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While last week saw the “leak” of General Stanley McChrystal’s plan for Afghanistan which reads mighty close to a “do it my way or else” line, this week saw another “leak” from the McChrystal’s camp suggesting both that it will take 500,000 total boots on the ground and many years to “win” in Afghanistan – and the latest leak that he wants an added 40,000 US troops in the near term even though the administration has made it clear that no such requests will be considered until President Obama completes his deliberations on the strategy.
Of course — just coincidentally mind you — several Republican Senators were queued up to go on the various Sunday shows to demand that the latest wishes of the Generals not only get a hearing by the Commander in Chief but “that Obama should do what the generals want him to do.”
I have no idea whether Gen. McChrystal himself is authorising these “leaks’ but it’s clear from Nancy Yousef’s reporting for McClatchy that his staff in Afghanistan is part of the team putting pressure on the Commander in Chief – and I find it hard to believe that McChrystal would not or could not rein them in if he wanted a stop to the leaks and threats that he might resign if he doesn’t get his way.
Now we have McChrystal himself on Sixty Minutes apparently complaining that he is not getting what he wants fast enough. Sixty Minutes has not yet aired here but an AFP advance article quotes the General as saying:
The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan bitterly complained in an interview Sunday about the Pentagon bureaucracy that he said was hampering his efforts to fight insurgents.
In a profile on CBS television’s "60 minutes," General Stanley McChrystal said he faced pressure to move quickly from Defense Secretary Robert Gates while the Pentagon had moved slowly to get officers assigned to his staff.
"The secretary talks in terms of 12 to 18 months to show a significant change and then we eat up two or three months just on sort of getting the tools out of the tool box," McChrystal said, according to a transcript of the show to air later Sunday.
"That really hurts," said McChrystal, shown in a video conference with the Pentagon…
"The average organization when someone asks when you want something, they pull out a calendar," he said.
"But in a good organization, they look at their watch and we really got to get that way."
Again interesting timing on the part of McChrystal and his camp given that just today Jake Tapper had the following on his twitter feed:
RNC just sent out a hit email on Defense Secy Gates — who served in admins of both Bush Sr and Jr. interesting.
In a Seminal diary today, “An Incitement to Mutiny” markfromireland pointed to an important post by Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis in which Lang notes:
Bond spoke strongly in favor of having Generals McChrystal and Petraeus explain to Congress what their opinion is (as opposed to the opinion of the president/commander in chief) as to what the policy and strategy of the United States should be.
This is actually an incitement to mutiny.
As he noted, Lang is a highly experienced military officer and a consistently valuable analyst of mlitary and foreign policy affairs. Here’s Lang in an earlier piece on McChrystal’s ‘leaked” report:
This paper presents the president with only one option on a "take it or leave it" basis. I realize that Stanley M. is a subordinate theater commander and a full general but he is still the president’s subordinate and he serves at the pleasure of the president/commander in chief. In all the Army schools that I attended (Infantry Officer Basic Course to the US Army War College), it was more or less customary to present the commander with several options in the way of "courses of action." If you do not do that then you are clearly seeking to limit the freedom of action of the commander. This is insubordinate in spirit.
With the president’s advisors split on the correct course ahead:
Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and top military officer, has told Obama he is skeptical about deploying more troops without a more clearly defined mission, the [New York] Times wrote, citing unnamed sources. Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser James Jones, a retired general, are among those skeptical of a major troop increase, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, have a more hawkish stance, the paper said.
this intensive McChrystal media and leak campaign to pressure the Commander in Chief to do it his way is starting to look awfully close to insubordination in fact.
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Teddy Partidge picks up this from 2 threads ago.
Funny, I didn’t hear any crying from the left when leaks were taking place under the Bush administration..I’m willing to bet it is someone within the Obama Admin….
Gee, you musta been born in 2009.
The best way for Obama to retain the respect of the officer corps
would be to go alpha and retire this guy and his lackeys.
P.S. DNFTT.
Maybe McChrystal is running for President.
Hey, I’m just calling like I see them..I thought Obama said in March that they had a strategy…so what is the problem now? Wasn’t it Obama who named Gen McChrystal the CG in Afghanistan? Now what? He doesn’t like what he is saying?
If this post.. and it’s demonstration of just what level of conversation is going on.. if it doesn’t demonstrate just how egregiously wrong this war is… I don’t know what will.
We would be better off burning our treasure cash for paper heat in winter. Much better.
Actually I don’t have any problem with the military pressuring the CIC, or using leaks and the public airwaves to make their point. Sometimes (like a stopped clock) the military are actually right and should be listened to. I think it’s called democracy. And the rest of us peons should know what the military is pressuring for, not just the CIC. If you don’t like what the alpha dog does as a consequences of military pressure, well then demonstrate, send emails, vote him outta office, etc.
Noway Obama cuts bait on him, he would lose all credability of the Pentagon and Officers…
Perhaps you were not around here for the Plame leak scandal.
As for CG in favor or out of favor, what’s the problem with changing one’s mind on the basis of performance? Or on the basis of all the complicated other concerns that go into whether the U.S. should be involved in a particular war?
Guy’s a prick. Has clearly studied his Dick Cheney. Petraeus is of course even worse.
