Sack the general; stop the war

Gen. McChrystal the lobbyist is wrong about Afghanistan

Wednesday, October 07, 2009
By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The United States is currently faced with the astonishing spectacle of a uniformed military officer, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, lobbying publicly for the option he favors on an issue that is in front of President Barack Obama to decide.

The civilian president is still commander-in-chief of America's armed forces, a point that Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, stressed correctly in his various flag-draped presentations. The United States isn't Guinea.

Anyone who has ever watched the U.S. military in action on Capitol Hill, acting in coordination with the various lobbyists who represent defense contractors and others who profit from U.S. military enterprises, knows the degree to which the Pentagon is proficient at getting its way inside both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government.
...

What is going on with Gen. McChrystal and Mr. Obama is that a few months after having been given command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by Mr. Obama, Gen. McChrystal has looked at the situation and now wants 40,000 more U.S. troops. He already is authorized 68,000, so the 40,000 would constitute about a 60 percent increase. That may well be Gen. McChrystal's honest assessment of how many troops it would take for the United States to "win" in Afghanistan -- if anyone could figure out what "winning" means in that tormented country.

It is important to bear in mind that the textbook military analysis of how many troops it would take to nail down a country the size and population of Afghanistan is 480,000. The United States finally had more than 543,000 in Vietnam and didn't win.

What is actually going on, whether Gen. McChrystal intends it to be the case or not, is that he is saying to Mr. Obama loudly and publicly, "Give me more troops. If you don't, I'll lose and it will be your fault."
...

It is time to wrap up the Afghanistan war. It might be a good idea to remove Gen. McChrystal from the picture, taking him up on the part of his analysis that says, give me more troops or take me out of the game.

We don't have to rule Afghanistan to be safe at home. If we did, we would also have to rule Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09280/1003447-374.stm#ixzz0TFq6uWHg



This may be our last opportunity to bring the troops home for many, many years.

McChrystal would crucify anybody under him that did the same.

Interesting view you have for a civilian; a bit naive and definitely silly goose.

Do some homework about the function and role of a military general and advisory in war please, then get back with facts, not opinions.

Is there anyone in this thread above the mental age of 14?

I totally disagree - absolutely and completely.

Some armchair idiot advisor tells Ohama that the Taliban is not a problem, while we drag home the bodies of eight soldiers killed last weekend BY THE TALIBAN.

I don't particularly like McChrystal but there is one thing that our idiot president and his armchair athlete war advisors and their supporters don't understand: the Taliban needs to be wiped from the face of the earth. And whatever is left when we're done needs to shit themselves at the memory of what happened to anyone who associated themselves with the Taliban.

The russians lost heart in their campaign, and we would be just as guilty of turning tail and running. Merely declaring that the Taliban is powerless as a precursor to fleeing Afghanistan is as transparently stupid as anything Bush ever did. Afghanistan does not deserve to "win" this war.

We need to pull out of Iraq, with the exception of hunting down the Taliban to the last man. It should be a hunting expedition, not a "war".

On the other hand, we need to finish what we started in Afghanistan, and we need to do it decisively, on the ground and with overwhelming force. Eight soldiers dead in a highly organized offensive, and we're now using that as a reason to withdraw? I'm not a warlike person, ordinarily, but I do understand something about tactics, just a wee bit. Withdrawing from Afghanistan now, with the Taliban still very active and growing would be the stupidest thing we have ever done, well the second stupidest, the first being, destroying Iraq to save Iraq.

:evilgrin:

their hearts are in the right place though. Wars are fought between old men by the children of other men. This is not really a war at this point, but there is still some house cleaning we need to do.

If those bleeding heart pacifists want to do something other than tell me I'm naive (what a hoot), then maybe they should consider WHY we're in a war to begin with.

We don't have nor enforce any standard of human rights that we are willing to put in front of our economic interests. If we put our foot down and said no human rights, no deals, period, and furthermore, no deals with anyone else human rights or otherwise who deals with you, we'd have real moral strength in our foreign affairs without requiring physical war.

