The opposition within the White House to answering Stan McChrystal’s request for forces is congealing around Joe Biden’s skepticism, which may or may not be politically motivated. But it’s interesting to learn the strategic rationale buttressing his stand-off-and-play-whack-a-mole plan:
But White House officials are resisting McChrystal’s call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, “A lot of assumptions — and I don’t want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions — were exposed to the light of day.”
Among them, according to three senior administration officials who attended the meeting, is McChrystal’s contention that the Taliban and al-Qaeda share the same strategic interests and that the return to power of the Taliban would automatically mean a new sanctuary for al-Qaeda.
So elements within the White House seem quite content to let the Taliban back in power with all that such a reconquista would entail: Stuff the women under burkhas and back into the back room, close the schools, resume the executions in the soccer stadia and welcome back into power those who hosted a terrorist group that killed nearly 3000 of our citizens on a bright September morning just eight years past.
So much for the moral high ground in President Obama’s “war of necessity”, not to mention the strategic impact such a victory would imply for the Pakistani Taliban. With a victory in Afghanistan, the latter will be free to complete their destabilization of the only nuclear armed Islamic state and spread their toxins throughout Central Asia.
As though a resurgent Taliban would be at all interested in hosting Predator and Reaper drones, or special forces can pick their way through a hostile population carrying out targeted assassinations without recourse to heavy support.
The whole notion is breathtakingly stupid.
White House to forward commander: We don’t actually have a plan, we just don’t like yours.
The only way to be sure is to take off, and nuke it from orbit, springs to mind but then there’s all those innocent women and children. From what I can tell there must be at least a couple of innocent Afghan men to think of too but they might just be biding their time.
We can’t beat the Taliban without the population’s help. And they won’t help if we’re just around “sometime.” We’ve got to be like the cop on the corner or people know that the Taliban will slit the throat of any informant. That’s why we need more troups.
Sadly, with each passing day the “sounds” out of the WH seem to confirm Snake-Eaters evaluation–it IS deja vue all over again. Not another Vietnam in terms of circumstances or challenges, but in terms of the attitude of leadership–their management-style. Jesus.
I think deep down many of us figured this was coming, but really didn’t want to talk about it much because of the long term implications – that our security will be affected and when it is we will have to start from square 1 again, or maybe somewhere further back, sometime in the future. And that the sacrifices so far are just lost.
All in all, I am not really surprised at this development.
I wonder what it will take to displace the Taliban and AQ again, but with maybe 6 carriers, fewer BUFFs, etc. etc. Maybe have to deal with a long range Iranian air defense threat if they decide to get involved due to reduced American capability. And since we will establish ourselves once again as “Those who cut and run” maybe Pakistan decides they are better off accomodating the Talibs.
George V.
“Stuff the women under burkhas and back into the back room, close the schools, resume the executions in the soccer stadia”
It’s often said that a person under 30 who is not a leftist has no heart, while a person over 30 who *is* a leftist has no head. But today, we are in the hands of a subspecies of leftists possessing neither heart *nor* head.
But wearing a burkha is empowering for women.
The use of soccer grounds for selective population adjustments will have substantial long-term benefits for the Earth, and so for people everywhere. It will help the people move back to a sustainable way of life. Think of the greenhouse gases required to sustain all those troops! Poor earth.
Just think of it as another form of ‘cap and trade’…
- SJS
“And since we will establish ourselves once again as “Those who cut and run” maybe Pakistan decides they are better off accomodating the Talibs.” Quite possibly. Since this administration has tossed Israel and the U.K. under the bus who knows what’s next. BO is a geopolitical dope. He has surrounded himself with those of a similar ilk, except for Biden who knows less than nothing. Now that he’s done shilling for Chicago’s failed Olympic bid maybe he’ll have more time to learn his job.
expansion of an increasingly unpopular war
I am always baffled by the characterization of a war as unpopular. What war would be popular?
Sure the war in Afghanistan has been dragging on for 8 years. Focus on Iraq – right or wrong – caused that. P.BO campaigned that Afghanistan is the right war.
And 52% of the population presumably believed him. And how he fiddles in Copenhagen while our warriors are left twisting in an increasingly hostile wind.
