is we must enlist the sane Muzzies to fight our war for us. We cannot win it alone. The way we enlist support from Muzzies is to show them who is boss. They respect power and they despise appeasement.

But let us not deceive ourselves. It required only 19 Muzzies to bring down the World Trade Center and kill 3000 Americans. We can kill all the Muzzies in Afghanistan, and they will still be able to scrape up from somewhere among the godforsaken corners of the world another 19 Muzzies to deliver what this time might be a weapon of mass destruction. And that weapon might just come from Pakistan. We cannot hope to conquer and hold every square inch of territory between the Atlantic coast of Africa and the western border of China in order to stop the formation of a terrorist squad only nineteen men (or women) strong.

So the war is primarily a war of intelligence. After we wring all the benefits we can out of our listening devices, we need indispensable local knowledge. Human intelligence must primarily come from the Muslim world because they have the language, the culture, and the tribal affiliation which we could never hope to penetrate. But we can hope to suborn them, turn one tribe against another, as the French did in North America and the British did so successfully in India and Pakistan. But conquering and holding territory is not the answer; it is probably not even the means to the answer.

A war of intelligence is primarily a war of alliances.

So when we do our strategic thinking about what the interests of America are in places like Afghanistan, we ought to consider what our goals are there and how we can accomplish them. Putting boots on the turf and holding it as an end in itself is worse than useless, I fear it is self-defeating.

Putting boots on the ground and fighting only to a stalemate is the equivalent of defeat because it unnerves our allies, encourages our enemies, and dispirits our grieving mothers. Rather than intimidating Muslim governments to cooperate with us, it encourages them to pander to their street. Intelligence suffers. When intelligence suffers it actually makes us more vulnerable, not less.

Whatever we do, must be done decisively and successfully or not at all.

Until we're able to answer fundamental questions and articulate exactly what troops there in Afghanistan can accomplish and at what cost, we are just spending blood and treasure without purpose.

.........................................................................................................

In discussing this topic, how do we identify and pursue the national interest of the United States, we stipulate that we have a president in power who wants to advance our national interests. It is astonishing and terribly revealing that we have to stipulate this about our president merely to have a coherent discussion of American foreign policy. I am well aware that there is a body of evidence which indicates the contrary of the stipulation. Let us assume that we have a president who will consciously choose the options which he believes will advance America so we can at least get on with an analysis.

When a chief executive and commander in chief weighs new strategic options he must consider whether a particular option will cost more than it gains. This is the analysis which I am asking us to undertake concerning Afghanistan. Even our military officers whom you want to turn loose are divided in this judgment.

When we "oppose evil and thump those who attack America" a Commander-in-Chief must ask himself do I have the resources, including the support of the American people, sufficient to see this option through or am I pursuing a feel-good policy which ultimately weakens America in a generational asymmetrical world war? If I choose this course, will America be stronger 20 years from now to contend with an enemy who can move from Afghanistan to Waziristan to Cairo or even to Detroit at the speed of commercial air transportation? A president must ask himself, do we have the wherewithal in the midst of a financial and economic crisis, the dimensions of which we still do not know, to wage wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan at the cost literally of millions of dollars a day? If we indulge our emotions to wage war in Afghanistan, whose war are we fighting, ours or the enemies? Who will ultimately win a war of casualty count?

Can I honestly tell my people, as president, that if they pour their blood and treasure into Afghanistan they will be safer against a stealth strike in the homeland? Can I honestly tell them that we will be stronger after we spend our treasure and our blood? Can I say to them, "my fellow Americans, we are not just shoveling flies in Afghanistan, we are making the homeland safer?" Can I say, "this is the best use of our precious resources?"

What are our strategic interests? Certainly high on the list comes the issue of nuclear proliferation to Islamicists. Clearly the Taliban in Afghanistan is not a threat in this regard. Are the Islamicists in Pakistan a very real threat to acquire nuclear weapons? Obviously the answer is yes. Can I honestly represent to the American people that to pursue an asymmetrical war against the ragtag Taliban in Afghanistan makes it less likely that the Taliban will acquire nuclear weapons in Pakistan?

It is certainly in our strategic interest to enlist Muslim countries in support of a war against the Islamicists. Concededly, if we are just flat whipped in Afghanistan the whole Muslim world, especially the Arab world, will feel emboldened to confront America openly and through terrorism. But what if we only fight to a stalemate in Afghanistan? Will we have gained the support of the Muslim world? How many lives is the propaganda value of a victory in Afghanistan worth? How much treasure?

I think the Mr. Obama should ask himself, why is the war in Afghanistan different from the war in Iraq? Does the whole thing turn in the accident of a choice by bin Laden to locate a few dusty tents and ramshackle buildings in Afghanistan? Of what significance is that?

I think the president should also ask himself, why, by all accounts from our senior military observers, are we losing the war to a bunch of rag tag illiterates after seven years? Our initial invasion was done with the help of some Afghan tribes, why have we been so unsuccessful in building upon that model? Why are the tribes against us and against the national government and why did the national government have to resort to voter fraud in order to retain its majority? Do these questions indicate that our fundamental strategy in Afghanistan is utterly flawed?

Do these questions indicate that there is no realistic possibility of substituting Afghan boots on the ground for American boots on the ground even if we supply logistics and air power for the Afghan boots? It has, after all, been seven years.

I as a president who actually wants America to prevail, must know that our resources are stretched and our reserves are virtually exhausted. A miscalculation here could cause the decline and fall of the American century. Is the game in Afghanistan worth that?

[erman]

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and we cannot kill all of them.

I think if we got maybe.... 50% the rest would start paying attention.