We want the poor downtrodden people to have coups and take over their evil governments - that's clearly not happening. with a human rights standards, those evil governments have to fix themselves or starve, no coup required.

make the world over in our image. "If we just drop enough bombs they'll see how superiour our way of life is."

what kind of speaking point is that and where did you borrow it from. Tell me what you think it means.

"OUR IMAGE" TO ME: means the rights of humans to be free from terror, free from ideological oppression, the right of humans to have human rights.

I'm sorry if you think that's pushing the envelope, but a human is a human no matter what image you think is fitting.

AND ANOTHER THING: Nobody should BE ALLOWED to use the word naive unless they know what it means and they are able to use it correctly in a sentence.

who are for or against wars based on who is in the driver's seat, I don't rely on talking points (it's not speaking point). And this bullshit you're spouting about granting human rights at the barrel of a gun is straight out of GWB's twisted lips. Fuck your nation-building neocon wet dreams, it isn't reality.

Not a neocon, never said ANYTHING about doing it down the barrel of gun, it is whatever mother fucking kind of point I want it to be, and I was talking about the part before we get to war.

So if human rights aren't good enough for you, you can fuck yourself, not your wet dream, with a running chainsaw, and I'll pull the cord for ya.

fuck off.

I mean, who could imagine you were talking about war, what with the repeated statement that other people (not you, other people who are decidely not you) should "finish what we (again, not you) started" and take this opportunity to wipe people out. Every fucking post of yours in this thread is about war and more killing. Now, what, you're a diplomat? Lol.

What a confused, angry little chickenhawk.

When I tell you what I'm thinking directly it does not require interpretation.

do you even know what a chicken hawk is?

Please tell me what you think my main points are. After you read. Incidentally I have no idea what your points are since you haven't made one that's topical.

that is if there were civilized people.

:sarcasm:

Apparently spoogey or whatever its name is thinks he's discovered thuh enuhmee right here on DU.

Bring it manbitches.

Jesus, what a pathetic display of internet testosterone.

do you really think I'm the enemy?

It's also what I'm not wasting another moment on. Your violent fantasies, chest-puffing, "bring it on" phony hardass play, and projection are altogether too sorry. May you never be touched by the warfare you relish.

So you're ascribing violent fantasies to me without reading? You truly are pathetic. Move along now.

You got a bitch with me?

Just using the reply to call out a real fuck head.

But if you want a fight just for fun . . . :P

Damn pacifists. Ready to fight at the slightest provocation. Just an observation.

used for future decisions in any successful business. Only in DoD contracts and war.

I'm not saying stay there and keep things as they are.

The zen of anything is whatever you are doing now is exactly enough to give you what you have. If we want the Taliban to be castrated and castigated then what we're doing now is not enough.

McChrystal needs to go not because he opposes Obama but because he is trying to make policy through the media. He has every right to his own opinion but I think Obama understands that the country will not support a drastic escalation of troop levels in Afghanistan.

And a war that is not supported by the citizens of a democracy is one that has no chance of succeeding. Look at Vietnam. Look at Iraq. For that matter look at Korea and what happened the last time a general got too big for his brass hat and tried to make one of these political end runs.

As I said, I disagree. On one hand you say don't make policy through the media, and on the other hand you say public sentiment controls all.

I am not naive at all - odd thing to say.

The commander in chief makes policy. The general's job is to carry it out and shut the fuck up about it.

If he doesn't understand the concept of following orders he should seek out another line of work.

But interesting that you think it should be.

The general's job is to deploy resources and to inform and underwrite strategy. It is absolutely NOT the job of a military generals or admiral to be quiet about anything, ever.

So given your comment it's a good thing your line of work is not the military or you would be involuntarily seeking another line of work.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

edited for civility, believe it or not.

Why didn't you just say so several paragraphs back (referring to your coming out to me as a fucking idiot). Someone as hostile and nasty as you should be on the front lines.

Let's see - I grew up in a military family, and can actually name several generals and admirals of whom I am very closely related. I think I don't have to go around generalin' for your sake, regardless of just having some education on the topic. My partner was a senior officer on CVN-1965. Please preach some more bullshit to me.

So you are aware his job is not to STFU. Your opinion is pretty poorly thought out, BTW. I am against being in Iraq. Do not take my desire to FINISH Afghanistan as being pro war.

