I don’t know what’s more troubling in this excerpt from Bob Woodward’s new book “Obama’s Wars”: The fact that a novice executive stoutly refused to take the considered advice of his senior military advisers, or the fact that the country’s subordinated military essentially refused to be boxed into what they must have known was a losing strategy:
“So what’s my option? You have given me one option,” Obama said, directly challenging the military leadership at the table, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.
“We were going to meet here today to talk about three options,” Obama said sternly. “You agreed to go back and work those up.”
Mullen protested. “I think what we’ve tried to do here is present a range of options.”
Obama begged to differ. Two weren’t even close to feasible, they all had acknowledged; the other two were variations on the 40,000.
Silence descended on the room. Finally, Mullen said, “Well, yes, sir.”
Mullen later explained, “I didn’t see any other path.”
This stark divide between the nation’s civilian and military leaders dominated Obama’s Afghanistan strategy review, creating a rift that persists to this day. So profound was the level of distrust that Obama ended up designing his own strategy, a lawyerly compromise among the feuding factions. As the president neared his final decision on how many troops to send, he dictated an unusual six-page document that one aide called a “terms sheet,” as though the president were negotiating a business deal.
We’re in new territory here.
Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines are finally launching their long-awaited offensive into the outer boroughs of Kandahar, spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.
Lions, all of them. May they not be led by sheep.
Godspeed.
Godspeed indeed – at least the weather will be slightly more tolerable than the 125-130 degree heat of summer (been there, felt that)
The dialogue listed above induces a “cringe factor” of 9.5 on a scale of 10 for this old desert warrior…..better to be in the middle of the AFGHN wasteland leading hard-chargers than sitting by & listening to President DOOFUS prattle on about what he believes should be done (other than drop kicking his arse acorss the Potomac & back to Chicago)
The only thing that this whole thing brings to mind is the following:
“We, the professional skilled military,led by the uninformed huckster from Chicago,are doing the impossible for the wholly ungrateful. We have done so much,for so long,with so little,we are now qualified to do anything with nothing…so we soldier on, hoping that the American people wake up & elect a real leader in 2012…”
(So I altered it a bit – sue me.)
We are exactly where we need to be- weak Chief Executive consumed by partisan domestic politics, and military chiefs with a long term strategic view that outlasts changing electoral fortunes. The Chiefs and COCOMs are mandated to provide their best military advice, not shape options for losing faster or losing slower for a naive and unqualified CINC. Better to say “we can’t support this” in private (and leave if their position becomes untenable) than line up like “silent men…”
Exactly right, MM. The Chiefs of the services during the time that LBJ was mishandling the war strategy & tactics in Vietnam should have, but did not, hand in their resignations en mass when it was clear that LBJ’s intent was to play chess rather than truly wage war. Shame on them and I hope that the current crop of service heads are stronger and better people.
As for the outstanding people we now have serving, it continues to amaze me that they seemingly remain steadfast in their efforts & attitudes despite the defeatist words and actions of the poll-iticians. I just cannot imagine, now or ever, being told to risk my life and limbs while the poll-iticians dithered and allowed the enemy safe havens and refused to allow the military to do everything necessary for success and the protection of our own people.
“Shame on them and I hope that the current crop of service heads are stronger and better people.”
Except for the Marine Corps, don’t count on it.
Have to say that I agree with you on that point Shaman.
I can only imagine what the troops in the field think of their senior military and civilian leaders.
We don’t always agree, quite often wonder what they’re thinking, and are discouraged constantly. However, we signed up for this job, and those who aren’t running at the end of their four years (or whatever it may be) are committed to defending the Constitution and the country. We’re here for the long term. The current president is not.
We’re in new territory here.
Indeed we are and I’m not sleeping any sounder as a result. I thank God everyday for the men & women who put their own personal safety behind the needs of, mostly, strangers.
They allow us some comfort and the illusion of safety. But when the CinC is so inexperienced that he chides men of a certain breadth and depth of experience that he can only read about in schoolbooks – that leaves me with a ball in the pit of my stomach and a sour taste in the back of my throat.
All I can say is thank goodness it becomes clearer every day that P.BO will be a one term president. Of course the question becomes how long will it take the country to recover from the damage he has done and will continue to do.
And what of the Afghan people? We give their enemies a timeline for our withdrawal – leaving them plenty of time to marshall their forces and draw up their own plans.
Which, I’m ashamed to admit are probably better than anything The One could ever come up with.
It would be interesting to know what these leaders see as a “winning outcome”. If it is bringing “democracy” to these tribal sociopaths, we will always lose. If, on the other hand, it is to cut the drug trade which underwrites much of their expense, we will lose. On the third hand, if it is to protect the oil and gas supply lines from the field to the ocean and abroad, the “powers that be” will win, but our best blood will be shed and we will see no benefit.
We cannot be politically correct in our assessment of this enemy, there will be “collateral damage”; let allah, the moon-god sort them out. If a drug dealer has two felony strikes, the third should be a capital offense. No appeals. If we make, drugs, stupidity and apathy unappealing in this country, maybe there will movement toward a solution to this curse upon our times.
