Posted on 09/22/2009 5:42:06 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
GEN. Stan McChrystal, an honorable soldier, has reported from Afghani stan: He wants more troops for a "classic" counterinsurgency strategy to secure the population, then win hearts and minds.
President Obama needs to make a decision: Either give the general the resources he believes he needs, or change the mission.
I'm for changing the mission. Concentrate on the continued destruction of al Qaeda and its allies. Nothing else matters in this mess.
Last spring, the president handed McChrystal an impossible mission: Turn Afghanistan into a prosperous, rule-of-law democracy cherished by its citizens. The general's doing his best. But we have zero chance -- zero -- of making that happen.
Meanwhile, we've forgotten why we went to Afghanistan in the first place. (Hint: It wasn't to make nice with toothless tribesmen.) Here's a simple way to conceptualize our problem: A pack of murderous gangsters holes up in a fleabag motel. The feds raid the joint, killing or busting most of them. But some of the deadly ringleaders get away.
Should the G-men pursue the kingpins, or hang around to renovate the motel? Common sense says: Go after the gangsters. They're the problem, not the run-down bunkhouse.
Yet, in Afghanistan, we've put the bulk of our efforts into turning a vast flophouse into the Four Seasons -- instead of focusing ruthlessly on our terrorist enemies. It's politically correct madness.
What we really need is just a compact, lethal force of special operators, intelligence resources and air assets, along with sufficient conventional forces for protection and punitive raids. More troops just mean more blood and frustration.
Those who suggest pulling out completely and striking from offshore don't understand the fundamentals, either: We still need some boots on the ground, within grabbing distance of Pakistan's ...northwest,......
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
fyi
Ralph Peters: Would have given up at Plymouth Rock.
He is right, forget about the nation building.
The ROE (Rules of Engagement) must change in our favor or not a single US Serviceman or woman should be sent!
What Obama and his fellow IDIOTS do not or will not understand is, radical MUZZIES only fear power. Radical MUZZIES will never respect you unless you treat them VERY harshly, punish them harshly and kill anyone and everyone who gets in your way!
I agree that more troops won’t be enough. We need a new commander in chief.
Read deeper into the article.
He is right, forget about the nation building.
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I agree. Afghanistan is about killing terrorists.
I got a little bit of flak on another thread here for saying the same thing Peters did in this article.
Any person in the military or had a relative in the military and voted for the muslim is a fool.
Looks at his Rules of Engagement - designed to kill American soldiers.
Afghanistan was over back in Nov 2008.
Right on. The Russians proved there’s no way to fight a conventional war and win hearts and minds in this hellhole of a country. Send in the special forces, tell them to do what it takes and stuff a sock in Pelosi and Reids pieholes and get ‘er done. Don’t waste blood and treasure trying to reform a worthless pile of rock, just kill the bad guys and get out.
Obama needs to issue new rules of engagement, and no more voting “present”. This is Obamastan now.
But Obama can't go back to that now, his Leftwing a-holes won't stand for it and he doesn't want to fight anyway. Plus, that strategy is open-ended--there is no obvious end to such fighting until that sunny day when there are no jihadis left--a day that won't come in our lifetimes.
The General needs to have the extra troops just to fill the holes in the line left by the passivity of many of the NATO troops. The Germans are useless eaters, and the eighty-year old yets of the Wehnmacht would be more effective than these troops.
Peters brings up a point kind of sideways. He advocates the annihilation of the enemy, with no consideration for the “Infrastructure.”
One thing I have maintained in our present war is that we have not successfully “De-humanized” the enemy through policy. Islam is the Religion of Peace as put forth by President Bush etc.
Our policy in WW II was capturing the enemy in the minds of the people in America as single word caricatures to fix them in the minds of the people as the enemy. This was done in newsreels, movies and even so far as Bug Bunny cartoons. Think of what would now be called “slurs” that were common language in the media and on the street then.
These caricatures allowed us as a people to do what was necessary to beat the threat into unconditional surrender.
On an individual and unit level, I know it is still happening, but as a nation it is not. Propaganda? Yea, probably. Is it needed to galavanize a nation to do what is necessary to survive real threats to it’s continued existence. IMHO, Yup.
We have lost that certain part of a national warrior spirit in our PC view of the world.
My Two cents.
The problem developed because Bush caved to the demands for multilateralism.
I knew Mr. Bush was in trouble when he had an Iman take part in the National Cathedral ceremony. The problem is that the oil industry was in so thick with the Saudi family they cannot see clearly how Wahabbism factors in.
Carpet bomb the border and + 100 mi either side. Then have a free fire zone for 20 yrs.
It’s a good article.
Peters makes some great analogies about how Barry is treating this war.
Peters wants a different mission, obviously without Barry’s pro Taliban ROEs.
And lots of counterinsurgency and covert and specials ops.
The problem is that Barry has dispirited and threatened the intel community-not sure how eager they’re going to be to do more heavy lifting
when Eric Holder is waiting in the wings to arrest them.
It could be the perfect war. Think about it,no nation building, no politcal considerations, no winning of hearts and mind. Just killing the enemy, regardless of where he sleeps. Bomb and burn them. teach them a lesson about screwing with the USA. Stack them like cordwood. That is what we should be doing, instead of this circlejerk that Obama is doing.
Rewarding positive behavior from the “Enemy” is not a problem. Politically President Bush probably needed to do that.
The problem lays in that we have never taken the enemy into the Alinsky world. Freeze him, personalize him, ridicule him. Destroy him on every level possible, in this case physically, morally (in the minds of your people) mentally and emotionally.
Maybe we could settle for just building 2 or 3 small towns
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