Draw your lines against the arrogant petulance of the MIC monster, Barack, or be devoured by it.
Losing cred with the Pentagon. Whatta tragedy. As if the Pentagon had any cred to begin with. More $$ than the rest of world combined and they can’t even win against a primitive opponent. They all deserve to be fired, and not a one deserves to be listened to.
Perhaps a long weekend with Pat Tillman’s family would provide Gen. McChrystal with some distraction while he’s waiting for the civilians to do their thing.
Just the thing. Tillman’s mother doesn’t even seem to be inclined toward violence, which I might be were I in her position.
Petraeus & McChrystal both know that General Officers NEVER get a 5th star during peacetime.
Oh, O will be devoured by it, or rather financed by it. Not a doubt in my mind.
Why are the Libs so soft on national security? See, the good thing about this one is your boy Obama can’t be present for this..he will have to make a choice not just present…..
From random comments out and about, it worries me that the GOP is waiting to pull Petraeus out of their rabbit’s hat for 2012. This moaning and whining by the GOP Senators seems to me a perfect setup for a ’stab in the back’ narrative in which the wars will be ‘lost’ b/c Obama didn’t support the troops.
That way, the pump will be primed and ready for Petraeus.
(And I mean no disrespect to Petraeus, but IIRC more bloggers than simply Col. Pat Lang have pointed out that Jim Jones was probably installed to keep an eye on the ambitious Petraeus.)
I am not sure quite what to think about the larger situation.
But McClatchy has an excellent track record, and as long as I’ve been reading Col. Lang, he’s called things uncannily astutely.
(FWIW, I believe that he interviewed with Dougie Feith when Feith was operating his Secret Government Division within DoD; no sooner did Feith learn that Lang speaks Arabic and has what appears to be an impressive knowledge of military history than Feith told Lang that he wouldn’t be hired. )
Worrying to watch this occur.
Some weird kabuki, this is.
Petreaus has his eye on the oval office. He already has more offal on his chest to look like a cartoon character.
National security= war? My what a constipated brain you have.
Can you even tell me when was the last 5 start General? Try Omar Bradley and guess what..There have only been 4
“your boy”? That is so disrespectful. what a right wing pain in the a** you are !
Petreaus/Gates 2012. Gates is in the perfect position to undermine O.
Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). Per colonel Lang: http://turcopolier.typepad.com…..-look.html
and why are conservatives so ignorant and delusional on national security?
remember General Shinseki?
this guy:
“…harsh administration rebuttals after General Shinseki electrified Washington with his blunt warning that victory in Iraq would require more troops than were being deployed for the invasion.
He was the target of immediate rebuke from the Pentagon leadership, in particular from Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense, and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz. Mr. Wolfowitz dismissed the testimony as “wildly off the mark.”
Some civilians in government and military officers say General Shinseki’s treatment intimidated other top officers.
“It sent a very clear signal to the military leadership about how that kind of military judgment was going to be valued,” said Kori Schake, the director for defense strategy on the National Security Council staff from 2002 to 2005, now a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at West Point. “So it served to silence critics just at the point in time when, internal to the process, you most wanted critical judgment.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01…..nseki.html
Oh boy.
I’m willing to bet that Gen Petreaus could run cirlcles around you little man…and he is 57 yrs old
What now the race card?
Running circles is a great recommendation for prez.
this week saw another “leak” from the McChrystal’s camp suggesting both that it will take 500,000 total boots on the ground and many years to “win” in Afghanistan
Not 500,000 boots, but rather 500,000 troops…aka a million total boots. But whatever. Logistically (and politically), increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan is probably the best way for Obama to write himself off as GWB redux.
Fuck this ’stay the course’ bullshit. We could have spent the last 5 years crushing Taliban/al Qaeda ilk, but instead chose to go after the mayor of Baghdad. That’s a decision we’ll have to live with for a long time; trying to patch it via sending additional troops to Afghanistan is a recipe for failure.
I’m with Powell on this one: what’s the point? We already have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Wikipedia:
Here is Bacevich’s op-ed from today’s WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..02011.html
To say nothing of racist, when speaking of an African-American.
What’s this “your boy” crap? He is also your President, so show some damn respect.
This is just the same mentality JFK was up against when the military insisted on invading Cuba and escalating Vietnam.
Highly recommended reading is the new book JFK and The Unspeakable… Why He Died and Why it Matters by James Douglass. This book provides a unique perspective on JFK and his ultimate end by focusing on the events that lead up to Dallas, the confrontations he had, and the vested interests he pissed off.
With this book fresh in my mind, it almost seems like it is happening all over again except that I see Obama treading a safer path. It relies on a lot of information that has been unclassified of late. It does not just explain a possible how, bot goes into great detail of why.
I know many reading this will dismiss this a conspiracy theory and never take another look, of course that is what you have been conditioned to do. Do not look behind the curtain. I highly recommend it if you want a good thought-provoking read that may have some real bearing on what is happening today. See the reviews on Amazon to find out more.
Infinity one
Racist language is not ok here – if that is your idea of participation in the discussion, go elsewhere.
I’m listening to Halberstam’s book on the Korean War. Reminds me that there was a time when generals were held accountable. Of course, not until they completely fucked up.
