Before last week, President Barack Obama had met with Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- the commander and lead strategist for the war in Afghanistan -- a grand total of one time since becoming president.
By contrast, the president has met with NBC interviewers at least five times over that time span.
It should come as no surprise then, that Obama was blindsided by a report from McChrystal, in which the commander requested up to 40,000 additional troops to avoid total mission failure in Afghanistan. The report, which was leaked two weeks ago to the Washington Post, has put the president on the spot and will force him to make the first serious military decision of his administration.
Rather than taking his own commander's suggestion, however, Obama is stalling for more time to make up his mind. His administration, meanwhile, has treated McChrystal's report with skepticism and, in some cases, outright contempt. Vice President Joe Biden -- who has been wrong about every major American military operation since the 1980s -- has emerged as a leading critic of the commander's report, and has offered his own plan, which focuses on unmanned drone missile strikes and Special Forces attacks against Taliban positions along with a renewed effort to provide training for Afghanistan's police force. The vice president has apparently forgotten - if he ever knew at all - that drone missions are just one component of an overall combat strategy and that the Afghan people generally view their police force as a group of helpless, degenerate heroin addicts.
McChrystal, apparently growing impatient with Obama's unwillingness to make a decision, angered White House officials last week after a giving a speech in London. According to this story in the Daily Telegraph, when McChrystal was asked whether he supported Biden's military plan, the commander said, "The short answer is: No." McChrystal said if Biden's plan were implemented, Afghanistan would devolve into "Chaos-istan."
As it almost always is, American troops have become casualties of this rift between the White House and its military leaders -- in the literal sense. Over the weekend, eight American troops and two members of the Afghan Security Force were killed during an attack by insurgents on an Afghan military outpost on the Pakistan border. Hundreds of militants launched the attack just before the evening call to prayer. The conflict lasted all day and ended with the militants being repelled by the American and Afghan troops, but not before 27 of the insurgents were killed.
Besides offering the typical token gestures of condolences, the administration has been largely unmoved by the attack. If anything, Obama has started to lean away from McChrystal's suggestion. Despite his vow in September of 2008 to have a "comprehensive strategy for the war in Afghanistan" that would include "more troops, more training for Afghanistan forces and more deployments," Obama has focused his attention instead on ... health care reform.
As Obama gauges the political consequences of following through on his campaign promise, his administration has trotted out National Security Adviser Jim Jones, a former general himself, who has sided with Biden in his skepticism towards McChrystal's request. Overlooking the additional calls for more troops from Congressional republicans as well as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Central Command leader Gen. David H. Petraeus, Jones has joined the White House's call for more time to deliberate.
During his time in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush met or spoke with his commanders on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan at least twice a week. Consequently, when his commanders suggested the troop surge in Iraq, Bush didn't hesitate. He was familiar enough with the situation on the ground that he knew the right thing to do. Obama's sole focus since entering the White House has been on furthering the liberal agenda. From the stimulus package to health care, the wars have been all but forgotten. Now, when a quick decision is critical to military success, Obama can't do it because he doesn't believe he has all the facts. Rather than assessing those facts as they were happening, Obama was, instead, on a health care junket with ABC's George Stephanopoulos , CNN's John King, CBS' Bob Cheever, NBC's David Gregory and Tom Brokaw.
In his quest to leave a legacy of health care reform, Obama has, at best, neglected the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, at worst, just simply ignored them. His delay in responding to the troop request and his failure to implement the military strategy of his own commanders is directly responsible for the deaths of those eight troops who died this weekend furthering the cause of freedom. For it appears he has already forgotten about them. Rather than acknowledging their death this morning, the president forged obliviously ahead with his agenda, using the Rose Garden to hold a reception for doctors who support a public health insurance option.
When it comes to the war Afghanistan, the president's chief concern appears to be appeasing a fickle public whose support rises and falls with every tactical success or failure. As a result of his confounded indecision, the death of more American troops isn't just likely -- it's a certainty.
Every minute of delay is a minute lost.
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McChrystal Photo © Shaun Curry/Getty Images
Obama Photo © Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Comments
“Rather than taking his own commander’s suggestion, however, Obama is stalling for more time to make up his mind.” Justin Quinn
Hey Justin you fool, Obama is talking his own commander’s suggestion, that commander happens to be McChrystal’s boss Gates!
