Obama to Dither Even More on Afghanistan
Tags: Afghan Campaign.
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This gets ever more painful to watch:
President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
To translate: “Obama doesn’t want to make a decision to send or deny the troops, but he needed a plausible excuse to spin things out a while longer – Eikenberry provided it”.
Meanwhile, however, people are still dying there – and our troops have got to wonder ever more often if they’ll be given a clear mission and proper support from the politicians back home.
The truth of the matter is that Karzai may be a lot of things, but the ability of his government to assert control over all of Afghanistan rides on our efforts – and it would be the same no matter who was in charge of Afghanistan. Its not for us to settle Afghanistan’s political issues – it is for us to provide the safe haven where Afghans of good will can work it out, just as Iraqis of good will worked out Iraq’s future under the shield of American arms. Most Afghans, like most of the people in the world, just want to be left alone to get on with their lives – right now, the Taliban is making Afghans wonder if it will be Americans or Taliban they’ll have to deal with in the long run. We have to convince the Afghans that we are the power which will stay, not the Taliban. We do that, and we’ll get our Afghan version of the “Anbar awakening”.
What Obama is doing is playing right in to the enemy’s hands – he’s being irresolute. Someone pointed out that the time between 9/11 and fall of Kabul in 2001 was a shorter time than between presentation of the plan and Obama’s continued refusal to makea choice. Our political leaders in Washington must make it clear to President Obama that he must decide – one way or the other, and right away. No more time for thinking it over – it is time to act.
UPDATE: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, DITHERING IS STRENGTH.
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25 Responses to “Obama to Dither Even More on Afghanistan”
Caucus of Corruption
both petraeus & colin powell said this evaluation was the correct approach.
I feel mccrystal’s strategy, mirroring the soviets, is the wrong approach.
also, an exit strategy must be developed.
GEN Petreaus doesn’t call it dithering:
Who should we believe, Mark? You or GEN Petreaus?
Has Obama actually made a decision yet? 10 months into his presidency, after talking about how Afghanistan is the war we should be fighting, still no decision. Plenty of campaign stops and speeches, but, he needs to decide already.
And just for reference, I do not think we should put more troops into Afghanistan.
Orrin,
So you believe that Obama’s choice of McCrystal was a bad one?
And, for the record, I agree with William — I think, if we aren’t going to try to achieve victory, we should pack up and get out before we waste any more lives.
retiredspook says: November 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
perhaps. anybody, general or not, can make a decision, or chose a strategy which requires improvment.
last nite tho, I saw an author interviewed on CNN who alleges mccrystal was “at the center” of the army cover-up of pat tillman’s friendly-fire death.
this would be “conduct unbecoming” at the minimum.
also, I agree we should “pull out”…consistent w a defined exit strategy…which has NOT yet been developed & is NOT part of mccrystal’s plan.
but while our combat forces remain in theater, the mission is attack & destroy taliban & aQ forces & assets…NOT retreat to “defend” barricades around pop centers which was the failed soviet strategy.
Obama to Dither Even More on Afghanistan…Mark
—————————–
How many times do you think the word ‘dither’ has been repeated since it was first introduced to describe the President’s thoughtful approach in Afghanistan?
I wonder if the individual who coined it (someone at Fox News?) could have imagined how popular the word would become among those who parrot far-right talking points down to the last syllable.
I find it hard to consider the presidents approach “thoughtful”. He chose McCrystal, and said he would listen to his recommendations. Now, if he just wants out, he should just pull out our troops so that no more die needlessly. IF he wants to win, he needs to make a decision NOW, not weeks from now when more soldiers will have died.
I am not sure if we can win in Afghanistan, no foreign power ever really has, just look at the British Empire in the 1800’s, the Soviets (although we were arming the insurgents that time)and others. It may be that we cannot, but I know that we have no chance if we do not do something more than what is going on now.
all we can do is let the afghani’s chose what they want…thats it…beyond keeping our strength up so we dont take any serious opposition and casualties…it was pretty well going that way until BHOmmer got involved…now the paki’s hate us…and the taliban have real passion in the wilderness because of our indicision….
kjstrouble1 says: November 12th, 2009 at 11:06 am
we already have “won” the mission for we invaded.
aQ is no longer based in country.
