Posted on 10/19/2009 6:48:25 PM PDT by Saije
Only nine months ago, the Pentagon pronounced itself reassured by the early steps of a new commander in chief. President Obama was moving slowly on an American withdrawal from Iraq, had retained former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary and, in a gesture much noticed, had executed his first military salute with crisp precision.
But now, after nearly a month of deliberations by Mr. Obama over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military.
A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room.
***
A retired general who served in Iraq said that the military had listened, “perhaps naïvely,” to Mr. Obama’s campaign promises that the Afghan war was critical. “What’s changed, and are we having the rug pulled out from under us?” he asked. Like many of those interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the military’s civilian leadership and the White House. ***
Another source of tension within the military is the view that a delay is endangering the 68,000 American troops now in Afghanistan. “McChrystal has troops out there who are risking their lives more than they need to, partly because we have not filled in the gaps and we have not created a safe zone in southern and eastern Afghanistan,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Perhaps appropriate conclusions will be drawn by the appropriate people.
Still no National Security Strategy published by the CIC.
Given the fact the obammunist is ineligible to hold the office of President in the fist place and was put into that position by people who hate the Constitution of the USA and want to destroy us, why don’t they quit b!tching and do something about it?
What could they do about it? Legally, I don’t see what the military can do except exert pressure behind the scenes - at this point at least.
Hard to follow a leader who sets a policy and then does a 180?
We can always dream, can’t we?
A military policy analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing senior Pentagon leaders, said that “the military lives in a very rarefied environment,” and that “they are not out there every day having to meet citizens who say, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ ”
Senior military officers, the analyst said, “are smart guys, but they do not have the daily pulse of the American public in their face. They tend to interpret politicians who give voice to it as being weak, but none of this works if the public gives up on it.”
It seems to me that Obama is not only refusing to decide about troops, but he is doing NOTHING?! Even without adding troops there is strategy improvements that can be made, i.e. changes in Rules of Engagement, etc. The impression I get is that he doesn’t care at all? Did I miss a memo??
Obama deliberates, who knew?
The most shocking thing about this story is that it’s in the New York Times.
It's not a priority for him. He's been busy with his National Insecurity Strategies.
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