In late August 2009, General Stan McChrystal sent home a report from Afghanistan saying that, without a commitment of more troops, the Afghan mission was likely to result in failure. McChrystal really wanted 50,000 troops but was convinced to tailor his request to 40,000. In October 2009, after two months of deliberations, the president authorized 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan on a time-limited basis.
Afghanistan was the home of the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks, candidate Obama said, and was far more important to US national security than George Bush’s Mesopotamian adventure had ever been. Some critics at the time excoriated the White House for taking so long to answer a burning need in a war that the president had called his main focus during the election campaign, and further criticized him for his seemingly arbitrary reduction of McChrystal’s request from 40,000 to 30,000. The president’s supporters countered that Obama had already sent 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan soon after taking office and cited the two months between McChrystal’s dire report and the president’s eventual decision as proof of his calm, deliberative nature, purportedly in stark contrast to that of his shoot-from-the-hip cowboy predecessor.
Bob Woodward’s new book “Obama’s Wars” places the decision in a much different light:
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page “terms sheet” that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in “Obama’s Wars,” to be released on Monday.
According to Woodward’s meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.
“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room.”
George Bush was a baseball fan, and when he ordered the Iraqi surge in 2007, he was three runs down, bases loaded, behind in the count and swinging for the fences. Having essentially committed his reserves, the country was all in – there were virtually no troops left to deploy that could be maintained on a sustainable basis.
Barack Obama is a basketball player and it now seems clear that he chose a different strategy, the fadeaway jumper: If the ball goes through the hoop, so much the better, but if it does not, the player’s momentum takes him back to his own side of the court, ready to play defense. (The fadeaway, by the way, is one of the hardest shots to master in basketball; most players and coaches consider it the weakest offensive option.)
Speaking of basketball, homeland defense and other such games, the president also had this to say about terror attacks at home:
A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here “a potential game changer.” He said: “When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that’s one where you can’t afford any mistakes.”
Calling a nuclear attack on the homeland “a potential game changer” is perhaps one of the strangest possible formulations for any president to utter: In the smoking devastation of a nuclear attack that would undoubtedly take tens of thousands of American lives, what game, precisely, would the president consider to have changed?
Given his demonstrated desire to only do what is minimally necessary to retreat from Afghanistan with the pretext of having done what could be done, one intuits that “the game” is not fashioning something that looks like victory abroad, but rather the president’s cherished domestic agenda that seeks to reform American life down to its core – health care, energy policy, immigration, education and the environment.
We will never know whether the 40,000 troops that McChystal wanted would have been sufficient to set the conditions for an honorable withdrawal from Afghanistan. With American soldiers now dying there at ever increasing rates, we may now be learning that the 30,000 the president chose to send were too many to die, too few to win.
With apologies to any fans nearby, basketball is the perfect metaphor for this failed president: A game that inherently embraces outside-the-rules thuggery and intentional fouling and foul-drawing as the primary key to victory, but only because of the intervention of ‘higher powers’ on the behalf of the supposedly wronged. A game that consists mainly of a bunch of people running madly back and forth for an hour, but which is nearly always decided by only the final two minutes, and by a marginal difference in performance… and which for many players is clearly less about winning than it is about showboating during the process.
The only sports metaphor that would suit him better would be soccer, which includes all of the above ‘features’ but adds the influence of melodramatic overacting in order to milk any supposed injury for additional advantage.
I’d much prefer a chief exec who’d chosen to master judo.
Maybe Cricket. An unending game with no clearly defined field or rules.
Brilliant.
With almost each passing day, I’m more convinced, by the limitations on not living on the “Mainland” for his formative years, and involving himself at the grass roots organizer level (not holding a private sector job), having actually grown up in an environment of privilege, and then never really investing himself in his opportunistic seat in the Senate, that President Obama really has no idea what he asked to be, and now, finding it requiring not only work, hard mental work, and the hard decision making, he’s also got to be a gracious opponent.
