Posted on 09/18/2009 7:48:21 PM PDT by markomalley
Six months after it announced its strategy for Afghanistan, the Obama administration is sending mixed signals about its objectives there and how many troops are needed to achieve them.
The conflicting messages are drawing increasing ire from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan and frustrating military leaders, who are trying to figure out how to demonstrate that they're making progress in the 12-18 months that the administration has given them.
Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.
In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion "premature." Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "time is not on our side"; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public "to take a deep breath."
The White House didn't respond to requests for comment. Officials willing to speak did so only on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, some members of McChrystal's staff said they don't understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn't given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.
Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy Newspapers that the McChrystal they know would resign before he would stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
We have NO BASES in AFRICA?? Why NOT????
Thanx
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A. Why should we?
B. Where should we have one and why there?
C. How large should it be?
D. What troops should we deploy there?
E. What should their mission be?
F. The lack of military bases does not mean lack of military presence.
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This is nothing like the Clinton administration.
I’m 1/2 way through Jon Krakauer’s “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman” and have read Marcus Luttell’s “Lone Survivor” and I am convinced we should just leave. The culture is one where they will never be defeated unless you kill every male in the country all at once.
Let them rot in their ignorance. Pen them in.
"Forget Afghanistan is Obama's Viet Nam..
"Obama is U.S. forces' LBJ.
"[To wit,] Obama won't risk losing support for domestic agenda by helping military. .. and that measured response thing again? Oval Office interfering with day-to-day combat missions, too? "
It just occurred to me that by including LBJ it makes me just 1/2 racist!
Still way too much but Obama is 1/2 white (don't blame him for not talking about it much.. that typical white folks thingy) thus it seems to me that an actual bigotometer reading should be all the way down to just 25% racist/bigot!
Still a failing grade. So I say that
Obama is the U.S. forces' LBJ and McNamarra.
I finish as a mere 12.5 % racist/bigot!
Last time I heard this it was from Judge Ito during the OJ trial.
Gates and Obama. What crap.
We could if we wanted to. VietNam could have ended much earlier, and much more favorably, if we had taken decisive action against their supply lines sooner than we did. It was all political calculation--as it is now. As for who the suppliers are, Iran certainly, probably China, behind the bamboo curtain, but no one will call them on it.
Cue...Ripley...”Get them out of there...Obama!”
Our boys in Afghanistan are in a similar situtation as the marines were in Aliens with bad leadership and political/industrial machinations at the highest levels!
Thanks, Lancey
BTTT
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