So by merely redefinng the mission in Afghanistan to its simplest and most basic, mindless, component, orrin can now declare victory.
How convenient. Orwell would be so proud.
His stupidity is so blatant on so many levels, it is hard to know where to start. His dependence on Al Jazeera and Al Jazeer US (CNN) explains a lot of it, but still…..
Now he is redefining the goal of going into Afghanistan—not to defeat anyone or anything, you understand, but merely to RELOCATE a highly mobile terrorist group. All orrie needs to declare Mission Accomplished is a change of address card.
If I were to invent a cartoon character to represent the most mindless of the RRL, it would look just like orrin. He would be peddling along on his bike, the one with the Al Jazeera AM and I HEART Randy Rhodes stickers, Hope and Change knee pads tucked into the Toto basket on the handlebars, yelling “Obama Akbar!!” while listening to Keith Olbermann on his iPod.
Dumb as dirt and damewnd proud of it..
one thing true…
…randy rhodes is cute.
markanistan :
afghanistan was whacked long before obama came along
plus
the afghan people don’t care
the soldiers don’t care
(i previously mentioned my discussion in frankfurt with a brave, intelligent u.s. soldier who is there now, on emergency leave, who says it useless for us to be there)
and the u.s. citizens don’t care
so why are we there????
can you help me
cosmically confused as usual
It’s a tough situation:
1) We cannot pull out because all that’s preventing that country from falling into complete chaos are the US troops (and international troops)
2) The status quo is slowly bleeding us to death
3) Without a non-corrupt stable government eager to take responsibility adding 30-40.000 more troops is not going to help much
I’m stunned by the fact that we have been in that dump of a country so long and we have achieved so little. Lets remind each other never to invade Muslim countries again because we are clearly not very good at all the things that come after the invasion.
I would add the additional troops (30-40.000) but I would also set a timetable of 24 months and several milestones. I never bought the theory that the enemy will simply wait it out and strike once the troops have left. If they would be willing to wait 24 months before striking again then that would give us 24 months to rebuilt, train security forces/police, win trust etc. I would also put more pressure on the Afghan government and work more with the local tribes (pay them to fight).
After that Fck’em – they are on their own.
If in the end Afghanistan falls into Taliban hands again then so be it. This is the way it used to be and the sep 11th attack could have been planned from a large number of other places.
Amazona,
So you have a crush on Ohioorrin? I’d be more interested in hearing how you would solve the Afghanistan situation.
Obamateur is still not LEADING after 10 months.
We are still waiting for the “new strategy” promised a year ago in the campaign. I remember modern libs criticizing Bush because of no exit strategy. It is apparent that Obamateur has no exit strategy, no entrance strategy and no execution strategy.
But he looks good on camera.
raz
WHATS with this WE SHIITE you are a damn FOREIGNER>>>WTF X 1000 ??????
00
I got my free meal last night at Applebees ……the place was JAMMED with vets.
I ended up sitting next to and talking to a black fmr Marine gulf war vet…..
I kept asking him if he was 0hio moron (just kidding)
he stated he voted for and supported 0 early on, but now is really disappointed with him and wouldnt support him for a second term……..
I guess I have a new best friend……00 were you in Florida last night??????
WHEW hangover today……..
here we got the paki’s running the taliban and AQ across the border for us…and we got nobody on this side to catch ‘em….
I got my free meal last night at Applebees ……the place was JAMMED with vets.
neo, my wife and I also took advantage of the Applebees special, and the car wash next to Applebees was offering free car washes to vets. When we pulled into Applebees’ parking lot, my wife noticed that all the cars were clean.
The correct word for a citizen of Pakistan is Pakistani, js02. But of course you already knew that, didn’t you?