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday called for patience and discretion as President Barack Obama decides how to conduct the war in Afghanistan, urging advisers to speak “candidly but privately” on strategy.
in a series of Sunday talk show appearances, Jones, a retired Marine general and former Allied commander in Europe, carried the administration’s message that the military — perhaps conditioned by the Bush administration to expect its opinions to reign — had better respect civilian command.
The only idiots supporting McChrystal are hack journalist hoping for a loss.
Who’s the fool here, Morris? Gates isn’t a commander. He’s a CABINET MEMBER. And your misguided belief that Obama is taking his suggestion is just naive. It’s the other way around, because that’s the way it works in Washington. See, the cabinet members do whatever the president tells them to do. So, it’s no surprise that Gates is saying this now, when only just recently he sided with McChrystal. Don’t forget there, Morris, that it was GATES who was the chief architect of the surge in Iraq, and if it weren’t for the handcuffs being put on him by the administration he’s now working for, he’d be designing the surge for Afghanistan, as well.
It’s about time Obama apologists like you start to wake up and realize that Obama knows as much about about the war in Afghanistan as YOU do! He’s basing his decisions on popular opinion and political expediency, when he should be LISTENING to what those who DO know what’s going on in the war are telling him. But then that would be a stretch for Obama or any of his apologists. After all, when was the last time any of them actually LISTENED to anything anyone else had to say.
WAKE UP, MORRIS! More troops are needed for VICTORY in Afghanistan, hesitation will only bring DEFEAT. Is that what you want? To screw up the end-game over there the way we did under Clinton?
When a commander tells you more troops are needed, MORE TROOPS ARE NEEDED. Obama’s in his ivory tower in DC, and Gates and Jones are doing exactly what the administration is telling them. WAKE UP, MAN!
“Before last week, President Barack Obama had met with Gen. Stanley McChrystal — the commander and lead strategist for the war in Afghanistan — a grand total of one time since becoming president.”
Well, let’s see ….. he moved the general ahead of McChrystal out early …… the first time that’s been done in 20 years … so that McChrystal could get the Afghanistan job. He must have seen something in McChrystal.
Whither will those 40,000 troops come from, Justin? There aren’t an additional 40,000 troops lying around, unassigned. My first cousin, with the Georgis National Guard, is just returning from his fifth tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wasn’t planning on going back. There are 120,000 troops in Iraq. Possibly we should speed up the withdrawal from Iraq? That brings it’s own risks. Regardless, even if McChrystal gets his 40,000 troops, it won’t be real soon, what with the Army bled white and exhausted by extended rotations.
Besides, you must have noticed the current screaming illegitimacy of the Afghan government. As many as a third of the votes that Karzai received may have been stolen by A’Qurn. For an insurgency campaign to work, the government must have at least a patina of credibility. Possibly you’ve also noticed the Pakistani Army action in Waziristan? Might it not be prudent to see how that plays out, before doubling down?
“More troops are needed for VICTORY in Afghanistan, hesitation will only bring DEFEAT.”
McChrystal was pretty clear. He needs those troops so as ‘not to lose the war’. “Not to lose” is far from “victory”. How long do you expect those troops to be there, Justin? Are we looking at 5 years, 8 years, 10 years? And what would victory look like? Per McChrystal, there is no Al Quada in Afghanistan. Could they set up new training bases if we leave? Probably. They’ve got nice ones in Pakistan, right now, but maybe not for much longer. Besides, the London bombers showed that you don’t need a state sponsor to hatch a nasty terrorist plot. However, it does help. Dunno. The redacted part of McChrystal’s leaked report might have covered this issue.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take a week or two or three to sort this out, before asking my cousin and 40,000 additional young Americans to go into harm’s way. prudent. Possibly even ‘conservative’.
BTW, if I were betting, I don’t think that there is a payoff in doubling down and staying in Afghanistan for 10 years. Biden’s proposal might be the better option for a bankrupt superpower.
Just a thought.