Don’t feed the troll. If we ignore him, maybe he’ll just go back to molesting little boys.
If you define ‘national security’ narrowly as simply military actions and munitions, then you may find that many on the left have a view that military strength is extremely important.
In fact, it is so important that it should not be left in the feckless hands of a Duke Cunningham and others who use the federal purse for self enrichment at the very time that mold was growing in areas of Walter Reed where Iraq vets were housed.
Unlike others here, I respect the fact that Petraeus and McChrystal are trying to do their jobs and lobbying for resources. But when it comes to insubordination, I personally draw a line because no good can come of it.
Anyone who wasn’t damn pleased that the Navy snipers were able to free that hostage off Somalia is not thinking very clearly, IMHO. I don’t have a problem with the military, but why anyone would operate a war without clear objectives and a very clear, well articulated strategy escapes me.
Bush used the military for political purposes, and I hope he rots in hell.
I don’t believe that Obama will use the military for ‘political’ purposes; I don’t believe that he relies on terror alerts to get elected (!).
But just as civilians have no business using the military for ‘political’ purposes, neither does the military have any right to be insubordinate.
My father saw McArthur ‘up close and personal’ and unlike the rest of the US , thought that busting McArthur’s vain ass was among the smartest things that old Harry Truman ever did.
Those Senators are whining, without offering clear strategic objectives.
They’re irresponsible.
Why isn’t anyone quoting Jim Jones, or DNI Blair?
This is more devious nonsense, and it’s got to get cleaned up.
It’s like a doctor saying you have to get major surgery right now, not giving you any options, and using your kids to pressure you. It’s dangerous and unprofessional. If McChrystal is not the one doing it, he should vigorously condemn it. Otherwise the President should ask him to resign.
The prez doesn’t get respect, he earns it. And O hasn’t earned mine yet.
That said, there’s no excuse for racist slurs. Criticize the policy, fine, don’t belittle owing to skin color.
Stanley McChrystal should be tried for war crimes in Iraq and his current Afghanistan command, not making any recommendations whatsoever to the Oval Office. He should be huddled with his defense attorneys, not the President. It’s shocking to me that this man has been allowed to remain in uniform, let alone get a promotion.
The dark camps in Iraq, which he oversaw, and the current civilian bombing campaign, which he “scaled back,” are reason enough to bring him up on charges. Anyone in authority who does not is also war-crimes suspect.
It’s outrageous.
Hey, jest havin’ sum fun.
Jeez, I admire Col. Lang.
No bullshit, and a clear thinker.
Why doesn’t he get invited onto the teevee shows…?
As soon as Bush started hiding behind Caesar Petraeus’ skirts, allowing him to testify to grandstanding Senators, this die was cast. No General will stand for being told he cannot testify, and few Senators will understand this argument against television time for themselves.
But Lang is actually correct.
And Bacevich’s son served in Iraq and paid the ultimate price.
Unlike members of the 82nd Chairborne.
Grow up. Politics is not pick-up-sticks. All’s fair. (I just read a biography of Adenauer and if you want nasty, he’s right up there. Beats Rove by a country mile.) We want to know what the military’s up to and leaks are the next best thing. How else will we know whether O caves or stands on his own?
I’m with you Reader … Lang is invaluable.
Look, Obama has shown himself more than willing to play ball with Wall Street, big pharma, the insurance companies, and various other entrenched interests. He’ll certainly play ball with the Pentagon and the military- industrial-media complex. He’s just exhibiting the timidity which has been a hallmark of his leadership style. Barack Obama, the Democratic equivalent of Herbert Hoover only with an engaging rhetorical flourish.
iirc, Andrea Mitchell actually used both phrases “500,000 troops” and “500,000 boots on the ground” in her breathless reporting and conversations with President Lieberman.
You guys kill me, the next thing you will have Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson on here.. I was referring to Pres Obama as your boy meaning the Liberal President nothing racist..I do respect the office of the President, but I do disagree with Pres Obama’s agenda….
How does one play ball with Wall Street when he took in over 20 mil during his run fro Pres?
Sure, that’s OK by me, have at him.
If she said 500,oo boots that would only mean 250K men and women…
Don’t blame us for your bigotry.
Thank you.. can’t be repeated often enough.
Were you strongly supporting Barack Obama to become the Democratic Presidential nominee during the primaries last year?
I’m trying to understand this angst toward him and his leadership since he took office.
President Obama is not a “boy”, sir. And libs are not soft on national security. We are, however, tired of the $$, exploitation, waste of the MIC and lied into war by such as the BoyKing W. Clean up your act.
eCAHN – while I am happy to know what McChrystal and the rest of the Petraeus’12 campaign are pushing for, their willingness to publicly cross the lines of respect for CinC etc is not ok. When our senior military is that far out of control or that disrespectful of the President, we have a problem.
Again, you must have been born in 2009 to be unaware of the racist implications of referring to a black person as “boy.”
Siun — must be on the same wavelength, have a post I was going to save for tomorrow morning related to this topic.
Have some data points which are very disconcerting.
Strongly suggest we ignore stupid comments like these.
You guys have me laughing right now. You guys use the race card when soemone doesn’t agree with Pres Obam’s agenda.
