McChrystal Clear (Flashback 05/13/09)

Investor's Business Daily ^ | May 13, 2009 | IBD Editorial staff

[raptor22]

War On Terror: From Gettysburg to Fallujah, no-nonsense leadership has proved the key to victory in war. President Obama has chosen a new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. This is Obama's war. This is his general.

During the campaign, candidate Barack Obama said Afghanistan was the right place to fight what is now called an overseas contingency operation. At first glance, with his choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take over as the top U.S. commander there, he may have picked the right man to fight it.

McChrystal is a special ops guru, a former head of the Joint Special Operations Command, a master of the tactics that proved victorious in Iraq under the surge of Gen. David Petraeus. Now Petraeus is McChrystal's boss in Afghanistan, and the future looks brighter for victory there as well.

[Jeff Chandler]

The money quote:

According to a Pentagon source of ours, McChrystal "has more combat experience than all the other generals combined. His biggest problem may be getting himself killed because he leads from the front. It could also happen politically because he suffers fools not at all."

[MestaMachine]

“Our new president as a candidate was very critical of our strategy in Iraq, even after Petraeus arrived with the surge that brought eventual victory. But being president concentrates the mind wonderfully, and President Obama has apparently decided that failure in Afghanistan is not an option on his watch.”

Truer lies were never spoken.

“He appears to have made a sound command decision and picked a leader who, like Petraeus in Iraq, does not intend to lose.”

And McChrystal sold his soul for his promotion to General. Afghanistan is not remotely comparable to Iraq.

[Jeff Chandler]

". . . he suffers fools not at all."

[Jeff Chandler]

Afghanistan is not remotely comparable to Iraq.

In many ways it's probably comparable to Vietnam, but counterinsurgency methods can be applied there.

[MestaMachine]

I don’t think it is feasable. Afghanistan is far more tribal, remote, and desolate than Iraq. These people are still in the stoneage. The country itself is huge, but it’s barren. The terrain is beyond hellish.
We have allowed shariah to become the law of the land. No matter how we fight it, no matter how many boots on the ground, we have promoted shariah in the taliban’s favor.
As long as that is the US position, it will never, ever work.

[shove_it]

ping

[hyperconservative]

related;
excerpt from Andrew McCarthy:
“Though it is doubtful that Obama would see any military action in pursuit of American interests as righteous, his campaign hyped Afghanistan as the good war, the “war of necessity”— the better to denigrate Iraq as the bad war, the “war of choice.” He compounded the problem in March when, in the course of adding 21,000 troops to the Afghanistan mission, he couldn’t resist sniping at his predecessor, saying President Bush had turned a deaf ear to our commanders, who had been “clear about the resources they need.” So now Obama finds himself presiding over the good war of necessity with a commander — the commander he chose — who is quite clear that he needs 40,000 more troops”...
from Oct 2, 2009
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWQ3Y2U2NjNlYTAyMjI3MTAxZjYyOWZhNTU0Mzg3MzQ=

[hyperconservative]

and from the same source, a different view from Kagan:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGI5MzIxMzRhZDA3OTA3ZmJjNmQ4MTFlMzIzN2NhZjA=&w=MQ==

so there

[SevenMinusOne]

Again, Gen. McCrystal was put in this position by the powers that be in the military/Pentagon. Thank God. Done so, pushed upon a very weak in-coming CINC (in terms of military gravitas) who had no where near the neccesary ‘support’ within the military channels to oppose his appointment.