The unfortunate truth is the requested troops 40,000 2 complete divisons are not available. The Joint Chiefs of Staff(as reported in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal) said that they could not recommend sending any troops to Afghanistan that had not had 1 full year back from a combat deployment. People want to put more troops into a country where there are no secure lines of supply. We have to pay the Taliban 500 dollars just to have them let us drive through. After 9 years we can’t drive a convoy of trucks from Kabul to Kandahar without bribing the locals i.e. the Taliban.
here is the link to the WSJ article the SOONEST we can send any major increase in troops is 8 months next summer but some idiots think that Obama has to make his decision immediately.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125720469173424023.html
You battlefield commanders who post here must think that 2 divisions just requires an email to move
kmg,
For Petraeus and the rest of the generals, it is get on board, or resign…and while resignation might seem easy, its really not for good officers…they don’t want to leave their men in the lurch. So, they’ll suck it up and make the best of it. But Obama is still dithering – and Petraeus knows it and is probably not at all happy with it.
johnryan,
You don’t just snap your fingers and get 40,000 troops in to Afghanistan. It would be a months-long effort to get them in place.
The key is the decision – one way or the other, Obama must decide, and decide right away. Each day of delay just makes the enemy more convinced that Obama is a coward – and thus even if he sends the troops, they’ll have a much harder fight against an enemy convinced that just a bit more resistance and Obama will cave.
Bagni,
Why?
1. Because it can work – in fact, I’m certain it will work because of the plain and indisputable fact that most people just want to be left alone to live their own lives. As the Afghans are people, they, too, wish to be left alone – but they are now calculating the chances of either a Taliban or US victory and if there’s even an outside chance of the Taliban coming out on top, then they know they’d better be wary of overt support for US troops. But if we can convince them that we’re going to stick it out, they’ll come down hard on our side – because we promise to leave them alone.
2. Once you are in a war, you can’t just get out. You have to win, or to lose – and losing is always worse than winning.
Mark,
Your denigration of our senior military comanders is really unbecoming. It is as though you are saying that they are betraying the soldiers under their command. Whatever you say about Obama because you believe he is “dithering” you must also say about Petraeus, since you claim he is just toeing the line.
Because all of them are awful. The Biden camp thinks that we should pull some of our troops out and then retreat. The McChrystal camp thinks we should send more troops in and then retreat. Both are insane. We need to be listening to people like Matthew Hoh, but he decided to just give up, and to people like General Kayani, but he’s in the wrong army. The fools we have in charge are going about this like Rome assaulting Carthage.
Without our efforts, it is impossible. Without his efforts, it is also impossible. He is not making those efforts, and he must either change or go. The only reasons I do not favor assassinating him are what happened after Diem was removed and possible repercussions among Karzai’s Pashtun base.
Right now, the single most dangerous man in Afghanistan, as far as American interests are concerned, is Hamid Karzai. And there’s not a thing we can do about him — with one exception. We can threaten to leave in order to scare him into governing. Whether or not that’s what we are doing, I don’t know.
If he chooses the first option, we will lose. If he chooses the second option, we will still lose. Holding out for a third option at least makes victory possible.
Also, bear in mind that when Obama does make a decision, he won’t necessarily announce it. An important part of war is subterfuge.
A very bad one.
Victory does not turn on the lives of a dozen or two soldiers. I realize that is a cold thing to say, but it is the necessary reality of planning a war. If we want to win, we must choose the course of action that results in victory. At present, there are no such courses of action. If soldiers’ lives must be sacrificed in order to buy time for such a course of action to be found, then it is no different from their lives being sacrificed as part of a feint, or even as bait to draw the enemy out to where they can be defeated. Yes, they will die, but more lives will ultimately be saved. That is the nature of strategy.
Oh, they care. They have just lost hope.
Thirty years ago, we promised the Afghans freedom. America keeps her promises.
Th person who wrote that article is an idiot. The Pakistanis captured Makin days ago. While it looks like his larger point might be right, I would recommend you get your information from people who actually have some idea what they’re talking about.
A good officer will resign in protest rather than take part in something that will cause his troops to die unnecessarily. He owes it to his men, his country, and himself. This is especially true for General Petraeus. Can you imagine what sort of political fallout his resigning in protest would cause?
America’s word does not count for much in Afghanistan, particularly when we’re already backing the corrupt thugs who are squelching their country’s most recent stab at normality.
You know how you don’t like the government, Mark? Imagine if you had to spend a third of your income on bribes. Now you have some inkling about how the Afghans feel about the government we are supporting.