I want to FINISH the Taliban, and this is our opportunity, your irrelevant opinions notwithstanding. Address what I said about human rights, if you can read that far.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Are you honestly condoning the idea of "culturally cleansing" Afghanistan? When you're done culturally cleansing Afghanistan, do you then go to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...anywhere else where they may have their version of Sharia? After that who is next? Do you then culturally cleanse America? Europe? Asia? Who is acceptable and unacceptable? Is it religion only...how about if they have stars on their bellies, tattoos, piercings? I didn't realize that it was okay to wipe out a given cultural group because we don't like what they stand for, or because we're afraid that not wiping them out will make us more enemies. How does that make us different than our enemies? How can you call that self-defense? That's what the military is for, IIRC.

The Taliban has a horrible record, and they're gaining ground. The warlords are NO BETTER than the Taliban, in many cases they're worse for the regular citizens. Whoever wins, the Afghani people suffer. Perhaps that's who we should think about first, and have a real plan for returning a decent life to these folks, before we decide to go in with overwhelming force to take out the devil we don't have a contract with.

Afghanistan was a fairly nice place before the Russians went in. It's been bombed out since, and reeks of death and desperation. Maybe we could behave like responsible adults here, mediate issues and create /encourage cooperation and empowerment of the Afghani citizenry. After all, you can't kill an ideology with guns and bombs, it lives in the hearts and minds of men. You can only eradicate a malignant ideology with words and positive actions.


FWIW - if when Bush was in power some general was on TV talking about how we should get out of Iraq, and stop killing women children and old people with megaton bombs, we would have hailed him as a hero and a patriot. I think personally ,that we have to give this general the same credit for speaking his mind, and possibly his personal truth, as we would have given our guy. It's the only way you can measure how much of your own bias is clouding your point of view. The president will talk with him and sort it out, I'm certain.

edited to add: comma, please.

did you really just try to work yourself into a state and paint me as a complete monster all at the same time? Feel better? let me answer all the questions you just asked before you started putting words in my mouth. I must say I'm a bit offended.

No. No. No. Nobody. Just the Taliban. Make an example out of this group. Warlords are territorial, based on their tribal edicts, and ideas about sovereignty and their historical geography.

The Taliban are a particular group of people who act on their hatred and beliefs outside their geography. This particular group plauys an old Alexander trick: take a male child from every family and indoctrinate them. The families will behave that way, and you grow your army.

They actively disdain human rights and the value of human life and the individual. They promote terrorism. I don't give a shit about religion - I'm as happy to bomb a mosque with Talibani hiding in it as I am a church or a synagogue being used for the wrong reasons.

You, dear pacifist are wrong about "you can only eradicate a malignant ideology with words and positive actions". there is no this or that, no binary solution. You have to be able and willing to enforce your words or you might as well ask weeds not to grow in your garden by fertilizing your roses.

To that note however, please read my other posts in this thread. You don't treat a sympton with words. You treat the symptom, but if you want to address the cause of those symptoms then words are supremely important.

Our policy is to deal with governments based on the notion that they will change to have human rights over time, and "that's okay" for most people who have no skin in any game. But it's not okay at all, because there is no pressure to do so now or ever, if we throw away the only tool at our disposal short of war. Human rights come first, always.

We HAVE to have and enforce a standard for human rights, in our social dealings, in our economic dealings and most critically in our foreign policy dealings. If we're unwilling to make that the first condition of having an economic or cultural relationship with the U.S., then we'll be fighting these fucked wars for ever. WE are the ones who need to change, first.

Meanwhile, we have a cleanup on aisle four.

I certainly didn't intend to paint you as a monster. I was aiming at the basis you put forth for further and escalated war. I don't mind being called a pacifist. You can keep weeds out of your garden by having very healthy rose bushes. You just have to cultivate regularly. Good healthy plants and well nurtured soil don't let weeds grow beyond the sprouting stage :)


At present, the Taliban is not the ruling authority in Afghanistan. The Karzai government is the body we must work with to bring the current condition to an equitable one for the Afghani people, if we want to help. Finding out what their desires are (the Afghani people), and assisting them in their self-determination would be the first order of business, if we are true to our own code.

