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Originally Posted by tomder55

If McCrystal's memo went through the chain of command then it most likely is approved and supported by Gen. Petraeus and Joint Chief Chair U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen .
The fact that it ended up being leaked to Bob Woodward indicates a possible split between the President and his commanders. Should be interesting to see where this goes .

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This apparently goes to McChrystal resigning if Obama doesn't give him what he needs.

Nice pick up.. Bill Roggio has been one of my primary sources since he began covering the war against jihadistan.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

McChrystal resigning if Obama doesn't give him what he needs

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Hello Steve:

And, he should. If Tommy Franks had the balls to quit when he was given a NO WIN job, we'da been out of Iraq LONG ago, or we'da went in with ENOUGH troops to DO the job.

We either DO it, and I agree with the Wolverine that we CAN, or we DON'T. Fiddle farking around does NOTHING but get our guys killed. Good for McChrystal for bringing it to a head. You can't incrementally win a war.. You got to WIN it, or you got to skedattle.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello Steve:

And, he should. If Tommy Franks had the balls to quit when he was given a NO WIN job, we'da been out of Iraq LONG ago, or we'da went in with ENOUGH troops to DO the job.

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I don't think so.

World leaders of all types have a habbit of hunting down and recruiting the "military leaders" who will do the job the way they want it to be done. If Bush intended to go to war, regardless of what anyone else was saying about NOT going to war (and that was NOT the case... support for the war was actually very high in the beginning), AND if he was going to do it the way HE wanted, regardless of what Tommy Franks was saying about more boots on the ground, then Franks quitting wouldn't have changed anything. Bush would simply have gotten another general more willing to do it Bush's way. We still would have been in the war, and we probably wouldn't have had as competent a military commander to lead the operation. The result would have been the same or WORSE.

It doesn't take a military leader who's willing to walk away... it takes a leader who's willing to stay and FORCE his position on his civilian leaders in order to get the job done. A guy like David Petreus, for instance.

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We either DO it, and I agree with the Wolverine that we CAN, or we DON'T. Fiddle farking around does NOTHING but get our guys killed. Good for McChrystal for bringing it to a head. You can't incrementally win a war.. You got to WIN it, or you got to skedattle.

Excon

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I agree on this point. $h!t or get off the pot.

Elliot

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The commanders want to WIN. We want commanders who want to do that... But, commanders are soldiers. Their job is war. Our president is Commander-In-Chief. HIS job is politics. We WANT presidents to do that. That's why the founders arranged things like they did..

I'm continually amazed at how smart those guys were.

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Jim Webb said "We have reached a turning point in Afghanistan as to whether we are going to formally adopt nation-building as a policy,"
US faces 'nation-building' choice on Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

And it's a fair question to raise. The President said a number of times Sunday that he was “going to be assessing, both our strategy and its implementation constantly”. Which I guess is fair although I have the impression he does that in lieu of making decisions.

But here is another Vietnam comparison which I'm concerned the President is prone to duplicate . LBJ said “them boys over there can’t bomb an outhouse without my permission”. Obama's decisions to this point does not convince me he will let his " win ".

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello Elliot:

I believe ME.

It's MY view, that the US can NEVER be defeated by a foreign army because of WHO WE ARE. We're a snarly lot. We have guns. We LIKE our freedom. We AIN'T gonna give up. We ARE gonna form insurgencies, and we'll fight 'em to the last man. If they wanna beat us, it's gonna take ONE soldier to watch EACH citizen, and I don't think ANY army has enough soldiers to do that...

Afghanistan is a LOT like us in that regard, for completely different reasons, of course... But, the reasons don't change anything on the ground. It's gonna take ONE of our soldiers to watch EACH one of them, and we ain't got that many.

excon

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Seems to me you have a short memory, do you remember Vietnam when you left Saigon with your tail between your legs? I think history is about to repeat itself. But as to your other remarks, yes, you have learned some lessons from history, but the chinese just might have enough soldiers to do invasion and guns only give you a chance of personal defense, it takes a lot more to defeat an army, it takes discipline and you are short on that. You will be fighting each over long before you sight the enemy

How many times has our Commander-in-chief talked with the man charged with executing the Afghan mission? Once.

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The military general credited with capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says he has spoken with President Obama only once since taking command in Afghanistan.

"I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC [video teleconference]," Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

"You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?" Mr. Martin followed up.

"That is correct," the general replied.

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I guess he's been too busy on TV and with his worldwide apology tour (and now his trip to Copenhagen to win the Olympics for Chicago) to actually discuss his war of choice with his commander.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

I guess he's been too busy on TV and with his worldwide apology tour (and now his trip to Copenhagen to win the Olympics for Chicago) to actually discuss his war of choice with his commander.

