Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 10/02/2009 6:42:30 PM PDT by Federalist Patriot
Here is video of Retired Col. Jack Jacobs - an MSNBC Military Analyst - telling Ed Schultz he believes President Obama's meeting with top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was the direct result of McChrystal's comments yeserday in London that were critical of Vice-President Joe Biden's strategy of "leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban." Jacobs believes McChrystal was "summoned" to Copenhagen by Obama because of those comments. Here is a report on his comments that contricted what Biden has called for:
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, used a speech here Thursday to reject calls for the war effort to be scaled down from defeating the Taliban insurgency to a narrower focus on hunting down al Qaeda, an option suggested by Vice President Joe Biden as part of the current White House strategy review.Jacobs believes Obama is likely to try and "split the baby" by giving McChrystal some additional forces, but with lots of strings attached and a timetable for results. He does not believe Obama will give McChrystal all he has asked for, and says it is possible the General will resign if Obama refuses to provide the reinforcements requested.
After his first 100 days in command in Kabul, McChrystal chose a blue-ribbon audience at London's Institute for Strategic Studies as a platform for a public airing of the confidential assessment of the war he delivered to the Pentagon last month, parts of which were leaked to news organizations.
McChrystal, 55, did not mention Biden or his advocacy of a scaled-down war effort during his London speech, and referred only obliquely to the debate within the Obama administration on whether to escalate the American commitment in Afghanistan by accepting his request for up to 40,000 more American troops on top of the 68,000 already deployed there or en route.
But he used the London session for a frank rebuttal of the idea of a more narrowly focused war. When a questioner asked him whether he would support scaling back the American military presence over the next 18 months by relinquishing the battle with the Taliban and focusing on tracking down al Qaeda, sparing ground troops by hunting al Qaeda extremists and their leaders with missiles from unmanned drones, he replied: "The short answer is: no."
"You have to navigate from where you are, not from where you wish to be," he said. "A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a shortsighted strategy." . . . MORE
Obama probably informed McChrystal of the new order—he follows Biden’s lead now.
Reckon that general feller’s gotta git his mind right.
What we have here is a failure to communicate...
Having ruined the olympic bid, the One is probably in a mood to just show ‘em and do something (stupid).
Like surrender in Afghanistan. He thinks its Bush’s war anyway.
I could see a resignation from the services in an appropriate time frame.
Then, a possible VP candidacy with SP
Wow! Wouldn’t that be something!
McChrystal is 55? He should just retire and go out with his head held high, rather than be “the one who lost the war in Afghanistan.”
Wanna take odds that as of Monday McCrystal is out of a job?
0bama has very thin [whitish] skin and doesn’t take too well to having someone upstage him.
Heck, McCrystal is going to have to get in line behind the first 25 Enemies of The 0bama Administration.
0bama will see McCrystal as not a “team player.” Only problem is that it’s 0bama who’s playing on the wrong team.
0bama-Care = Waterloo
0bama-Afghanistan = Viet Nam
0bama-Iran = Armageddon
I love it when a plan comes together.
Add 0bama-Honduras = ???
And 0bama-Olympics = PRICELESS [Somewhere I heard the total cost for that trip was around $30 Million, is that correct?]
I like it.
But that’s just me.
“He should just retire and go out with his head held high, rather than be “the one who lost the war in Afghanistan.”
It’s more than that with military leaders. He doesn’t want to give orders to put his men’s lives at risk without the full support they need. If he’s put in that position, he probably will resign.
Agree about the General. Hope he has a nice retirement place picked out.
perfect
Because I know nothing about wars, I have a few questions.
1. If a general can resign, can all his troops do the same?
2. Since Prez picked McChrystal is this all a ploy to act
like the Prez doesn’t really want to send more troops, but
in reality he does?
3. I thought Afghanistan was “unwinable” so why send more
troops to be killed or left stranded over there.
4. In the old days, when people were working and spending
and life was good - people would be screaming about this
fight, so is that why all this crisis has been created to
distract us from what he really wants to do (to send all
our boys over there to die) leaving us unprotected with
a collapsing country?
No, He called the General to cover up his failure at the Olympics. Trying to cover up is humiliation.
Perhaps this is a good place to quote the President himself in his book ‘The Audacity of Hope’..
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
‘nuff said.
I don’t have military experience, either, but a general would have enough years in service that he could tender his resignation at any time. The other officers’ ability to tender resignations would be dependent on the time remaining on their contracts with the Army. Usually, when they are offered promotions above a certain level, they sign up for another x years. Enlisted are also contracted with the Army for a certain period of time that they have to fulfill.
Obama is reminding me of LBJ, who was more interested in his domestic agenda than the war he was sending others to fight. He doesn’t want another VN, but his base is so anti-war and anti-military, that the recommendations of Genl McChrystal put him in a politically lose-lose position.
Obama will probably try to ‘split the baby’ by sending less than the general wants, but more than Biden wants, making no one happy. Assuming Genl McChrystal’s is the right position, half measures would set the US up to lose.
Uh huh...and the intelligence on where to find al Qaeda will come from where? From tribesmen who are unprotected and will be only too happy to communicate this information in some as-yet undisclosed way to far-off American troops who have abandoned them? Maybe from inside Joe Biden's head?
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