I can’t help but think of what Biden said during the campaign – that Obama would be tested and it would be ugly for this country and that the administration’s response would seem wrong in the beginning.
Is Mr. Gaffetastic trying to ensure that this becomes a self-fulfillng prophecy? Cuz it sure feels that way.
I may have to resume plans to build that bunker in my backyard. The Oracle just finished restoring our mini-barn – could make a nice entrance to safety. My old offer is still open to all denizens of Lex – bring your own supplies and you are welcome to join us.
Careful, some of us might take you up on that offer Kris.
Not me! The NE location is all wrong. Iran will probably pave the place with radioactive glass. Next they’ll do California. Or, perhaps, they will reverse the order.
May the good Lord help us all. In my 65 years, I’ve never seen things this bad…..and our President resides in Copenhagen, while Rome burns. On second thought, that might not be so bad…at least it keeps him out of DC.
We beat the Taliban with minimal American feet on the ground (mainly special forces) by allying with the warlords (the so-called Northern alliance and others) who were opposed. So I am puzzled that having succeeded with this model, we quickly abandoned it for the same centralized approach to governing that failed the Soviets.
Do we need to control Afghanistan in order to deny control to the Taliban?
I’ve wondered the same, a time or two. But then, our policies on the ground were doing OK in Vietnam as well. Same type of “leadership.”
FLAT/
No, and I basically agree with you, but I’m of the opinion that the Taliban is now so well armed that the local tribes and Tribal Chieftans would be hard-pressed to challenge them if we left, as we probably couldn’t arm them quickly enough to be an effective force against the by now well organized and armed Taliban. So we probably DO need a surge of a couple years duration in order to create a protective bubble under which we can arm the local tribes like hell. Then at THAT point withdraw leaving only residual reaction force as prevention against Taliban massing to overwhelm any single tribe, and use SF and kinetic probes by UAVs, etc., to slice up key Taliban leadership nodes–at which point the local tribes should be well able to hold their own.
I wonder what it would be like there now if Al Queda had not disguised themselves as a french news crew and blown up Shah Masood just days before 9/11. If we had been able to turn over even northern Afghanistan to the Lion of the North I think things would be very different there today.
Let me get this right. The One campaigned on a platform that was based on his claim that Afghanistan was the “right” war and that we could not afford to loose it. He hand picked General McChrystal to command and carry out his strategy.
Now we have a general who graduated from West Point, who has served for over thirty years, ten of them as a general officer, who says that we need more troops on the ground. But “The One” is listening to the Vice President whose total military experience seems to be that he has watched Saving Private Ryan a number of times.
Is that any way to set a national military policy? No, obviously not. But it is a wonderful opportunity for BGen McMaster to start Dereliction of Duty, Vol. II.
Obama is the Candidate-in-Chief. And that’s all.
I listen to NPR a good bit when driving to and around post. I find myself shouting at my radio more than I should, but it’s an interesting glimpse into an alternative reality. (One in which, for example, our new diplomacy toward Iran “is, obviously, getting results.”)
Today’s greatest comment, from a caller:
“I mean, what’s the reasoning that if the Taliban controls part of Afghanistan, al Qaeda will launch an attack on the U.S. using that control as a springboard?”
Sane panel guest, third to respond: “Well, I have to add that in 2001 the Taliban did control Afghanistan and al Qaeda did launch an attack using that as a springboard.”
JPS/
There are sane people on NPR?
Wisconsin Public Radio has at least one, Larry Mieller. He doesn’t mess about with politics, he has an information program. Every first Wed. of the month, he has an hour and a half on Wisconsin Wildlife, and every Friday is on gardening. You should give him a listen on WPR’s on line service. WPR also has 3 hours of Old Time Radio on Sat and Sun nights.
Sounds like what Kissinger “negotiated” at Paris. The deal left the NVA in South Vietnam, and we were supposed to give SA air and logistic support if the NVA decided to spool up again. We know how that ended.
Pakistan created the Taliban, and we still give our Paki friends a cuppla billion a year, mostly for the fun of it. Billions, people. Frankly, anyone who thinks that anything we do or say will have any effect on what Pakistan does is delusional. We’d probably get more of what we want out of them by taking the money away, giving a tiny fraction of it back in drips and drops as they actually perform tasks vital to OUR national security. The remainder can then be thrown away in “save the Afghani” projects, or whatever other save-the-world efforts have the fad for the moment.
