The neo-conservative, interventionist wing of the Republican Party, who never saw a war they didn't like and couldn't wait to escalate, are all up in arms (so to speak) over this:
"President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joe Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.
The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago...Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.
In looking at other options, aides said, Mr. Obama might just be testing assumptions -- and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war -- before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from General McChrystal. But the review suggests the president is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well."
That has brought out the usual suspects with the same, tired lines. The president is a "liar and a charlatan," who is "waffling on Afghanistan." And of course no self-respecting neo-con worthy of the name would attack without the ever-popular cries of "cut and run" and "flip-flopped" in their arsenal.
The most incredulous statement came from Jim Geraghty at National Review Online:
"The average Democrat doesn't like fighting wars. They don't like using military force. They don't just dislike collateral damage and civilian casualties and flag-draped coffins; they cringe at the concept of combat with citizens of another country..."
Kind of says it all doesn't it?
Imagine a president who refuses to rush headlong into the escalation of a war that is already 8-years old and is losing popular support at home, who re-considers his position as conditions on the ground change. A president who carefully weighs all the consequences and ramifications of his actions before sending our troops into harm's way. Whoever heard of such a thing?
So what has caused President Obama to consider a shift in strategy, and to look at alternatives to the increased troop levels for the counterinsurgency proposed by Gen. McChrystal in his report? This:
"A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That's in doubt now," said Bruce O. Riedel, who led the administration's strategy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year. "Part of the reason you are seeing a hesitancy to jump deeper into the pool is that they are looking to see if they can make lemonade out of the lemons we got from the Afghan election."
Lemons, indeed. A few facts about the recent "election" in Afghanistan:
Number of complaints of voting irregularities: 2,500 and counting.
Number of members of the "Independent Election Commission" not appointed by President Karzai: 0
Number of voter registration cards distributed countrywide: 17 million or almost twice the number of eligible voters.
Number of ballots cast at the Hajji Janat Gul High School polling place, half an hour from the center of Kabul: 600. Number of votes recorded for Karzai at that polling station: 996.
Number of ballots in Karzai's home province, Kandahar, where an estimated 25,000 Afghans actually voted, submitted to be counted: approximately 350,000.
If, as Mr. Riedel says, "a counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner," and in light of the apparent sham of an election recently held in Afghanistan, it seems to me that "exploring alternatives" and "looking at other options" is a wise and prudent course of action, despite the objections of the interventionists.
I think their track record speaks for itself.
"President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joe Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.
The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago...Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.
In looking at other options, aides said, Mr. Obama might just be testing assumptions -- and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war -- before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from General McChrystal. But the review suggests the president is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well."
That has brought out the usual suspects with the same, tired lines. The president is a "liar and a charlatan," who is "waffling on Afghanistan." And of course no self-respecting neo-con worthy of the name would attack without the ever-popular cries of "cut and run" and "flip-flopped" in their arsenal.
The most incredulous statement came from Jim Geraghty at National Review Online:
"The average Democrat doesn't like fighting wars. They don't like using military force. They don't just dislike collateral damage and civilian casualties and flag-draped coffins; they cringe at the concept of combat with citizens of another country..."
Kind of says it all doesn't it?
Imagine a president who refuses to rush headlong into the escalation of a war that is already 8-years old and is losing popular support at home, who re-considers his position as conditions on the ground change. A president who carefully weighs all the consequences and ramifications of his actions before sending our troops into harm's way. Whoever heard of such a thing?
So what has caused President Obama to consider a shift in strategy, and to look at alternatives to the increased troop levels for the counterinsurgency proposed by Gen. McChrystal in his report? This:
"A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That's in doubt now," said Bruce O. Riedel, who led the administration's strategy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year. "Part of the reason you are seeing a hesitancy to jump deeper into the pool is that they are looking to see if they can make lemonade out of the lemons we got from the Afghan election."
Lemons, indeed. A few facts about the recent "election" in Afghanistan:
Number of complaints of voting irregularities: 2,500 and counting.
Number of members of the "Independent Election Commission" not appointed by President Karzai: 0
Number of voter registration cards distributed countrywide: 17 million or almost twice the number of eligible voters.