It’s good to want things. Keeps you hungry and teaches you to live with disappointment. Hmmm, may be on to something there…
Here are the President’s 3 options:
1) Win
2) Lose slowly
3) Lose quickly
All plans are just variations on one of those themes.
To slightly vary a phrase used by a German General to describe the British Army of WW I, we find our Military made up of Lions, under the command of Donkeys, an apt staement on more than one level.
When a nation has a petulant, self-serving child at the helm, why would anyone be even remotely surprised at Obama’s decision making process. As one who has no love for this country, except as to how it may provide for him, everything we see in Obama’s actions point to a hidden agenda that comes from the darkest of hearts. He bites the hand that feeds, and despises all that has been good to him.
In my brief half century plus existence, I have never seen such a blatant attempt to:
Cripple the economy through burdensome taxation and government oversight.
Cripple industries through government intervention in management, which has repeatedly failed to turn around anything.
Cripple freedom of choice through healthcare and, soon, actions designed to negatively impact the First and Second Amendments.
Cripple freedom of choice even further through an exorbitant use of Executive Orders and so called Czars, neither of which involves Congressional oversight or approval.
Cripple the military through inept management of critical-need programs, restrictive war planning, and limited commitment to current warfighting timelines.
New territory? Nah. This game plan has been regurgitated time and again by those of the Marxist ilk…taken always to its invariable conclusion of epic failure. Hatred knows no bounds in its destructive power.
The Obamanation’s signature speach as recorded in the textbooks of History 101 printed in 2050. . .
“Ask not what you can do for your country. . .rather, ask what you can do for your President”
Not quite JFK. . . .
Just sayin’
I read that article this morning and had a very strange feeling afterwards. Here we have a Commander and Chief not getting what he wanted from his Military Commanders and his Military Commanders basically not willing to give him what he asked for. Either each side wasn’t being clear their true objetives (Get our ASAP; win the thing with a strongly held belief it would take longer than two more years to do so) or we are indeed on dangerous ground.
The more Democrats warn about this being another Viet Nam the more their actions assure a similar outcome. No one should have to die because of this lack of commitment from the top to victory.
Why more people aren’t angry about this just tells me we’ve all become sheep ourselves.
THIS is what worries me the most.
Let’s go back to 2001. The Bush Administration took office with a sneaking suspicion that the DOD in general, and the Army in particular, had grown a culture of insubordination. Remember the fight over the Paladin howitzer system? This was a major factor in why the Bush administration rejected estimates that it would take 300,000 troops to pacify Iraq – they knew that the Army had fed that number to the Clinton administration every time the Army didn’t feel like doing a mission.
Obama could make a defensible argument for disengagement. Break off the land engagement, save a bushel of bucks, and replace all the tired Reagan-era antiques the Air Force and Navy are fighting with. Bring back Tomahawk diplomacy.
And a solid argument can be made for going all-in, as well. Crush the Taliban, make Afghanistan a long-term ally and base of operations, solve the problem once and for all.
But what we’re doing now is a Worst of All Worlds solution.
Don’t know where you get your information but Shinseki was right about troop numbers. My bud was right there on the Army Staff and very close to the C/S at the time of that Senate hearing and he gave me the inside poop on how that unfortunate event transpired. In retrospect it is all the more clear that half stepping with combat troop levels early on led to the need for the Surge, among other factors. Not that the Army was spring-loaded in the “no” mode.
For the Donkeys in the WH, the Vietnam thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In many ways the left sees Vietnam as a victory for them. It wasn’t so much we lost, as they got the commies in power. That we lost is just icing on the brownies. They don’t want the US’s word to mean anything. Af is just more of the same.
No wonder the One is doing everything he can to have his “Justice” department disenfranchise military absentee voters, is it?
Reclaim the Congress.
Start impeaching Executives until we get under the Donkey layer.
The Brits found out Lions led by Donkeys didn’t work out all that well for the Lions 1914-1918.
In Flanders fields the poppies grow, between the crosses,
row by row…
“Lions, all of them. May they not be led by sheep.”
Or by hired hands.
I differ a little here guys. Any President (Lincoln , FDR and Truman come readily to mind) certainly has the perfect right to set his own priorities/war aims and alter tactics/strategy at will as well as fire Generals who are found lacking either through incompetency or unwillingness to comply with the President’s orders. Of course the President therefore shoulders full ultimate responsibility for the outcome of events–but that is as it should be. My gripe is, along with SteveC, with the Generals. With the notable exception of Max Taylor (“Uncertain Trumpet”) American Generals do not have a great tradition of principled resignation. And even Taylor was eventually recalled and served as first an advisor to JFK, then as Chairman JCS and later as Ambassador to Vietnam. It was Taylor’s view that either the JCS should follow his example as a rule and be unqualified cheerleaders for the President’s policies or resign–nothing in between. Few other Generals of any branch historically have seemed to feel that way; largely taking the view (egocentric to be sure) that it is far better to remain inside the tent and modify the President’s policies to the best of their ability rather that risk their replacements become yes-men for what they view as potentially disasterously ill-considered policies. And most Presidents have been loath to push recalcitrant Generals out following LBJ’s maxim that: “It’s better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.”
