Posted on 12/06/2009 3:15:18 AM PST by Scanian
Last week, President Obama laid out his plan for prosecuting the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan. Thirty-thousand additional US troops will be headed to Afghanistan over the next several months, part of an intensified effort to regain territory from the Taliban and give the fledgling Afghan security forces a chance to take control of that nation. Regardless of what you think of the decision and the President’s announcement of it, here are some indisputable facts:
Al Qaeda, the organization that actually attacked us on 9/11, retains almost no presence in Afghanistan. Its central leadership now operates primarily from an area across the border in neighboring Pakistan. Its members are scattered across a host of other nations. The Taliban, the organization with which we are currently at war in Afghanistan, has almost no capability to stage international terrorist attacks and has confined its goals almost exclusively to the establishment of an Islamic state in Afghanistan. It poses no direct threat to the territory of the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Perhaps a czar....
/smirk
Any financing towards covert operations/operatives during this administration would inevitably be directed at the American people, not their enemies.
Combined MI & SOCOM Ping
The article is correct that the CIA, having been burned by the government has lost its capacity for direct action due to their risk aversion.
We can't leave out congressional oversight either or the current DCI, Leon E. Panetta - a long time professional politician and Clinton's chief of staff.
First, any new agency will devolve into the same morass as the CIA, FBI, etc. Why? Because all the political appointees and union members are the cancer inside these agencies and if you sweep them out, then these agencies will return to their aggressive, no-holds-barred approach to our enemies.
Second, expanding gov’t is never the answer.
Third, we also need to decimate the liberals who do not believe in covert actions and military tribunals before we will ever be serious about destroying international terrorism.
I doubt 10% would be enough to fix the problem.
And “burned” will be the same fate of any organization that runs covert operations.
Do anything a lib does not like and it will be leaked to a more than willing MSM outlet that will splash the details all over the front page,
When you have SEALs being court marshalled for, even if true, working over a snatch.....for get it.
Our college educated officer corps have grown up in bureaucratic schools, serve in a bureaucratic/managerial military, and, in this case, are so clueless and gutless, that not one officer buried/trashed/covered...had these SEALs backs....well..forget it.
Just like the puke Army ‘Chain’ of managerial command with Ft. Hood.
Forget it.
Obama, Joint Chief Casey...are, but are not, just the disease...they are the symptoms of our ‘culture’ as it were. No different than Wall Street rip off scum like Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and now, little Timmy Geithner.
Need Mitch Rapp...
Task Force 125 can do the job. If they’re still around.
After Obama, “behind enemy lines” would be in the USA.
We don’t need a new OSS to successfully fight Al Qaeda. We need to unleash the hounds of war on them.
Our military has become too bureaucratic and pc to prevail against an enemy like Al Qaeda, who are primal and ruthless warriors.
No, what we need is to start fighting them in a completely unrestricted manner. We have the capacity to inflict more hurt and damage than they can bear, but we’re unwilling to do it. They see this clearly, and use our limp-wristed, political correctness against us.
Sun Tzu would tell us to surrender now, as we’re unwilling to actually defeat our enemy.
Without victory there, this war will likely be lost.
How many troops do we need to defeat the Taliban?
Can we defeat them under the current rules of engagement?
Not sure we’ll ever have enough troops and even with 30,000 more how can they win under “Karzai’s 12”: troops can’t conduct surprise or night searches, can’t fire unless they absolutely positively confirm there are no civilians, can’t fire on insurgents if they’re already walking away from IED’s they planted—fire only as they’re planting the IED’s....
Andrew McCarthy writes: “The Right is snowed, the Left is appeased. We’re coming, but we’re leaving. We’re sending thousands of warriors, but they won’t be making war. We’re nation building in a place we’d have to occupy for a century to build a nation, but we’re not occupiers, and we’ll be calling it a wrap in 18 months. In the interim, Afghanistan can go off the radar while we socialize medicine, save the planet from the contrived heat death, and get ACORN busy on the midterms. We can deal with Afghanistan again in July 2011, when we’ll have a better read on the landscape for Obama’s 2012 reelection bid.”
Our leadership, the President, his cabinet, our Congress, the military, all need to be overhauled. It starts with next year’s 2010 elections. We need to let these feckless “leaders” know we are paying attention and we will not tire until they change or are replaced. In the meantime, I am not snowed.
We don’t need a new OSS. We just need a few Bill Donovans.
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