Because the companies that own the Villagers don’t like that sort of thing. War is good for their bottom line.
Obama cannot really dismiss McChrystal & look good because he & Gates dismissed the general McChrystal replaced in Afghanistan. And supposedly many in the military were quite upset about how that general was treated.
I think McChrystal knows we don’t have a prayer of succeeding in Afghanistan (however we define success) & he wants to be able to blame Obama. I don’t understand why we are in Afghanistan, now that al-Qaeda isn’t. The reasons the government gives are not sound. It smells like Empire to me (e.g., pipeline from Caspian oilfields).
Bill Kristol, David Brooks, John Boehner, Sarah Palin and the Murdoch kids all look
physically fit and able to serve the Noble Cause in the Good War. (OK, the Murdochs are a little young.)
So let’s draft ‘em, train ‘em, ship ‘em and forget ‘em.
Because dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Thanks for futher explaining your point, which I was ignoring. Coming back at you from my POV, everything is permissible in politics. But not everything works. Therefore if one side goes out of bounds, it is incumbent on the other side to combat that. I.E., the ball is in O’s court. No one else can rein in the generals. If he’s to weak to do it (my bet), then we’re all in a ditch.
That encompasses my problems with Gore & Kerry who both ran piss poor campaigns. They were attacked & did nothing about it. Suspect O is in the same mold.
Odierno set the precedent early.. and it seems to have opened the floodgates.
How many generals did Lincoln run thru?
allen
I agree with you 100%.
“Bill Kristol, David Brooks, John Boehner, Sarah Palin and the Murdoch kids all look
physically fit and able to serve the Noble Cause in the Good War.”
sounds good to me
“So let’s draft ‘em, train ‘em, ship ‘em and forget ‘em.”
McChrystal sez the Taliban is winning the information battle. I tend to agree.
Many great takeaways from the Pincus article, but one stood out for me:
Actions speak louder than words? WTF??
Very good point – Obama should have stomped on the Odierno nonsense early to make it clear … he’s paying for it now.
But Obama, in order to retain respect, needs to pubicly slap down this insubordination by stating that he will be happy to take their views under advisement, but he will not negotiate with himself, and will arrive at a decision after conferring with more advisors than just the generals.
I suppose Bush’s daughters couldn’t have served, but I remember Romney’s intriguing answer when he was questioned about why none of his sons were serving.
Several of you seem unhappy (maybe “disappointed” is a better word) with President Obama’s leadership since he took office. Were you strong supporters of him becoming the presidential nominee last year?
Far be it from me to suggest that I’m a military expert, but did not the Soviet Union wage war in Afghanistan for nine years, and did not many knowledgeable people believe this was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. So should we not actually give some thought to what our objective really is?
Hey Moderators!
Something is hinky with the front page.
The stuff that is supposed to be on the right side is at the bottom on the front page.
I am just saying!!!
We have no definable interest in Afghanistan. We do not need to invade and occupy a country for years just to strike at al Qaeda. We should draw down our presence, work out what our regional security concerns are and make suitable arrangements with neighboring countries.
Indeed – Douglas MacArthur learned real quick what happens when you start bucking the President’s orders.
No. Many of us here had great reservations about O, starting with his backtracking on warantless wiretapping, and getting worse after that. Nonetheless, I have no problems with people who catch on late about how bad O is. Better late than never.
Was his explanation b/c they were needed to work in his campaign? That’s what I recall….as in “let them (others) eat cake.” Was Romney in VietNam? He looks to be about the right age…
That’s just the point. MacArthur didn’t learn quick. It took quite a long period and quite a big disaster before it happened.
I can safely say that a majority of those who are ‘regulars’ here actually supported other candidates, and as they were gradually eliminated one by one, many of us did vote for him. Hell, I even canvaseed in a neighboring state for him, but I was never a strong supporter, I just knew that the good people of this nation couldn’t survive another Republican presidency. I think for most of us here, Obama’s leadership qualities were always a question mark.
Obama was about 4th on my list of Democrats. I supported him and defended him on the net from January to July 2008. I dropped my support of him in July over his reneging on filibustering the FISA Amendments Act and did not vote for him. Does that answer you?
Almost no one here ever thought Obama was progressive. Almost no one here thought he would be as neo-Republican as he has turned out to be.
Soviets actually won in Afghanistan until the U.S. supplied stingers. Which is why I keep asking why the U.S. is not as good as the Soviets, since there’s nothing shooting down U.S. aircraft in Afghanistan. Everytime I type this comment, it’s as though I farted in polite company. People just pretend I didn’t type it.
All I hear any of them say is that they know what failure would look like, but can’t define success.
Sen Corker (R-TN), who supports the president on Afghanistan, was asked this morning and had a hard time stating the ultimate objective or defining success.
My best understanding is that they want to deny Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who are more in Pakistan than Afghanistan at the moment, a place to regroup while trying to protect the Afghan people. Kind of seems circular…
Ah… but one of the hallmarks of our government is the idea of a nonpolitical military. That is what Col Lang is so upset about … McChrystal and crew are not supposed to play politics, they are supposed to follow the orders of the civilian government.