Unfortunately this collusion–each for their own different reasons–between Presidents and Generals tends, IMHO, to paper over very real policy disputes and obscure them from the eyes of the public save for the occasional expose’. For this reason I used to think Max Taylor right. But I fear now that it is too late. With the exception of a few Army and Marine Generals, almost all of their bosses and/or subordinate replacements are PC to the core (think CNO Mullen and Army Chief of Staff Casey ) and I doubt that for a variety of reasons too numerous to mention here, the public would be as outraged as many here think. “Muddling through” with the existing Theater Commanders in place may be the best of a bad situation if the bug-out deadline can be fudged. Sir Hugh Thompson, in his work: “Vietnam: No Exit” stated what I think time has proven him to be correct about such conflicts when he said: “If one plans for the long-run one may yet still win in the short-run, but if one plans for the short-run failure is almost guaranteed.”
I agree to a degree, VX. But when that President is making military decisions based on what is BEST FOR THE PRESIDENT, and not what is BEST FOR THE COUNTRY (remember the “I cannot lose the entire Democratic Party” comment). . .then I have a real problem with the CINC deriding his military commanders for their input.
Oh, I totally agree with your sentiment, zipper, I was only making the coldly clinical observation like VQ Bubba below that it’s the President’s prerogative to be either as wise as Lincoln or as foolish as, well, as one might expect any “community organizer” charlatan/buffoon like Obama to be. To address you’re point about country v. party, as I said in a recent post, at least LBJ–right or wrong, love him or hate him–put his beliefs about what was best for the nation ahead of party when he pushed for, and signed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 saying: “This will lose the South for the (Democratic) Party for a generation.” Agreed, Obama is a cynical egotistical leftist ideologue who cares naught but for his Stalinist domestic agenda, but I fear as far as AfPk policy goes what we’ve presently got is about as good as we can get with only incremental improvements possible at the margins for the reasons I outlined above. Unfortunately the rest of us are all along for Obama’s ride.
It’s his prerogative only insofar as his actions don’t violate his oath.
At which point his employers have the prerogative of demanding their elected representatives remove his narrow and cankerous buttocks from the seat of power… and, should they fail in that duty, they themselves may eventually find themselves athwart the rail, clawing at the tar and the feathers.
Frankly, they are overdue in the discharge of their duties.
And removed by any means necessary IMO.
Zipper, I think that most of us have real problems with BHO (exepting maybe Flit), but the military leaders know damn well the penalty the troops are paying. IMO, most of the senior military leaders are playing CYA to keep their job.
Petraeus surprised, and heartened, me when he openly made it clear that he was not going to be committed to what BHO wanted in terms of a pull-out date.
To me, a military commander should have his first priority to his troops, especially when their lives are on the line, not to their commander.
Like many of the other comments, I read this excerpt from Woodward and came away slightly perplexed. At first glance, if POTUS demands options, give him options. A) Pull out, here’s how long it will take, here’s the military risk. B) Stay put no change, C) Bump the force…etc.
But from my memory of getting chewed out by an XO for not being able to make decisions at the LTJG level, I would think that the Chiefs and their staffs distill the wide range of options and present only those that, to their learned experience, represent the best advice.
In the end, I think the write up on this is a bunch of blather. The President knew what his options were and was only looking for the chiefs to put it together in a power point and decision paper so he could sign it. That is his Constitutional prerogative.
Lex, I don’t understand. Why is “the fact that the country’s subordinated military essentially refused to be boxed into what they must have known was a losing strategy” a bad thing? I agree 110% with civilian control of the military, but how does that mean that the military has to passively accept a strategy that they know will fail? What I see is a White House resident who was grossly, flagrantly wrong, and generals who stood up to him and succeeded in getting him to back off somewhat. How is that wrong? They live for the USA, they’d die for the USA — but they shouldn’t have to die stupid.
Yes, it’s new territory, and it’s Bat Country, if you catch my drift.
(Paging Hunter Thompson!)
There were team emergencies, tactical emergencies and “Prairie Fire” emergencies.
I have continually wondered if it was just irony that William Ayers et al titled their manifesto as “Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism” (written and published 1974, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and others of the Weather Underground.)
The WUO was (absolutely) guided by combloc people. WUO was not “antiwar”, they were anti-U.S. victory.
The current POTUS had his political coming out party in Mr. Ayers living room.
I just deleted a comment, here, before posting it, which might have attracted unwelcome attention at me from the Panjandrums who run this society. That makes me feel dirty, that I refrained from saying something because I was afraid of the Government. Maybe I’ll feel braver later and say it on my own blog and not implicate Lex.