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1050/-Losing-Our-Way-to-Victory.aspx
There’s more, and every word worth reading slowly and carefully.
Zane/
Diana is right in all that she says (and I’ve felt this way also for a long, long, time) but she fails in one ultimate respect. Politics. The current head-in-sand-approach to enroaching Islam in Western societies–indeed its actual celebration in all too many non-Islamic quarters–is born out of the long march through society of those leftist, statist “progressive” elites in our educational systems and MSM which have caused the general public to not only lose faith and confidence in their own cultural heritage, of the very Judeo-Christian based “Western” civilization that produced them, but to view that same civilization as the fount of the worlds ills. And because of this we see the triumph of the multi-culti PC “post-colonial” view that holds that all that is good and pure resides within the hearts of the “noble savage” alone as opposed to that repository of all that is corrupt, vile, racist and evil–the white Christian West.
Thus, seen in light of the above, the general public in most western nations no longer has either the psychic or physical energy to gird its collective loins for what reality obviously reveals to be a long, drawn-out, contentious, near sisyphean ideological/philosophical/religious struggle. Far easier by far to wage war on mountainous battlefields isolated at the ends of the earth–expensive tho it may be in men and the drain on the public fisc–than fight on the battlefield of ideas defending an institution one no longer has faith in at ones personal or institutional core.
Worse, as is plainly demonstrated in the way we tie ourselves up in legal knots attempting to cope with captured terrorists who neither recognize nor feel bound by the laws and mores of Western Civilization, as has been pointed out by numerous commentators, we are being done in–Alinskey-style–by the self-inflicted wounds of adherence to one-sided legalisms. And thanks to the success of the left in indoctrinating 40 years worth of societies youth such that they are fairly blind to the threat that West os cogently identifies, I am afraid that Diana West and all such like-minded individuals are fated to suffer the same fate as Cassandra (indeed are no less than modern-day Cassandras in the flesh) who, prophetically was always right–but also always never heeded. Cultural Paul Reveres are useless if all are ideologically deaf–which is why I worship Demon Rhum these days rather than preachers appealing to the Angels of common sense and reality.
VX, the infection has reached the core organs and it may be too late for anything like a cultural Paul Revere, no matter what. There are a number of them, Larry Auster, for one, who has been labeled a racist by faux-conservative David Horowitz, but who has pointed out the extreme dangers of allowing Muslim immigration.
Telling the truth will get you labeled and marginalized in a hurry. It’s harder to silence such people these days (David Duke is a good example of this – he’s labeled, but he still has an audience that may be increasing). We might not like our co-belligerents, but if we write of anyone just because we don’t like everything they say, or their reasons, we marginalize ourselves. We need to save the country first, then we can deal with the fringe, if they don’t moderate during the battle.
Personally, I couldn’t care less what the left calls me. They’re the enemy and they aren’t supposed to like me. The feeling is quite mutual.
Demon rhum for you, tonight it’s Guinness for me (a double, for strength), but there might be room for rum later. We are absolutely in concurrence on the collapse of the West, and I have long argued that the triumph of socialism is the real disease, Islam is only an opportunistic infection. Still, as another much wiser and wittier than I once stated, I intend to stand athwart the tracks of history, yelling “Stop.” And you know something? The USSR is no more, and he was successful in getting the great Reagan elected, slowing the tide not a little. Why can’t we try for as much, even as we gather at joyful table while the hordes mass outside?
My point in linking to the article is that Lex is still dutifully worrying about the wrong problem, like a senior officer in uniform. Time to break those patterns and take a much longer view.
You may not be aware of the origin of the term “Rhum.”
It comes from an old navigation term “Rhumb Line.” A Rhumb line is defined as a track that maintains the same angle with the local meridian as the Ship or AC moves. Therefore, it a line that results in a spiral that terminates at the nearest pole. The behavior of a man completely soused on Rum or Grog (watered rum as issued to the Jack Tars of His/Her Britannic Majesty’s Navy) was observed to be a circular spiral terminating at a point. The similarity was striking and immediately obvious to said Jack Tars who immediately named the distilled sugary fluid “Rhumb” which was shorted to “Rhum” (the obsolete spelling used by VX who, as we know, is a reincarnated British FAA pilot who was present at Trafalgar) and thence to the modern Spelling of Rum.