Number of ballots cast at the Hajji Janat Gul High School polling place, half an hour from the center of Kabul: 600. Number of votes recorded for Karzai at that polling station: 996.
Number of ballots in Karzai's home province, Kandahar, where an estimated 25,000 Afghans actually voted, submitted to be counted: approximately 350,000.
If, as Mr. Riedel says, "a counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner," and in light of the apparent sham of an election recently held in Afghanistan, it seems to me that "exploring alternatives" and "looking at other options" is a wise and prudent course of action, despite the objections of the interventionists.
I think their track record speaks for itself.
Here is a link to the unclassified version of Gen. McChrystal's report.
Here's a good read that does a great job of explaining how our own hubris has helped lead to where we're currently at militarily: The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Bachevich traces the roots of American our use of military power as a tool of foreign policy and consumerism, as well as the people and ideologies that have done so. He also touches on the traits & foibles of generalship that have contributed to failures and "non-sucesses". I strongly recommend this book to anyone concerned about how our armed forces are applied in a global context.
My guess is that Joe Biden remembers the phrase "hearts and minds" and remembers how many American lives were wasted trying to win them over.
Coming out of WWII the US Army was 8-0.
Now, by all accounts, we're 9-1-2, at best.
I could have sworn that we "won" this Afgahnistan thing (against the Taliban) and our troops were still there just to "maintain the peace" and support the newly elected government.
Does anybody know where the hell Charlie Wilson is, anyway? He should be able to fix this.
From the article: Imagine a president who refuses to rush headlong into the escalation of a war that is already 8-years old and is losing popular support at home, who re-considers his position as conditions on the ground change. A president who carefully weighs all the consequences and ramifications of his actions before sending our troops into harm's way.
-----------------------
I think I can safely say that never happened in my lifetime.
Gee.......reminds me of a quote I heard WAAAAYYYY back in the 60's on "Laugh In".
Dan Rowan was reporting on an interviw with a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Fake interview, of course, fake quote too). The pentagon spokesman said:
"This here conflict in VietNam, is a dirty little war. But, it's the only one we got."
I am pretty sure the neo-cons do not want to disrupt the gravy train to THEIR buddies that IS the Afghanistan conflict. With the chances of an Iranian face-off diminished, this could be our only fight. After all, what's good for the military industrial complex is good for.....the military industrial complex "as a whole".
There are no shades of gray in the conservatives eyes, only black or white. Reminds me of when the whole torture of Guantanamo prisoners issue came out. The most popular response from the right seemed to be:
1. You torture them regardless
or
2. You coddle them and give them milk and cookies.
No middle ground, even when many in our intelligence community said torture was unreliable and were able to gather information from suspects using traditional interrogation methods. In their eyes, you either tortured or you were a terrorist loving America hater.
I'd be really surprised if McChrystal is truly prepared to quit if he doesn't get carte blanche access to increased military resources.
He knows that by the leak of his report and the rumors of resignation he's putting his Commander-in-Chief in a tight spot. Tommy Franks did that with a CinC that loved him (Bush) and look where that got Franks.
And if he does get the troops and still fails to achieve military goals? Buh-bye legacy.
Lastly, McChrystal knows that for an active duty military officer to inject himself into a national political issue is suicidal in terms of continued service.
Maybe he's wanting to be fired so that he can join the military consultancy circuit, I dunno. But this guy has spent a career staying under the radar, why would he force a political confrontation now? It just doesn't make sense.
I'm waiting to see more of McChrystal's report to see what expectations he has of the Afghan gov't. Even money says that is where he'll hang any real failure.
Thank you for pointing out an obvious but underdeveloped point. Conservatives love to boil this down to either war mongering or weakness/isolationism. They seem to forget there are other avenues besides war that allow us to remain involved and a part of the solution. The new GOP seems to think diplomacy is a four letter word. There are also embargos, economic sanctions, and lack of recognition.
Let the neo-cons get upset. Fine with me. Once again, wingers feel compelled to demonstrate that they are unaware of their minority status.