In answer to your question, the troops that were sent into Iraq as part of the surge are being redeployed to Afghanistan. It’s a fact and its one of the points of contention Democrats have with Obama. He made it seem as though he was going to bring the troops home, but he never said that. He said he would withdraw the troops from Iraq. Which is what he’s doing. Except, he’s redeploying them to Afghanistan.
Neither you nor I know what McChrystal knows, but something tells me, RT, that he wouldn’t be making a request for something he knows isn’t there. Whether he’s talking about siphoning off troops from Iraq or North Korea or whether there has been a surge in enlistment in the last couple of years, I don’t know. What I do know, however is that the commander that Obama put in charge of the war in Afghanistan would be the person I’d listen to. Not a bunch of armchair pundits who aren’t on the ground, measuring the climate of the battle day to day.
As for how long the troops would be there, my guess is two to three years. That’s about how long it took for the Iraqi surge to work — from deployment to withdrawal. Maybe it’s a matter of perspective, but I when you’re not losing, what are you doing? You’re either standing still or you’re winning. I’ll take both of those options over what’s happening now.
As for where al Queda is operating, there’s no doubt that because of the pressure the US kept on that outfit under the Bush/Cheney watch, it is severely depleted. But there are only leadership voids in that kind of an organization for so long. Al Queda is doing well in Pakistan, and because of the prohibition of American troops into that country, it will continue to have a safe haven. As you know, most of the insurgencies in Afghanistan are being backed by al Queda cells in Pakistan.
According to McCrystal, who actually knows a thing or two about what’s going on there, there is no more time to debate this. In fact, had the president been staying up to date with the issue in Afghanistan the way he should have been, he could have made a decision as soon as this request was made. I agree that staying there (other than in military bases like the ones we’ve got in Germany and Italy) for 10 years is not feasible. But I don’t believe in going in and turning a country into rubble and then just leaving. The more troops there are, the less “harm’s way” there will be. The whole purpose of introducing a huge number of troops into a battle like this is to provide what Colon Powell referred to as “overwhelming force” to show the militants that they cannot win.
When it comes to Biden, anything he has to say regarding military action, I would listen to very carefully … and then do exactly the opposite. Here’s why:
“In his first U.S. Senate campaign in 1972, he called for cutting and running from Vietnam. He later voted to cut off funding for South Vietnam and spoke out against the war. After we did withdraw, communist forces conquered South Vietnam as well as Cambodia, where Pol Pot carried out a campaign of genocide.
“In the 1980s, Mr. Biden opposed President Ronald Reagan’s national security approach on almost every front, including funding for the Contras in Nicaragua, building missile defenses, and increasing military spending. In the 1990s, apparently willing to cede Kuwait to Saddam Hussein, he voted against the first Gulf War. Over the past decade, Mr. Biden opposed the surge that put us on the path to victory in Iraq. Instead called for a ’soft partition’ that would have divided Iraq into three countries.
“Mr. Biden has been right about Afghanistan at least once. In 2002, he said, ‘Security is the basic issue in Afghanistan. Whatever it takes, we should do it. History will judge us harshly if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we failed to stay the course.’”
“In fact, had the president been staying up to date with the issue in Afghanistan the way he should have been, he could have made a decision as soon as this request was made.”
The official request for a troop increase is still at the Pentagon. It will not reach the WH until next week, at the earliest.
BTW, familiarity with detail may not always be a good thing. The President during Nam choose bombing targets for the next day. And George Bush did not always take the advice of his generals on troop strength, most famously during the invasion of Iraq. That, however, did turn out quite well.
“The whole purpose of introducing a huge number of troops into a battle like this is to provide what Colon Powell referred to as “overwhelming force” to show the militants that they cannot win.”
This is far from the overwhelming force mandated by the Powell Doctrine. For example, the Russians had a similar force, 80,000 to 104,000 troops in Afghanistan for 9 years. And we had 500,000 troops in a smaller, less populous country during the 70’s. Neither troop level were sufficient to tamp down an insurgency.
BTW, the Powell Doctrine also calls for clear cut goals and an exit strategy.
Yeah. I take every word out of Joe Biden’s mouth with a large grain of salt.