Here’s the meat of the matter:
A-yep. Oh, and by the way, one of the greatest generals America has produced, Ulysses S. Grant, was not afraid to state for the record his opinion of the Mexican War of conquest against Santa Anna:
GIven that the pace of civilian casualties caused by “our side” has increased since McChrystal was appointed … he should stop talking and start doing.
or perhaps his oft stated concern for “the population”is just PR too
McCrystal AND HIS LEAKING staff should be replaced tonight. En Masse…Another TRILLION DOLLARS pissed away in a rat hole in the middle-east is a COMPLETE waste.
The commander in chief is NO LONGER a complete wimp when saying no to these clowns. The military better get the message – YOU DON’T RUN THE SHOW JERKS!! GOT IT! OR, Don’t let the door hit you and your pals in the ass on your way OUT !
I don’t think anyone knows an answer. Maybe you could e-mail McChrystal although he probably doesn’t have an answer either.
Perhaps it could be because the Pentagon, MIC and oil/gas companies are satisfied to just have it be a stalemate for the time being, so we can stay longer, and so the pipeline across Afganistan can enventually be built.
Oh silly you. A nonpolitical military. Wadda myth. Of course the military is political. In every country in every time period. And the sooner you recognize it the better. The “civilian control” over the military is actually a recognition of this reality. Thus, it’s up to the pols to trounce oon the military when the myth is shown up. If they don’t, then we know what’s up.
But…but…he’s
a more reasonable and less ignorant & crazy version of George W Bush in blackfaceblack!I wrote a diary on the McChrystal report that you can find here.
McChrystal’s strategy has two prongs. One is to protect the Afghan people from the Taliban. The other seems to be to protect them from the Afghan government. The report is reads reasonably well until you start thinking about it whereupon it falls into a mass of contradictions.
Siun — okay, decided not to wait, have now published my related post with important additional data points.
What really burns my chaps is the droning from the right that “libs are weak on defense.”
9/11 happened on a conservative administration’s watch, and thousands of steps could have stopped it if they had merely done their jobs. Simply read the time line at History Commons about all the points of our national security and public safety network which simply didn’t perform as expected from January 2001 through 9/11, and you’ll see that we already have ample proof that a conservative administration failed on national security.
Further, the pissing away of trillions of dollars on an illegal war and on a bailout of a banking system allowed to run amok has now left us bankrupted, with inadequate resources to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously, and leaving the homeland greatly exposed. (H1N1, for example, is a national security issue; we don’t have the money or infrastructure in place to deal with it adequately, thanks for screwing us over by giving our wallet to war profiteers.)
Elections have consequences. Conservatives had their chance and screwed it up. And frankly, demanding immediate action to conquer an historically unconquerable land is the height of arrogance and stupidity. OUR national security won’t come from a replay of the Mongols’ assault on Afghanistan.
I first came here a few days ago because I saw a strong commitment to the public health care option and because I was infinitely impressed by the ActBlue ad to tell Arkansas Sen Lincoln and Rep Ross to ACT LIKE DEMOCRATS and by the fundraising to get that ad on tv.
In other words, I thought most of you were strong supporters of President Obama and that you had been since before the general election.
I did not support him during the primaries. I strongly supported Hillary Clinton. Before Nov 2008, I accepted what had happened during the primaries (not all of which was right at all). And since President Obama has taken office, I’ve been mostly happy with his leadership (emphasis on mostly). Seems surprising that he’s won me over, while support for him among his early supporters appears to be diminishing a little.
Indeed.
Remember the novel — and film — Seven Days in May, which had as its theme the attempted military takeover of the US? That was based on the fact that Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay never forgave JFK for not letting him nuke Cuba (with a little bit of the DuPont/Ford/American Legion plot against FDR thrown in). LeMay tried various means to undermine President Kennedy, and Kennedy’s response was to make sure the filmmakers had access to as many military things as they needed for realism’s sake. When JFK was shot, there were mutterings that while LeMay probably wasn’t responsible, he probably wasn’t unhappy about it either.
Part of the A is that the Soviets were just a lot more cruel than the U.S. seems to be able to do. They conducted “total warfare,” which means that everyone in target areas who breathed was eliminated. If that’s the key (and am sure it’s more complicated than that) then the U.S. coin strategy is the worst of all possible worlds. It doesn’t create “friends” because there are still too many civilain casualties, and it doesn’t gain control of territory either. (Which BTW is a mixed blessing because once you gain territory, you must defend it, which is very labor intensive.)
If I remember correctly, the Russians pursued a scorched earth policy. They used helicopter gunships to destroy large numbers of Afghan villages and sent millions into Pakistan as refugees.
Actually, the US military had been fairly apolitical by Western standards, up until World War II and its aftermath. When Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, this was part and parcel of it. The American Legion, on the other hand, was a haven for fascists from the get-go, which is why they were to be the cannon fodder for DuPont’s army to oust FDR.
No party loyalty here. Every D action is regarded on its merits. O fails on that criterion. Especially his performance on medical care reform, on which he’s been as weak as anyone could possibly be.
Hillary wouldn’t have been any better, BTW.
Yep, as I posted immediately before you. Heh. I’ll treat. Scotch?