No, I am not under the spell of Demon anything.
QM says: “…VX who, as we know, is a reincarnated British FAA pilot who was present at Trafalgar.” Now VX just has to ‘talk like a pirate’ and his conversion is compleat: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/ Last graduation was Sept 19th. Aaarrggh Aye! Buccaneer!
He already has the correct beverage, and he lives in the vicinity of LaFitte’s haunts.
LaFitte’s – is that where VX can be le fitted with obligatory pegleg, eyepatch, parrot (of Norwegian Blue variety so as to not interrupt him) and a three cornered hat (not of nav chart variety).
Spaz, QM/
Before one can talk like a Pirate, one must first find out what kind of Pirate one is. Go to “What’s My Pirate Name?” @
http://www.piratequiz.com/
THEN we’ll talk…
OK, Here we go…
When you talk about yourself in the third person, do you say “she” or “he”?
“He.”
What’s your favorite color?
I like a nice blend
Do others often call you things like “odd” or “eccentric” or “a raving psychotic”?
I have padding on my walls.
Do others fear your mad business skills?
Ever since that second article in Fortune.
What kind of a leader are you?
I took charge of my family five minutes after birth.
Are you tough?
Tough like Jack Palance on a bad day.
Bathe much?
Once a week, whether I need it or not.
How do you feel about a little bit of the old ultraviolence?
I’m a fighter, not a lover. [VX is a Fighter Pilot after all]
Be honest now. Do you think you’re better than others?
We are the paragon of humanity. You may worship us. From afar.
Do others consider you charming?
My mother says I’m quite charming.
So what’s your real first name?
Virgil
Parrots?
Tasty!
Penguins?
Sometimes.
Treasure Island: book, movie, or Muppets?
Muppets. Kermit is sexxxy!
Cutthroat Island?
Yes
Are you patriotic?
Tears swell in my eyes when that national anthem plays.
Buckle your swash often?
I am quite the buckler-of-swashes.
Are you musical?
Tone-deef.
If your true love was engaged to another person, what would you do?
I have no true love but the sea! Arr!
Did the fact that Shakespeare never got into what happened with Hamlet and the pirates bother you?
Shakespeare? Be he one of yer land-lubbin book-writers?
Your pirate name is:
Iron William Bonney
A pirate’s life isn’t easy; it takes a tough person. That’s okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!
Do we talk now?
PS: Arrrggh!
QM/
How did you break the code? I thought all my ans were STRICTLY confidential!
I have contacts with Santa’s Intelligence Group. You know he’s everywhere and knows all.
VX, if you are fitted with a faux hook hand then I guess you can be arrested. Otherwise you have a great Mardi Gras outfit.
Spaz/
I’ve mentioned it here before, can’t remember if you were involved, but the name of the Univ. of New Orleans sports teams is the Privateers–in honor of one Monsieur Jean Lafitte himself. School Colors are Silver & Blue. Campus is located on original site on shores of Lake Ponchatrain where the WWII landing craft that took part in D-Day and Iwo-Jima, Tarawa, etc., were built and tested in the adj. lake waters. The D-Day museum downdown (now named the WWII Museum–located opposite the Civil War Museum–the nations 2nd largest–off Lee Circle) was the brainchild of the historian Steven Ambrose, who originally wanted to locate the museum out on the lakefront. They were planning huge expansion just before Katrina hit and are just now getting back on track. I took an American history under Ambrose in 1965 when he was a young newly-minted PhD at LSU before he became famous (I knew him when, as they say,
–and it’s just like the service, where senior officers don’t always like to be reminded of their wilder days before they became “respectable.” I’ve a few stories I could tell about the younger, wilder, Ambrose, LOL.! Too bad he died an untimely death from lung cancer…
VX: Just don’t get ‘arrested’ in your Mardi Gras Pirate outfit on NON Mardi Gras days – otherwise you’ll have some ‘splaining to do.