Well, RT, at least we’re agreed on one thing … Biden! LOL
Seriously, though, my main issue with Obama isn’t whether he takes the commander’s suggestion or not and incidentally, McChrystal hasn’t called for 40,000 troops — he’s called for UP TO 40,000 troops), my main issue is one you actually just touched upon … the lack of a comprehensive strategy — the kind Obama promised the world on Sept. 11, 2008. As for Bush and Johnson, I think the issue I’m arguing is that the president doesn’t seem to have all the facts, unlike the two presidents you name. They followed the operations day to day and spoke with their on-the-ground commanders. Perhaps there were disagreements, as intelligent people often have, but at least they were paying attention. Obama’s indecision doesn’t come from deliberations … he’s still gathering facts. He’s not even at the point where he CAN deliberation intelligently.
And that’s the rub, here. If Obama had been paying attention, he’d be able to make a decision one way or another. Personally, I think he should take the advice of the man who — even as you said — he saw something in. But if he’s not going to, then he’d better have a damned good reason why he isn’t and he’d better have a comprehensive strategy in place in order to discharge his orders.
The Vietnam war offered Americans a whole different kind of war theatre than they had been presented before. Afghanistan isn’t like that. By and large, we know how to defeat the Taliban, because we did something similar in Iraq. There’s a frame of reference, unlike Vietnam, which had no frame of reference. I get sick and tired of people saying that we didn’t win the war in Iraq. I just don’t see it that way. Our heroic troops deposed a dictator there, beat back an insurgency the likes of which the world had never seen before and have brought an amazing amount of stability to a region that has historically been completely unstable. That’s a victory in my eyes. Are things perfect? No. But things aren’t perfect in our own country. The least we can do is try to destabilize tyrants over in Iraq. Frankly, if Karzi didn’t win the election fairly, he needs to be deposed as well. The Afghanis are good people, with the same hopes and dreams for their children that we have here. They have no self-defense at the moment and are relying on the US to protect them. Obama needs to get up to speed (which I understand he’s doing this week) and get the lead out. Literally.
Justin –
Whilst reading your post, I kept nodding my head up and down. Just a few points:
“my main issue is one you actually just touched upon … the lack of a comprehensive strategy”
And I would agree totally. We have not heard a comprehensive strategy. There may be a very good reason for that fact. It may include aligning ourselves with some of the local warlords and making peace with the less virulent versions of the Taliban. However, I have not heard a comprehensive strategy. And that troubles me.
“I get sick and tired of people saying that we didn’t win the war in Iraq.”
We’ve won. For the moment. I have to wonder what happens when we leave. There are some optimistic signs. For example, al_maliki is including Sunni leaders in his government.
“Frankly, if Karzi didn’t win the election fairly, he needs to be deposed as well. ”
Yes. However, who do you replace him with? How do you replace him? You cannot fight an insurgency without a legitimate government. Reference VietNam.
“They have no self-defense at the moment and are relying on the US to protect them.”
One of the minor success stories has been the Afghan defense forces. Currently, there are about 90,000 strong. Many are illiterate. Many do not have the strength to carry a full field pack. However, they are largely honest and trusted by the populace. However, the Afghan police are quite another story.
“Consequently, when his commanders suggested the troop surge in Iraq, Bush didn’t hesitate.”
The Surge was the brainchild of Fred Kagan from the American Enterprise Institute. He pitched it to Bush on a weekend at Camp David. The Surge strategy came from the top down, not the bottom up. And it took weeks to work out the nuts and bolts of the Surge.
I don’t know who leaked the McChrystal report. I know that it is not being investigated. Apparently, it was no one from McChrystal’s staff. However, if this person’s intention was to get Obama to make a decision quickly, I can’t help but feel that the leak might have the exact opposite effect. This is not a guy who makes big decisions quickly. Let alone will under political pressure to act quickly.
How can anyone expect a cowardly, unqualified lying politician to make a decision of this magnitude. Obama can barely hide his comtempt for America and attacked our military during his campaign alluding to the fact that they were more or less murderers.
I’ve seen this kind of contempt for our military before during the Viet Nam travesty. Our troops suffered a fool for President then and they are suffering because we have a fool for our President now.
Obama grow a pair, win the war and bring our troops home!