Ike was a charletan. MIC indeed. He presided over it’s establishment and railed against it when it was too late to matter but soon enuf to get credit for the bloviating. A real example of the politicization of the military.
Tempted to respond to your “Hillary wouldn’t have been any better, BTW,” but it’s done and not worth arguing over!
Do many of you consider yourselves to the D left of where Obama has been since he took office?
The divide here between single payer supporters and PO ones is actually one of several. Generally there are Democrats who have progressive ideas but will support the party first, and there are progressives who generally vote for Democrats but may not if that gets in the way of their convictions.
I authored a 400 item list of Bush scandals, disasters, and crimes. That’s because our side of the blogosphere is supposed to be the fact based one. I started one on Obama for the same reasons, to chronicle and create a place to remember who and what Obama is, stands for, and has done. It currently has 80 entries although I have not yet posted it to the web.
Yes, both you and Hugh are correct in that the Soviets did not concern themselves with ‘collateral damage,’ killing of civilians, brutality, or trying to keep up any appearances of caing about the populace.
Personally, I think we have cast aside the initial reason for going there, and have overstayed without accomplishing that objective, and are now seen as occupiers and threats to the traditional way of Afghan life. Afghanistan may well become Obama’s Vietnam, maybe not in terms of dead GI’s, but most certainly in terms of money spent to achieve nothing.
Kit Bond is on a roll this week. He’s not running again, wonder what his plans are.
I was a lukewarm Obama supporter, but have since gotten pretty disenchanted. I was startled to learn, during a visit at my sister’s in California (who is also liberal) that she thinks I have gone to the lefty equivalent of the right wing lunatic fringe. We got into quite an argument about it. She thinks Obama is the best president in her lifetime (she’s 62, and she may be correct in that) and sees my “extreme” positions as way too far out there. She especially took issue with my Facebook posting of the “No Guts, No Glory” Obama poster (I think she misunderstood it). I also read on another blog a characterization of FDL as “left wing purists.”
I am a devoted Firepup, but this did make me take notice of how I (we) may be perceived. It doesn’t do much good to advocate strongly for our positions if the effect is to completely turn off the recipient of the message (which is what my sister said I was doing to her).
Food for much thought since I returned. I do get pretty vehement about my opinions, maybe others do, too, and we could benefit from a bit of thinking about that??
Try looking up the definition of insubordination instead of posting a big bunch of drivel.
General officers get to have opinions and it’s more than a bit stupid to complain about those opinions that have been solicited by the President.
O is a right wing pol. No black who wasn’t could have been elected. So yes. Almost everyone here is to the left of O.
Um, why wonder. Millions thru lobbying.
Obama is a neo-Republican. All of us are considerably further to the left than he is. Anymore I find it strange to talk about issues in terms of being on the left. What most of us are for are for solutions that are reasonable and work. That has become a far left idea in this country. It explains a lot about the mess we are in and how bad the chances are that we will get out of it.
What eCAHNomics said. More pointedly, a substantive number of people who are regulars here at FDL are progressives, not Democrats.
By this I mean we have shared ideology, a framework of values and morals which guide our work. While not formal and not entirely unanimous, this ideology is stronger across our community than our individual party affiliation.
Why? Because parties change. The Democratic Party began movement back to the left after 2004, finally realizing that in moving to the right it was losing its identity and competing for the same people who occupied the GOP. It left people on the left end of the spectrum marginalized in terms of representation; Green Party members, for example, couldn’t amass enough votes to reach critical mass, even though they share a large portion of their values with the Dems.
I’d have been a Green myself if the Greens were more viable; I’ve always voted Dem because there was no option to the left which was strong enough to yield results. The real answer for those of us with progressive ideology was to take back the Democratic Party, return it to its more progressive roots. Our hounding of Ross and Lincoln is just one example of that process.
Wait, it’s coming back to me. Was not Osama bin Laden on our side against the Soviets? How does that all fit together? I have had a very bad feeling about the whole thing in Afghanistan for quite some time.
Oh, your sis has not yet looked at the facts now in evidence. The way you counter her is not to doubt the position you hold, but to factually counter her dillusions.
A general can have all the opinions he or she wants but they are obligated just like a private to respect the chain of command. Leaking his demands for 40,000 more troops in order to pressure Obama is the very definition of insubordination.
Macaque … since you persistently find my posts so irritating, I’d suggest you save yourself the heartburn and skip them.
One of my emails to cnn (in the days when I cared about the msm) was: The short version of U.S. foreign policy is that our friends become our enemies and our enemies become our friends. It was directed to one of those whore generals in about 03 or 04, and asked about U.S. newfound friends in the Stans. Needless to say, the very-clever Q got on air and the not-so-clever A war that the U.S. need never worry about our new BFF.
Turns out that my short version of U.S. foreign policy is not much diffenrent from any other country’s foreign policy.
Thank you, Col. Lang!! These generals are definitely out of line.
No, it is not anything like insubordination and I’m sure that you can go to the UCMJ.
More to the point though is that I doubt if you or anyone else knows who is leaking or why.
We funded the Taliban back in the 1980’s. More specifically, the Christian fundamentalists demanded Ronald Reagan provide support to “Afghan freedom fighters” in their push against the godless Soviets.