Most Americans oppose a larger, lengthier war in Afghanistan. If the GOP wants to run as the pro-war party, who are we to stand in their way?
"The base of the Democratic party is fundamentally pacifist and isolationist and has extraordinary, although not complete, leverage over this White House."
Jim Geraghty at National Review Online
I sure hope this guy isn't taken seriously. Has anyone met an Isolationist Democrat before? Do they even exist? Or is he just making stuff up so he can add another adjective to a Democrat?
I might agree with the pacifist part. It is true Democrats don't seem to possess the blood lust Republicans do. Killing innocent people doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling like it does for conservatives.
Sad thing is most of the warmongers don't actual fight in the wars. They send other people's innocent children off to die in their wars for profit.
You know by their logic we have every right to war on them who stand in our way. If we want something, according to them, we should go and take it. If some of them happen to get killed? Oh well, we took the situation by the horns and showed it who is boss. We ran it up the middle and went in for a touch down. We swung away and hit a home run... Sorry running out of sports analogies.
Reminds me of the bumper sticker the MP's tried to tear off my car in Panama - "War is good business, Invest your sons"... During the Vietnam War, of course!
It doesn't seem that long ago that politicians and military leaders in this country were stating that "We will never forget the lessons leanred in Viet Nam!" If only.
I think it might do everyone well to go back and read Robert McNamara's book "In Retrospect". It seems that, unlike LBJ, Obama is making an attempt to actually think before committing more troops to what could easily be a lost effort. How many times were more troops sent to prop up a corrupt or at best ineffectual South Vietnamese government? Just 20,000 more troops, Mr. President. Just 30,000 more troops, Mr. President. Yes, by all means, let's blindly send more American boys into a War that Bush let languish long enough for the Taliban to come back.
Forget the lessons of Vietnam? Hell, we've already forgotten the lessons of Irag!
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It seems that the neo-cons liken history to creationism. There is no evolution of history, things just magically happen.
Well gee, I absolutely hate war, especially ones that are unnecessary and/or started under false pretenses. And no, I don't like when innocent men, women and children are killed in the course of war. Ditto on fighting with citizens of another country, of which the majority probably feel the same way I do, and would rather not be bombed and shot at on a daily basis. I guess I'm not a "Real American".
Let's see if I get this one straight....
"The average Democrat doesn't like fighting wars. They don't like using military force. They don't just dislike collateral damage and civilian casualties and flag-draped coffins; they cringe at the concept of combat with citizens of another country..."
I'm not going to speak for any other Democrat but me, but I will say HELL YES I don't like fighting wars. Who in the hell does like fighting wars jackass? War is not something you should want to do. It is something you do when there is no other logical alternative. It isn't something you do cavalierly. My Christian faith (you neocons remember that right?) tells me that war of choice is wrong. Period. The man above says this as if it is some sort of character flaw. Basically, this is what he is saying.
"Democrats in general don't like killing people. They just don't have the stomach for killing innocent people in other countries. I don't know why, but they have some kind of moral objection to it."
And he says this without understanding that he is coming off sounding like a complete idiot.
OK. People, I hope we can all see what is happening here. This is going to turn into a S. Hussein, P. Musharraf, M.Pahlavi, M. Noriega, M. Seko kind of situation.
Propping up dictators is a long time ploy of ours. This built-in job security for the warmongers in this country has to stop. When are we going to break the cycle of unleashing monsters onto citizens of foreign countries?
What? You think Karzai isn't all that bad of a guy? Trust me. The second he starts to lose control of Afghanistan the mass executions and atrocities will begin. Happens every time...
If Obama decides to go along with the General and send in more troops, will we hear cries of "warmonger" from the right. I'm guessing there is a 50-50 chancce of that.
Good link, Miemaw. Thanks.
Des,
Larisa Alexandrova at www.atlargely.com
has some new information on the contents of McChrystal report.
And... it pretty much explains the "leak".
Obama policy toward Iran is much different than the Bush policy toward Iran.
Maybe McChrystal, and the Neocon Nation, wants "bomb, bomb Iran" back on the front burner.