The war he supported hangs like a dead albatross around his neck, and he thinks just declaring victory and coming home is a good plan.
He has shown no interested, nor understanding of history, long past, not so long past, and not even recently.
Bottom line: woefully ill-equipped for the seat he holds. History (which he seems to think he is), shall not be kind to him. I predict he will be a bitter middle aged and old man. Sad, for him, and for us, and for the World in the long run.
“Bottom line: woefully ill-equipped for the seat he holds. History (which he seems to think he is), shall not be kind to him. I predict he will be a bitter middle aged and old man. Sad, for him, and for us, and for the World in the long run.”
I thought Jimmy Carter already held that spot…
w/r, SJS
There’s always enough room at that table to pull up another chair. Anyway, Carter’s getting old and my generation is going to need an ex-president to look back on with contempt.
A more critical question is what kind of ship is going to be named after Obama? Can’t be a carrier, because those are powerful and successful. Can’t be a submarine because we’ve already named the spook boat after the previous failure-in-chief so the USS Obama might show up in the news. Maybe a destroyer, since the description fits, but then again it might makes the news. Support vessels are right out. Too bad we’re not building any more minehunters; thin-skinned, lightweight, puts sailors in danger, occasionally explosive…sounds perfect.
Garbage scow. End of discussion.
And what do you have against garbage to insult it so?
Jimmy is trying to rewrite history. In one of his latest interviews he said he had a successful presidency. Huh?!
Jimmah will be happy to take second place. Actually, he thinks that his presidency was a success.
As described in Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html
The imPOTUS is the last anti-colonialist.
Guess there is not a difference in his eye of troops “dying for a worthwhile cause” and “dying for a lost cause because I don’t have the balls and don’t want to alienate the entire democratic base”.
What is troublesome to me is that the President has lost control over his generals. In the long policy review, the generals set policy, rather than the President. As duly elected CiC, it should be the President who sets policy, and for the generals to carry that policy out… whether they know better or not.
Generals setting policy does not have a good history. Witness the ‘American Caesar’ Macarthur. Or better yet, the Roman Legions fighting away from Rome’s control, and turning the Republic into an Empire.
The objective of war is not to wage war for war’s sake. The objective is to win it. And if winning cannot be defined, or it is un-winnable, then get the heck out… extricate from the field. Anything else is rubbish.
The reported comments from the generals and their staff border on insubordination. The President needs to regain control.
I guess that it’s insubordination these days to tell the Obamanation that he’s wrong, militarily, in his plans. I must point out, however, that the generals and their staffs eventually saluted smartly and did what PeBo wanted done regardless.
On the other hand, I submit that you could accuse our Commander in Chief of treason, in that he was plainly shown as playing politics in his use of the military in the war that he himself said was the most important. Planning a strategy so as not to “lose the entire Democratic Party” sounds way worse than simply disagreeing with your commander in chief. But then again, the Generals don’t have to worry about buying votes to stay in their positions.
What is troublesome to me is that the President has lost control over his generals.
Rather obviously, he hasn’t. The worst public statements about the President have come, not from McChrystal, but unnamed members of his staff. And still McC was relieved. Fair enough. That’s the President’s prerogative.
Methinks instead you are trying instead to distract from the rather clearly incompetent administration. Good luck with that.
Over at Ann Althouses’ place in a post begun last night and a discussion carried over to today on the subj. of Woodward’s book in a wide-ranging discussion in which a guy w. State Dept contacts piped up to say the “anti-Karzi” meme was all Holbrooks’ as he was trying to wrest control of AfPk policy into his own hands to which “Maguro” (who uses a Marvin the Martian avatar) wittily replied:
“Hummm….so if Obama is JFK, then Karzi is Ngo Dinh Diem and Holbrooke is Henry Cabot Lodge.”
“This should end well.”
“Better warm up the helicopters.”