Bin Laden was Saudi, and ostensibly protesting U.S. presence on Saudi/sacred soil. The Taliban were a nifty tool to support that end.
But is it the ultimate end? Who knows? Because there have been reports that bin Laden was working for the CIA as an asset up to September 2001.
It’s all realpolitik. Deep, old, dark, nasty realpolitik.
In politics there is no chain of commanand. Get real.
Thanks,but as long as it’s not too much trouble for you to write them, I don’t mind doing my part.
(I don’t really find them annoying as much as inaccurate.)
There’s no chain of command in politics, true.
But McChrystal has a job, and the requirements of that job are to follow chain of command.
Basically, McChrystal said give me your wallet or I quit.
I’d show him the door.
I was impressed with the dreamy way 60 Minutes loved their new boyfriend, McChrystal…
good grief! it was nauseating! presented with almost religious fervor…
look out – the media is gearing up for another war…
I was her houseguest for a week, and she has been under severe job stress, so I decided to simply respect her reaction and tone down my rhetoric in her hearing (or via emails). Most of my family is pretty liberal, but nothing is gained by turning people off. I’m not abandoning my views by any means.
On edit: I simply avoided politics for the week I was there, and since there was a houseful of visitors, it wasn’t difficult to focus on other things. And, quite frankly, a much needed respite for me, too.
applause!
Which is the outcome to look for. If O doesn’t do that, we have learned a lot.
McChrystal is not in Congress and is very much a part of a chain of command.
And macque as eCahn told me, get real.
please tell me what al-fresco ever did to us?
I’ll get as real as you can help me get, Hugh. Can you show some real insubordination or you passing gas?
Understood. When my otherwise “liberal” niece told me she voted for McCain becaue otherwise her job would disappear, I was appropriately silent. She carries out Phrma tests on dermatology new products. My A would have been that anything O would do would by no means jeopardize her job. Instead I merely mentioned (since I’m no O afficianado) that she voted for someone who suffers from Altzheimers. Since her father, my brother, recently died of related causes, I left the implication up to her.
There’s the “chain of command,” a theoretical construct with alleged applications, and then there’s what actually happens. If you’re not on top of the latter, as O shows every sign of not being, then you deserve everything you get. Unfortunately, real Americans suffer for the consequences.
seems like you have an issue with the word insubordination, my friend. What would you prefer to call it instead? Maybe ’subverting the President’s authority?’ Open to suggestions.
Not meaning to blogwhore, but read my post at The Seminal.
Damned hard to tell who’s pushing things right now. Only person sticking his neck out is McChrystal, and I don’t think the apparent end game is the real end game.
Who’s telling CIA to surge??
I do have a problem with suggesting a court-martial type offense has happened.
I’ll be happy to find a different definition.
Explain what the guy has done and please in the explanation try including something that the guy has done and we’ll pick out a description together.
Let me turn it around to you. What would it take for McChrystal to be insubordinate in your book? I will refrain from pointing out where the gas is coming from in this conversation.
LOL! one thing is for sure: obama sure doesn’t have the guts to do a damn thing about it. not a thing.
I be glad to do so for you if you’ll concede that you’ve no evidence of an offense.
Better yet, why not? My thinking is that if the leaks are planned by the General they would amount to pressuring the president.
I’ll pop for insubordination (in the non-legal sense) if Obama announced a decision and McChrystal publicly bitched about it.
I watched the 60 Minutes interview of McChrystal. AFAICT, I’m in 100% agreement with him, except that his advice is about five years too late. Where was he (or someone like him) when our Predators were blowing up a wedding party a month? And, where was he when our military and CIA were torturing Afghans. (Oh, right, his guys were torturing Iraqis.)
Were I an Afghan, there’d be nothing that a U.S. commander could do to dissuade me from seeking vengenance. We’ve lost all moral credibility with the people of that region, and the best our military can hope for is that the Taliban behave worse than we have.
Shorter big brewhaha: A SANE Millitary Doctrine.
So I assume you can’t.
Thanks for expressing it all so comprehensively! I felt more oriented here when I first came a few days ago, when discussion in the country generally was more focused on health care reform. Since Friday or so, the focus of discussion shifted to include more about Afghanistan, and I’ve been disoriented by comments that seem almost angry at President Obama.
What makes you think with certainty that Obama hasn’t done something already?
?
Leaks have been used by career personnel in agencies to pressure their politican bosses before. It’s not necessarily insubordination, and I don’t think these McChrystal leaks qualify as insubordination either.
Glad that helped.
Democrats are really pretty crappy at party discipline, although I suspect it’s part of the makeup of being on the left of the political spectrum. Dems are more tolerant of a range of opinions, calling themselves a Big Tent party not only because of demographics, but because of opinions — and the tolerance often means Dems are chronically like cats in need of herding.
Which means we need to step back and be outside the party and do the herding on the basis of ideology. We can demand a Dem act like Dem, by pointing to their failure on a value, not on party line. Gives us a bigger lasso for the most incorrigible cats.
The military is not just another agency. The leak to Woodward probably came from within Washington but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t an Afghanistan component. If Obama disagrees with McChrystal (and that is far from clear), then the general is skating on very thin ice. A chain of command does not simply give McChrystal the power to give orders to those under him. It makes him responsible for the actions of his subordinates. Nor does being top dog in Afghanistan set McChrystal outside the chain of command as regards his superiors. He has a duty and responsibility to support his Commander in Chief and he may not subvert that support either by acts of commission or omission.