If they don't want to have the Taliban, and have no other solution but war, we can give them training and munitions, we can even give them soldiers to assist (careful that it doesn't become a matter of "pride" for our nation). First in the minds of the people is more likely adequate food, fixing up their bombed out shelters, and some kind of sustainable community/national system of provisions for the basic requirements. They don't have that now, the basics of living, and you can't bring it with bombs.

If we're true to our own code, they also deserve to live free from fear, fear of our guns and the Taliban's. They also deserve to be able to make their own choices.

We HAVE to have and enforce a standard for human rights, in our social dealings, in our economic dealings and most critically in our foreign policy dealings. If we're unwilling to make that the first condition of having an economic or cultural relationship with the U.S., then we'll be fighting these fucked wars for ever. WE are the ones who need to change, first.

I totally agree with you on this.

that was a marvelous response, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart. I say that with genuine human love. On an aside to the dynamic: this is what DU should be about; to say how something affects you, and to be able to share what you think. You have my respect and my human love for being the best of humanity, and for doing that here.

Sinti, I am no different than many other Americans and citizens of the world. We react in disgust and anger to the way the world is: that some people in some geographies believe a cultural imperative overrides the incredible miracle that is our sentience and personhood to seek control over the world around us / them. Those people want power over life and death, power over reproduction, and power over choice, power over the fear they can inspire in the powerless and helpless. The nazis in Germany succeeded only because the people they terrorized into compliance were afraid of starving, afraid of meeting the same horrifying fate of any other contrarian.

I personally despise literalist religions as the cheapest manifestation of that power, but when religion intersects law, intersects government, when a man can be "caned" a thousand lashes (a death sentence) and then "prison", for what he does with his pink parts, I can't help but have a personal judgment of the entire culture and religious context which allows that. I don't hate the idea of Islam. I hate the people who abuse it, knowing that we are unwilling to judge and that a geography makes its inhabitants too afraid to question.

So the problem for me is not that there are sharks in the sea. Sharks eat what moves that can be eaten. The problem is US, willing to put aside our silly notions of human rights in trade for economic advantage. It's not leadership, it's not moral imperative. It's not really a value of the land of the "free" if we're only willing to support freedom as long as it belongs to American citizens, or as long as it belongs to people willing to enrich American corporations. We are happy to buy our cheap televisions, clothes and cars from countries that have no standards for labor, health or quality of life.

For me, the Taliban is the acme of that failure, but I'm not really obsessed with the Taliban itself so much as our willingness to accept the "right" of the Taliban to exist in the lives of people like you and I, or worse, the rights of a "country" to decide that the Taliban is acceptable to have power in the lives of people like your or me. At the end of the day, most people are decent, and the practice of decency means that most people are willing to try to survive whatever horror is in front of them.

It should not be up to us to demand of those people that they overturn their governments, that they rise up for themselves, when they have everything to lose and all we have to lose is our economic advantage, which we value above the rights of people like you and me, in those places.

So, if we demand that standard up front, we don't demand that the downtrodden rise up against their governments to form a more perfect union. We establish a standard for any government, tyrannical or otherwise, to deal with us. We make the bad guys have to adapt, not the oppressed.

I look forward to seeing more of you - you're a real gem here.

why not?

do something about it.

that's all.

I don't think he's a bad person, and by the way, "idiot" is hyberbole not a scientific diagnosis.

I just think as a leader he sorely lacks skills, made apparent by his inability to rapidly assess anything but risk to his political standing.

Do I really think he's retarded? Not at all, but on some topics he's not very insightful and certainly not very innovative. He's hamstrung with analysis paralysis.

Does that help?

I'm aware that "idiot" is hyperbole but if you don't want to get flamed, you don't call a Democratic President an idiot on a Democratic board especially when said President is actually quite intelligent.

And while I agree with you that he is certainly concerned primarily with his political standing, the same has been true for most of his predecessors and certainly true for all of his recent ones. Civilian control of the military ensures that decisions made by the Commander-in-Chief are going to be political. Just because some Presidents happen to make decisions that their generals agree with doesn't mean they are ignoring politics and ceding all of the decision making to the "professionals". War is extremely political, it always has been and it always will be.

to call anyone anything, and believe me can stand my own. It's an opinion and if I can't have that opinion and be prepared to substantiate it here, then this is not the democratic underground.