Basically we're in a global guerilla war with anti capitalist, anti-Christian thugs who are masked in Islam. In South America it's the drug runners with the Shining Path, Chavez followers and other communists that are bent on power while using the USA as an enemy to "fight".

We need to grow a pair, kill our enemies (leaders) and basically conduct a world wide counter insurgency against the jihadists.

[The Duke]

Imagine a scenario in which the PRC has control of the US Presidency. It would be important to them that the US be totally demoralized at the thought of any war - similar to the aftermath of Vietnam.

Personally, I think Obama is just waiting for his marching orders to come from China.

[nathanbedford]

With the perspective of eight years it is becoming increasingly clear that the success we have had in the war against international terrorism has not been produced by Iraq or Afghanistan, or at least not by the occupation of the lands, but rather by our intelligence efforts-admittedly much of which came from interrogating prisoners captured in Afghanistan.

The question is do we fight this war by occupying territory or do we fight the war as a war of intelligence wage by our allies, led by us, co-opting more and more Muslims to defend us as well as themselves against the crazies.

Have we asked ourselves how Iraq and Afghanistan fit in to what you describe the global war extending way into South America involving narco terrorism as well as Communist thuggery? For example, can we fight the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and leave the poppy fields in place? Can we expect to remain safe from Mexican drug cartels so long as we provide an inexhaustible demand for the drugs that fund these wars? What sort of arrangements are being made between the drug lords of Afghanistan, of Columbia, of Mexico, and of Detroit?

[Recovering_Democrat]

The problem is, we leave and it turns into the Afghanistan of old. That ain’t a solution...it helped engender 9/11.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I still firmly believe that if our troops aren't going to given what they need to win, then bring them home.

As do I and many others.

As hard as I try, I can not find any "end game" articulated anywhere, much less any indication of what "winning" involves.

As a Vietnam Vet who (and not alone in my opinion) witnessed a decade + long drain on on country and the WASTE of 58,000 lives for naught, I am slowly moving to the camp of skeptics and wondering if we are not seeing "deja vu all over again?"

Much the same as Nam was "directed" from the Oval Office with ridiculous Rules of Engagement which in affect tied our hands behind our back, those rules paled in comparison to what we are witnessing with this imbroglio

Politics has always been part of War, but Dear Leader and his minions have taken it to a whole new level.

There is no doubt that had "we" so desired (or better yet had the "will") we could have succeeded in Nam and in as few as a year or less.

Politics as well as our not wanting to challenge the Soviet Union and China's support by interdicting supplies provided by them created a no-win situation. (Closing the port of Haiphong and cutting rail service from China and bombing every major Air Base, would have brought N. Vietnam to its knees in 6 months)

IF there is not a major shift in policy and procedure (to include a firm commitment to prevail--whatever that may entail--then I am going to join the voices that advocate bringing them all home.

I do not want to continue reading about casualties for a conflict which may very well end up having been in vain!

[Canedawg]

“my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
*****************************

that is an excellent question. As Levin asked last night on his show, why are we fighting there and in iraq?

Is it still for defending democracy and freedom?

Or is it fighting for our insane new priorities of having a government that fires CEOs and determines bonuses and salaries, for a government that is hell bent on dismantling American Exceptionalism, for a society that prizes black on white racism and wants to exert its control over private enterprise and the individual?

I strongly suggest listening to his opening monologue from last night’s show. Click Listen live and scroll down to yesterday’s date.

http://www.marklevinshow.com/home.asp

One, two, three, what are we fighting for?

[Grumpybutt]

I agree and that is why I’m furious over the delay in sending more troops and the lack of clear cut vision from Washington of what our men and women are fighting for over there.

One of my boys just got back from Iraq, another is headed to Afghanistan soon - we’re very proud of their decision to join and fight for this country. However, our military’s hands need to be untied and let them accomplish the mission.

Washington - stop with the politics and get the damn job done!

[EBH]

The problem is we stay under the current administration and send our military to needlessly die.

Let’s live to fight another day.

[MissMagnolia]

Let us assume that we have a president who will consciously choose the options which he believes will advance America so we can at least get on with an analysis.

Analytical purposes aside, the crux of the matter is that I have no faith in this president to do what is in the best interests of America and her sons who are willing to lay their lives down for freedom and security ....... this certainly colors my opinion of what the course in Afghanistan should be. I never thought I would support getting out, but it's obvious that he's willing to leave them in harm's way when he knows their chances of prevailing are rapidly diminishing. It really makes me ill - for those troops, their families, and the country. I do not feel safe - either from terrorists threats or the domestic 'enemy within' (including many members of Congress and the president himself).

[bytesmith]

My views have evolved/devolved/goneeverywhichway, but this is where they are now. I do not think Commandante Zero has the guts or political will to do what is necessary to win. He will just continue to waste the lives of brave Americans while he improves his golf game.

Could not agree with you more. We a being governed by a BAD ACTOR.

[RetSignman]

[became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war]

I’m sure Sen Kerry has rounded up more military just like him to rush to Washington for a special remake of his 1971 Senate hearing.

He is setting up a cut and run for obama.

[erman]

The article stated what the basis of all counter insurgency is... intel. We have to destroy the safe havens, support systems and funding for the guerillas. That means the banks, the training facilities and finally all "governments" that aid and abet the guerillas are fair game.

By fair game, I mean we can kill or destroy them.

The only reason we haven't got Chavez's head on the end of a stick is because he's full of sh#t ..... right now. But the second the threat assessment on him goes into actual action... then he's going to follow in the long line of South and Central American dictators that are dead or are in prison. Castro is a fluke and also on an island. He's the outlier and luckier than he or the MSM even knows.

[Nachum]

Thanks for the heads up Grumpybutt

The list, ping

[Nachum]

The list, ping