Unfortunately, we have no clue as to exactly who leaked that report. If I understand correctly, he had a lot of neocons, e.g., the Kagans, helping him assemble it, and any of them would have the motive and ability to carry out that leak.
I heard Mullen was the leaker. Perhaps not directly, but through his office.
According to Bob Woodward, he thinks this is the Pentagon Papers 2. Meaning, he published it to forestall any build up. His motivation was the opposite of what nearly all people in this thread say the motivation behind the leak was. Easy to conceive of a Pentagon person who DID NOT want to have a build up and thought it was wrong to give the report to Woodward so that the public could see it and know the military was trying to escalate.
But, in all the Vietnam analogies, this one seems to missed. The management of a war by politicians, that then turned to mismanagement. If I were the general here, I’d resign if I felt the alternative ideas would fail and my recommendation wasn’t accepted. Why should I preside over the failure? Let the decision maker preside over the failure.
Sure, it is not automatic that another approach would fail, but if the general has analyzed them and came up with what he feels must be done or failure will result, then, I’d resign if one of the ideas I had judged would fail was approved. If you felt the strategy was going to fail, why would you stick around to get the blame for something that wasn’t your idea?
IN the US, generals have only two real options, obey or resign.
In that case, Mullen should find his ass to be in some seriously hot water. But, I recall hearing that Mullen was one of the people who stood up to Bush and Cheney in pushing back against an attack on Iran.
So Striz is part of the “White Culture”. That explains a lot.
In case anybody here would like to read the report, here is a copy of the unclassified version.
http://media.washingtonpost.co…..id=topnews
There’s little in it that’s radical. Mostly it calls for COIN strategy to protect the civilian population and a rapid build-up of Afghans fighting the insurgency.
The 500,000 pair of boots called for are to come with 400,000 pair of Afghan feet in them.
Plenty of the “guys” here disagree with Obama’s policies because they’re not liberal enough. According to your reasoning they’re all racists.
I’m not sure where you might be living, but calling somebody your boy sure seems a lightweight basis for being branded racist.
Out here in NYC you can probably here that term used every ten minutes and applied to about everything bipedal and no one finds it offensive.
Counter-insurgency strategy is not just for foreigners anymore.
If we significantly withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal might rather sooner become Mr. McChrystal, and then no one would pay him much heed anymore, except weapons makers asking him to be a salesman. There might be a lot less to sell then, though, and even Blackwater/Xe might be giving its mercenaries pink slips.
I don’t doubt Gen. McChrystal’s expertise or his integrity or patriotism. I do wonder how he defines the limits of protecting America and whether he appreciates that the commander-in-chief can choose both to listen to and ignore even the most heartfelt advice from his generals.
The buck doesn’t stop with the general; it stops in the White House. Thankfully, it no longer stops at the OVP’s door, but once again goes all the way to the Oval Office. Pres. Kennedy’s toughest job his first year in office was to learn when to tell the generals, “NO”, and he had his brother watching his back. Obahma has Rahma doing that. Ooops.
Can someone explain to me where we are going to get 500,000 troops? Where we are going to get 40,000 troops? Reinstitute the draft, which I favor, by the way.
Are their troops currently stored in suspended animation waiting to be re-animated?
For those who are clamoring in support of this traitorous general, why aren’t you in the military? I’m sure that among your families and friends or within your neighboohoods or within your teabagging groups there are a few hundred abled bodied men (??) who are just waiting for the opportunity serve their country in it’s fight for freedom and democracy in foreign countries.
You should be lining up even now outside of the military recruiting offices to be first in line to sign up. I have never seen a line or even a single person standing outside of the two recruiting office that I pass by daily.
What is the problem?
Afraid that you won’t be able to wear your pink panties under your uniforms?
send more troops it is the american way
also send more money ie cash for the tribal leaders
buy them off like we did in iraq
the americans love to buy their way out of everything
works like a charm everytime
look at the great shape the nation is in
self destruct time in america
the the politicans call this a recession
it is look into a mirror time in america
naw easier to print money and borrow from the communists and then brag how great our capitalism is. pure arrogance.
vietnam all over again generals saying the same stuff. ie send more troops and win over the locals. yea that worked in nam.
capitalism a love story.
When you look at the actions of President Obama and President Bush (instead of looking at their supporters) it is clear that he is more committed to bringing Osama bin Laden to justice than President Bush was. It is just an assumption that all these leaks are coming from the Military.
General staff are politicos by nature. They have political aspirations (how do you think they got to be generals in the first place) and they are programmed from the beginning to support the unlimited expansion of the military budget. You make money as a general, but you make your real money working in executive level positions in major corporations after you leave the military.
This is not almost subordination. It is subordination.
Obama should get Gates on the phone, line up a series of loyal successors and rotate these rogue generals out of the military and into their cushy corporate jobs as quickly as possible. Once firmly ensconced in their new corporate offices, they will be forced to keep their mouths shut for the sake of their stock options.
When in Rome . . .