...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
Representative Joe Wilson knows why.
Posted on 09/22/2009 3:51:39 AM PDT by Saije
The Obama Administration has been Woodwarded again, this time with a major scoop: Bob Woodward has a major front-page story that is more or less a summary precis of General McChrystal’s confidential Initial Assessment of the Afghan situation...I have a few initial assessments of my own:
1. It is not good to have a document like this leaked into the public debate before the President has made his decision...I assume the Obama team is very angry about this, and I think they have every right to be...
4. The leak makes it harder for President Obama to reject a McChrystal request for additional troops because the assessment so clearly argues for them...Presumably, the McChrystal assessment and request is shared by Petraeus and, I am told, also by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That does not make it irrefutably correct, but it does make this issue now the defining moment in civil-military relations under President Obama’s watch...
5. The toughest part in the report from the point of view of the Obama White House is the twin claim that (i) under-resourcing the war could cause the war to be lost, and (ii) the resources need to show up in the next year. The former puts the responsibility for success/failure squarely on the desk of the President and the latter, because of the long lead times needed to send additional resources into the theater, says that failure could result from choices made or not made in the next few weeks. And it said that a few weeks ago...
The domestic political-military stakes have been ramped up considerably with this leak. It is not quite a 3-AM-phone-call crisis, but it is probably the most serious national security test the Obama team has confronted thus far...
(Excerpt) Read more at shadow.foreignpolicy.com ...
"“FoxNews was reporting that Obama still wanted 6-8 weeks before making a decision.”
Zero wants that much time to continue enjoying lobster and Kobe beef without the heartburn his answer to the General will cause."
No and that’s a problem.
Lord, I pray that you bless, protect, comfort and give strength to each of our man/women who are servicing our country and also to their family and friends.
In Jesus name I pray.
Amen
Where are all the generals that were so critical of George Bush’s strategies in Iraq?
Why are they silent now?
Do they approve of the present strategy?
Agreed. There is a classified version though that Obama got and is sitting on.
Obama want a couple more months. He wants this so he can rev up more anti-war sentiment in the U.S. This is how the Left "won" the Viet Nam war.....figuratively "on the streets of Berkeley". I look for Obama's operatives to stir up protests on streets and campuses next.
The Left learned EVERYTHING from Viet Nam. Politicize a war and you've got it won.
In the next two months, the question is will the American public fall for the Left's Viet Nam strategy again under a different description.
I think General McChrystal is a patriot and a defender of the lives of his men......and he leaked the report himself through untraceable patriot alllies in or out of the military.
Leni
This leak will not allow the zer0 to vote present.
He is skeptical of any requests for more troops.
This leak will cause the zer0 to Man Up.
That’s life in the big leagues.
He and his Clowns better wake up fast, because the very last thing He/They want is a bunch really really Pissed Off Vets and returning Warriors, holding Him and his Clowns personally responsible for their defeat on the field of battle and deaths of Their Brothers.
At the very least, He'll get Community Organizers alright, just not the kind He was hoping for.
““It’s not good to have a document like this leaked.” Oh, really? When the Bush blue-ribbon panel was assessing Iraq, it was just fine to have stuff leaked early. . . if it was harmful to Bush.”
So it is good to leak classified documents? I find this a tough question.
“FoxNews was reporting that Obama still wanted 6-8 weeks before making a decision.”
The VA and NJ gubernatorial elections are in 6 weeks. Coincidence?
I don’t favor leaking documents in either case. The point is, the media thought it was just fine when almost under the exact same circumstances Bush was the victim.
“Presidentin’ is hard. Obama seems to want to vote present on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. “
I think “presidentin’” is hard. I would find it difficult to decide what to do in Afghanistan. More “nation building” doesn’t seem a very good answer.
But my basic problem is this. When Bush was president, he was advised regularly on what to do to win the war by our military leaders, same as Hussein is now being advised.
So for the last eight years, Bush was either following the advice of the military, or he was not. If Bush was following the advice of the military, and after eight years, this is the best the military could do (i.e., tell us that the war is on the verge of being lost), then Hussein would be right to be skeptical of any further military advice on how to win the war.
If Bush was not following military advice for the past eight years, then he was doing what he said he would never do: ignore the lessons of Vietnam and have civilians substitute their poor judgment on how to win the war for the military’s. He would be guilty of leading us to the brink of defeat after eight years of fighting, with no clear way out.
Eisenhower once said that he would feel sorry for any president who did not have the knowledge of the military that he had, knowing what to believe from his advisors, and what to discard. Both Bush and Hussein are notably short in that regard. Bush had eight years to figure things out in Afghanistan and never did. Maybe if we all cross our fingers and chant, maybe by some miracle Hussein will figure out who to listen to. It seems unlikely, but one thing is clear: after eight years of failure, it’s going to take a miracle to pull this one out.
“The point is, the media thought it was just fine when almost under the exact same circumstances Bush was the victim.”
Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t seen much condemnation of the New York Times and the Washington Post from the liberal media for leaking this story. After all, they are, more than anyone, the liberal media itself.
>>>> There is a classified version though that Obama got and is sitting on. <<<<
Yeah, I’m aure there’s more about Pakistan in the classified attachments. There was a little news blip about Pakistan the other day which implied more serious attention to the many serious problems there.
Pakistan is today’s Laos/Cambodia and serves as safe haven and logistics for the enemy. It is also where opium and morghine sulfate are converted to heroin, and where much of the whole heroin trafficking begins, thus financing terrorism.
So if those issues are not addressed, nothing else is even remotely serious. Might as well go home.
http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/north.asp
How North Vietnam Won The War
Taken from The Wall Street Journal, Thursday August 3, 1995
Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.
[Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army ... served on the general staff of North Vietnam’s army, [personally] received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People’s Daily.]
Thanks, SandRat.
Ping.
This article itself is from “Foreign Policy.” How much more drive-by do you get? It’s the academic version of the NY Times.
...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
Representative Joe Wilson knows why.
Ditto.
Either we need to beef up our forces and ease up these punishing Rules of Engagement, or we need to get out. The last thing in the world we need is to put our troops in danger with the intention of losing this war.
Which, I am afraid, is exactly Obama's intention. He wants to lose, give in to pressure to pull out, and blame it on Bush.
Obama wants the Muslim terrorists to win, he wants to blame Bush for the results just as the Democrats earlier managed to put all the blame on Nixon for the sins of JFK and LBJ, and he doesn't care how many of our forces die pointlessly to bring this about. Sure, many of the troops over there are black, but they aren't Obama's kind of blacks, even if they may have voted for him.
The only choice McChrystal had was to put the pressure on Obama and let people know that the responsibility is his. NOW.
Excellent!
Where is Murtha now, eh?????
LOL.
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