LOL. (laughin’ while I’m cryin’)
I won’t clog the comments. I left my response at The Flight Deck.
http://www.neptunuslex.com/Wiki/2010/09/22/obamas-war/
The greater plan for Obama is to claim deliberative action and national security credentials by ordering more troops to Afghanistan, then to declare our objectives achieved there due to his efforts sometime late next year, and start energizing his base supporters with soldiers coming and military cutbacks just in time for November 2012.
I’ve become cynical enough to put my vote in on this prediction…
We (the dumb bastards at the pointy end of the spear) knew the surge in Iraq would work. Don’t ask exactly how we knew, but we believed it would work. We felt we had the support of the executive branch, we had faith in Petraeus, most of all we knew that the Iraqi Armed Forces had potential. Would they ever be as good as us? Hell no, they probably would never even be as good as the Syrians, Jordanians or even the Kuwatis, but they would be better than JAM and AQI. With some help in the intel area, some air support, some logistics help, they could handle the fight. Most of the Officers and NCO’s in the IA and IP had served in the old Iraqi Army. They weren’t great but they were trainable. Some of their senior leaders were outstanding. I was dreading my job during the surge. I was to be the advisor to the G3 of the Iraqi Army Baghdad Operational Command, instead of doing what I did in OIF I, leading troops and killing bad guys. Then I got to know LTG Aboud, and realized that this former Republican Guard Lieutenant Colonel was dedicated to the Iraqi people, and the destruction of both the Shi’a Militias and the AQI. More important he was a brilliant strategist. Working with him confirmed my faith, the surge would work.
I fear that we’re sending Soldiers to die in Afghanistan for no good reason other than saving face. The executive branch doesn’t have the will to win. The Afghan Army isn’t ready. I don’t think we can get them ready anytime soon, certainly not before the next US Presidential election, which is the real deadline we’re up against. There was no Afghan Army pre 2001 to draw from. The Afghan Army is creating shake and bake NCO’s. If you can read and write, we’ll send you to basic training, three weeks of basic leadership courses, and presto, you’re a Staff Sergeant leading Soldiers in combat. If you manage not get killed or run off for six months or so, we’ll make you an officer. There’s no Afgan General Aboud. There’s no Afghan national identity. We can kill off the Taliban in a given area, but theres no competant Afghan Army to fill the void, and we’re stretched to thin on the ground to fill the void until the Afghans are ready.
In March of 2007 when I deployed for the Iraq surge I told my wife it was for a good cause, that someday I would take her and my daughters to a peaceful Baghdad to meet some of the people I grew to love during my two tours there. I really believed the we would be able to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. We did.
In March of 2011 when I deploy to Afghanistan I’m going for one reason, to try to bring as many American kids home alive as I can. I hate to say it, but I think it’s a lost cause. There will not be a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan in my lifetime. 30,000 additional troops isn’t enough to do what needs to be done. I’m not sure that 50,000 would be enough. The Afghans aren’t ready, and I don’t think we have the political will to fight until they are. It’s a demoralizing thought to think I’m going to go into harm’s way again without a prayer of winning the war.
LTC F, An excellent and thoughtful post indeed…I’ve been suprisingly close to where you are now during my time at the tip…RVN 67-68…the Tet Offensive…Jan 68. We win the battle but ultimately loose the PR war…the political will to win starts slipping…you see it small things all around but never spoken of as it trickles down to the operational level…although never verbalized the COs at the tip start thinking…preserve your command…these are my boys my little brown brothers…my responsibility…the last man killed in this unwinnable shity war will not be one of mine…not a comfortable place to be…good luck. Best
LTC F, I agree that yours is an excellent post. Thank you for it.
We already know that we are going to pull out before any hope of winning can be realized, and that more troops will be killed before we leave; doing so of course only to meet BHO’s political desires.
Indeed it is a shitty deal. I still do not know how we can win, how many decades it would take, and what winning really means, other than preventing Islamic Terrorists gain control of AF.
Good Luck and very best Regards,