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Hello again, Steve:

I don't know, Steve. You don't think they got telephones?? Dude!

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

I dunno, Steve. You don't think they got telephones??? Dude!

excon

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You notice I said "talked" with? Did you notice the general said "I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC?"

Did you notice the follow-up was, "You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?" And the general's response was "That is correct."

Yeah, they have phones. Obama needs to use them.

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Obama needs to use them.

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Hello again, Steve:

DUDE! Apologizin is MUCH more important...

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

what there was to win?

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Yeah. What is there to win? I bet if we stay there another 50 years, we still wouldn't have "won" it.

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

DUDE! Apologizin is MUCH more important...

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Apparently, LOL.

Considering that McChrystal is the President's hand picked field commander this news is mind boggling.

As for the OP ;there is a split in the administration between those who want counter-insurgency and those like Biden (gee let's split Iraq into 3 parts ) who argue for a much more limited counter-terrorism strategy . No one is pushing for a get out now exit strategy.

I seem to remember Obama saying that Afghanistan was the war we had to fight... the "right" war... the one that was REALLY important, where Iraq was just a distraction. Afghanistan was going to be the place he redeployed our troops from Iraq, in order to put them where they were "really needed"... remember his "phased redeployment" crap?

Why is the guy who touted Afghanistan as the correct war to be fighting only talking to his senior field commander once in 70 days? And why is he no longer willing to "redeploy" troops to Afghanistan?

Of course we already know the answer...

As Wilson said, he lied.

About EVERYTHING. Foreign policy, domestic policy, economics, social issues... there is NOTHING that Obama hasn't lied about.

Wilson shouldn't have been disciplined. He should have been given a medal for having the guts to say what we all know is true to the President's face.

Elliot

Elliot, it's like we've said before it's all about Obama. He doesn't give a crap about anything that isn't about Obama. Why do you think he's traveling to Copenhagen to push our Olympic bid for Chicago instead of talking about his war of choice with his commander, dealing with Iran - even pushing his health care nonsense? The word is the Olympics could be a done deal if Obama makes a cameo... and it's all about Obama.

Hello again, El:

Sniveling about him ain't going to do it. But, that's all you got left.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

Sniveling about him ain't gonna do it. But, that's all you got left.

excon

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Nah... I got the 2010 and 2012 elections.

But I don't see you denying the charge that Obama lied every step of the way.

You know I'm right. You just don't have the brass to admit it.

That's OK, though... your silence speaks quite eloquently.

Elliot

The decision is being pondered and pondered and pondered some more, while our troops are awaiting reinforcements, or orders to pack up and leave. A Marine from 40 miles away from me was killed over the weekend, on the second day of his second tour. Malicki in Iraq has control of over 100,000 U.S. troops while the Afghan U.S. commander is being told not to request troops until they tell him to. The multiple tours are crimininal. If we want to fight multiple wars, we should support the right number of troops to do it, whatever it takes. I believe the current delay in making a decision is 100% political a** covering and has nothing to do with protecting our troops. We need large numbers of troops to win these wars (if I am not mistaken, we had 500,000 troops in VN at one point. That stirred up the protesters and the politicians because it started getting personal). I am a veteran but not an expert, but those kinds of numbers of troops means reinstituting the draft, if we are going to commit our young folks to wage these wars. Exposing the same soldiers to combat over and over, until many don't come back, while life goes on normally for the rest of us, is shameful. Personally, I believe that while we have so much equipment and so many troops in the Middle East we will never have a better shot at accomplishing what we need to do there, so long as we are committed to winning. If I were Obama, I would put an emergency measure in Congress to reinstitute the draft, and let Congress share in the heat. I realize that is radical but we need Congress and the American people to show their cards.

Hello smear:

**greenie**

excon

Of course it's all political, Obama was "just words" with all his rhetoric about Afghanistan being a priority. His only having spoken with his hand-picked commander there even makes sense now. Remember Hillary running an ad during the campaign on this?

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Hillary For President
“True”
TV : 30

Announcer: Barack Obama says he has the judgment to be president.

But as chairman of an oversight committee charged with the force of fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan–he was too busy running for president to hold even one hearing.

Barack Obama: “I became chairman of this committee, at the beginning of this campaign-at the beginning of 2007, so it is true that we haven’t had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.”

Announcer: Hillary Clinton will never be too busy to defend our national security-bringing our troops home from Iraq and pursing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Hillary Clinton: “I’m Hillary Clinton and I approved this message.”

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Seems every time he's put in charge of something related to Afghanistan he goes AWOL to work on his permanent campaign.