Posted on 10/08/2009 11:51:04 AM PDT by La Lydia
The troop request on the desks of the president and his national security team outlines three options, according to a source familiar with the document. One path is not to send anymore troops to Afghanistan, considered a "high risk option." The second is to send 40,000 troops, and the third calls for a major increase in troops, far more than 40,000. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, according to the source, recommends the "middle" option of 40,000 as the minimum number needed to have a chance of success...
The White House, however, is downplaying the troop numbers as the focus of the president's deliberations... "But the larger focus is strategy."
And that focus is clearly shifting away from the Taliban in Afghanistan to al Qaeda in Pakistan. "The president has a different obligation than his commanders," said the aide. "He needs to see this in a global context..."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The minute that you suggest that the Taliban can be part of the Afghanistan negotiation effort....I’m pretty sure that the current government of the country will go into a 360 degree spin. It’s hard to see how the Afghanistan government will stand for this...basically forgetting everything that the Taliban did prior to the 9-11 event? This was a lousy country that no one wanted to live in...with these guys in charge.
There is only one option a real CINC has, after through review and understanding, do what the generals want to win.
Johnson chose poorly and look what happened to him, when he put the “Great Society” over winning Kennedy’s war.
They are ignorant of history and blind to human nature. And he thinks he is so much smarter than everyone else.
I'm surprised the media doesn't report the fourth option, slowly drawing down the number of troops while concentrating on community outreach at the cost of hundreds of the remaining soldiers before declaring victory following a surrender to the new Taliban government.
"The president has a different obligation than his commanders," said the aide. "He needs to see this in a global context..."
That's news to those of us who sort of thought of 0bama as Commander in Chief. He has an "obligation" to see this in a global context? Really? What part of the Constitution says that?
Because that would conflict with their mission of making him look like he knows what he is doing, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t. Helicopters taking off from the embassy roof in our future. Me, I would prefer we bomb the whole place back to the Stone Age before we leave (it doesn’t have far to go), to include a complete leveling of the border area.
Scary, isn’t it? If our president isn’t going to see to our best interests and safety, who is? Also, the “one or the other” logic. If we go after the Taliban, we can’t go after Al Qaeda? Why not? Stratergery indeed.
I called my HR rep and my 2 Senators and told them all that Obama’s emerging position on Afganistan was the last straw for me and that Obama needs to be impeached. When I talked with a “Mike” in Senator Casey’s office, he actually told me that Obama had done nothing that warrants impeachment. I told him that I wasn’t calling to get his opinion and that gross incompetence is indeed grounds for impeachment. I asked him to simply pass along my request;not give me his opinion.
Very badly run office. The junior staff/interns who answer the phones are not supposed to contradict or offer opinions. They are supposed to say, politely, “I will pass your views on to the Senator. Thank you for calling.” I would call back, ask for the chief of staff, and inform him of that appalling situation in his front office, which you are sure the Senator would never tolerate if he knew about it.
Option 4: Fight the war the way a war is suppose to be fought
with no hands behind our backs. Someone shoots from a mosques
it no longer exits Look at what we did to Dresden,Hiroshima,Nagasaki. When the US goes to war there should be fear that their very civilization will cease to exist when we are done. If we do this there will be less war. If people mess with us screw the UN and take out there capital city. If we can not do this we should bring our troops home there is no reason we should have be in Afghanistan for 8 year now the US longest war!
Yes. I’m with you. If we are going to fight a war, we are going to 1) fight to win, no half-measures, 2) take care of OUR soldiers and 3) take no prisoners. We could have and should have wiped that sorry excuse for a country off the map long ago.
Thanks La Lydia. I did as you suggested and the staff person(I think it was the same one that gave me the hard time) insisted on knowing what it was I wanted to talk to the Chief of Staff about. I got totally blocked from speaking with him. I am going to have to start taking names and sending in e-mails with my complaint in the hope that they will be passed on to the appropriate person. I’m so mad I could spit.
Third tactic. Find who the chief of staff is. I think it is Jim Brown. Call back and ask for him by name. When they ask what you are calling about, tell them “This is (your name.) I am calling about confidential constituent matter.” If they say Jim is no longer the chief of staff, say you would like to speak with whoever replaced him. Also, might help to be calling from “the office of so-and-so.” They are self-important little bastards. You just have to be “more important” than they are.
Thank you!
The Afghan war could have been won in 1990 if we had fought the Gulf War as what it was, the opening engagement in the Islamic War. The run-up to that war began long before that with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Obama is not our analog for Chamberlain. Carter was that man.
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