I wouldn't call him an idiot merely to disrupt either as some who have tombstones around their necks have discovered. Anyway, I'm topic specific. I know people who are clearly smarter than the president appears to be, but on THIS topic, Obama does well to listen to his people in the field.

What's missing is that zen bit: whatever you are doing is exactly enough to give you what you have. If you want something different, you have to do something different. If you want something better, you have to do something better.

And while he is the ranking military officer "in the field" and is supposed to represent people in the field, the military isn't a democracy and thus the people "in the field" don't necessarily all agree with McChrystal. Quite frankly we don't know what they think since they aren't going on television and letting us know. While I certainly believe he should take the general's opinion into account it would be unwise to make a policy decision based on the opinion of a single advisor and I think you would agree with me on that point. There are numerous other opinions that he should take into account both "in the field" and "out of the field" including that of his National Security Advisor, his Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs.

Obama is aware that what we are doing right now is not working. That's why he's re-evaluating the policy.

His ego is out of control. It may or may not be partly because he does not have a decent respect for "the black guy" running things.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and Obama needs to rethink this whole war issue and get the fuck out. NOW.

So now what? That is the question in my mind. If we are going to stay there, and we are, I think we owe it to our armed services to protect them and give them the best chance to accomplish the stated objective, whatever that ends up being. The idea of not increasing the troops "too much" so as not to rile public outcry but without giving us a chance of success is policy gone way wrong. Get in and get the job done or get out. Since we are not getting out according to the President, then it is time to go balls to the wall and get the job done.

But that's just my opinion

Nation building, at the expense of our own. Rule of law? I just don't think we can convince or have enough money to bribe all the war lords to get in line. Osama? We haven't found him yet and I don't think we will. Terrorism? It's every where, We can't go to war with that many countries.

I don't know either but apparently someone does. I don't know why leaving is not an option, but that is what has been stated.
Either we get in or we get out. Keeping all things the same will only lead to more of the same results so it's time for a change of some kind.

knows what the job is they sure as hell are not making it clear, and what is worse is that they don't seem to be able to come out and and say, this is how we will will get the job done. As for me I'm not willing to trust what they have stated.:shrug: I lost a Brother in Vietnam and a Nephew in this one. We don't have the resources to "give" them Democracy and build their nation. That's my opinion.

maybe some new strategy will emerge from that.

The WAR MONGERS and the WAR HAWKS trying to have their
Way with war profiteering. Would the President stand for this
BS.

Trueman fired MacArthur for insubordination, we shall see,
no matter what he is the CiC.

I think he should use this as an opportunity to make it clear to the country and the world that he's in charge and won't be intimidated by a general who goes on television.

I have always been against the war in Iraq. I hate that we jumped into Afghanistan at all, and am not a war monger AT ALL.

I DO advocate going after a group that discounts human rights, supports al qaeda, took credit for bombing a diplomatic embassy in Kabul, and executes gays for being alive. I, me personally, am not required or compelled to tolerate it, and in this one particular case it's a sure thing that generalizing to the entire Taliban is okay. Don't worry, nobody is going to act on my emotional honesty in this regard - I hate the Taliban for perfectly valid intellectual reasons, if you can ever mix emotion and reason safely.

I'm sorry if you think that makes me evil. Not an idealist. Not a chicken hawk. Against the death penalty believe it or not. And have lost family to the war, and am married to the war, if somewhat illegally in most states. Not 15 because that would be illegal in every state.

That's all - the fight with you is not a worthy one for me or for you. I suspect your heart is in the right place even as much as you've villified me, but hey, I'm not going anywhere because of a spat, and not holding it against you.

-sui

commentz:
Human rights FIRST. Afghanistan, or England, no difference. If you aren't willing to have a standard of human rights in everything you do, religion, government, self determination, you should be isolated from the rest of the world economically, culturally and in every other conceivable way.

We're the ones at fault for how we deal with the sharks in the ocean, not the sharks.