McChrystal Asks For More Troops; Obama Mulling Over Options
By Susie Madrak Monday Sep 21, 2009 9:00amWhy do I feel like I've seen this movie before? I'm hoping against hope for a different ending this time: America having the strength to walk away from something that will drain our resources with no clear goals in sight.
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."
His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.
McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."
But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.
But Obama is trying to figure out whether that's actually the road he wants to take:
Instead of debating whether to give McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, more troops, the discussion in the White House is now focused on whether, after eight years of war, the United States should vastly expand counterinsurgency efforts along the lines he has proposed -- which involve an intensive program to improve security and governance in key population centers -- or whether it should begin shifting its approach away from such initiatives and simply target leaders of terrorist groups who try to return to Afghanistan.
McChrystal's assessment, in the view of two senior administration officials, is just "one input" in the White House's decision-making process. The president, another senior administration official said, "has embarked on a very, very serious review of all options." The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
Obama, appearing on several Sunday-morning television news shows, left little doubt that key assumptions in the earlier White House strategy are now on the table. "The first question is: Are we doing the right thing?" the president said on CNN. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"
"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there -- beyond what we already have," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." If an expanded counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan contributes to the goal of defeating al-Qaeda, "then we'll move forward," he said. "But, if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or . . . sending a message that America is here for the duration."
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... get the f*ck out of there already.
It's only been 8 years so far . . .
Just a few more troops and we will turn the corner. . .
Victory is within our reach if we committ. . .
If we leave now all the lives lost were for nothing. . .
****
I've heard them all - over and over again until the warmongering platitudes are meaningless.
Every word and phrase was nearly the same for Vietnam.
I've had enough.
.
Funny a contractor just signed contracts worth 1 Billion dollars that go on for two years in Iraq to provide security services.
I hope we don't pull out sooner or we won't get our money's worth.
Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq tout de suite.
They can't get us out quickly enough.
Yesterday was too late.
UGH!
this was a cheney plan to get them back for not allowing his pals' pipeline.
In World War one, British Generals threw wave after wave of infantry against German fortifications.
The slaughter went on, the Generals tinkered with details but they continued the tactics MONTH AFTER MONTH.
One German officer said to another, the British lads fight like lions, the other officer replied:
YES, AND THEY ARE LED BY DONKEYS.
but it was English Tommys calling the German generals donkeys.
The slaughter was a-plenty either way you took it.
But for the lads on either side, the joke was on them.
War is a racket, it always has been.
;-P
Rule #1 of war, if you don't see the guy, who is asking you to go to war, out there leading the charge: stay home.
never should have gone in the first place.
Re-examine what "failure" means. We didn't exactly "fail" in Vietnam; we simply got out.
LOL. I remember my 6th grade teacher in 1977 telling our class Vietnam was a tie.
We lost in Vietnem. Our goal was to prevent the spread of communism and we did not succeed.
Funny thing is the Vietnamese are doing just fine. In the mean time, America has found her new Vietnam.
To where?
South Vietnam. No the domino theory didn't pan out, but south vietnam is communist.
... than when we were there.
by Ho Chi Min is based on the US Constitution which he greatly admired. Apparently they held to it instead of ignoring it's ideals.
... too bad he missed those small details like democracy and such ;-)
BTW, Ho Chi Minh was our ally during WWII. In some senses he is the original "Blowback" of US foreign intervention policies.
The sad part is that Cambodia would not have fallen to the Khmer Rouge if we had stayed out of Vietnam. We made the "domino theory" a self fulfilling one.
not to mention the illegal bombing of cambodia by US forces
.
.
I know there is no south Vietnam. We went there to prevent the spread of communism. We were based in the south, the southern portion was not communist while we were there but is now. We failed. Why are you splitting hairs?
I much prefer mulled mead
Thankee very much...
for me.
Works better than drinking fermented trout sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCwLirQS2-o
Still waiting for national security forces to "mature." The situation is drastic and we need more troops.
We're going 2x as long as Pacific theater, 4x as long as Europe, equal to Vietnam, and we still don't know the defintion of what is supposed to be happening... Not even talk of a draft to alleviate the stress on current forces. We need out now!
our involvement in the Pacific theater was slightly longer than in Europe, the nazis surrendered before the Japanese. And we entered both theaters in WWII at the same time.
Another minor correction.
We entered the war in Europe quietly three days after Pearl Harbor and after the day of infamy speech, when Hitler declared war on us.
It was quickly decided that Europe was to be the first priority.
We declared war on Japan first, also... there was an attempt to land in Wake Island by the Japanese right after Pearl Harbor. So the first shots in anger by US troops in WWII were against the Japanese.
I have no clue what you were trying to correct though...
The day of infamy speech was December 8, 1941. Here
The closing was this:
He was asking for a declaration of war against Japan, which was granted. It was not a declaration of war against Germany.
Germany (and Italy) declared war against the US on December 11, 1941. BBC here
After December 11, Congress did pass a resolution of war against Germany and Italy, but it was without another day of infamy speech, fanfare or even debate.
The fanfare was regarding Pearl Harbor, 95% of the response went to Europe.
That is my point.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute has a page discussing the US Navy in the war, here
I am not endorsing this page, I need to do more research, but they discuss FDR's secret naval war in the Atlantic during the fall of 1941 as a bait for attack by Germany.
... but claiming that 95% of the US military response after WWII went against Europe is disingenuous at best.
Especially since the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea came before the landing of US troops in Northern Africa, which was the first large scale involvement of American troops in the European theater.
The 95% per cent was strictly off the top of my head, I am trying find documentation, if you can help that would be better than claiming I am being disingenuous.
Mistaken perhaps. But the effort in economic terms was very much greater in Europe.
I provided you with a good document on the Navy in the war.
The US provided massive material aid to the USSR.
My initial reply was to this.
The war with Japan would have very much shorter by itself.
An article in Grolier is here, it doesn't give the simple answer but it is informative.
that took place in the Pacific before any major intervention by US troops in the European theater. So yeah, the 95% figure was either disingenuous or ill informed take your pick.
Unless you seem to be of the opinion that US intervention in WWII = US Army operations alone. The blunt of the fighting in the Pacific was carried out by the Navy and Marines (and Air force). In fact it was probably a larger effort due to the little ally involvement that forced the US to carry a larger portion of the fighting in the Pacific.
I have no idea what agenda you're trying to defend here, unless it is the implication that the US was only interested in fighting the Nazis and simply used Japan as an excuse to enter the fray.
I am not trying defend any agenda, just attempting to be factual.
The point was that initial fanfare and later facts do not always correlate.
My father served in the Army Air Corps. He recounted to me many times the saying they used in the Pacific Theater, which was 'we hit them where they weren't'.
They said that because they were short the resources which were lavished on Europe. His description.
I will not vouch for the legitimacy of the Afgh versus Iraq situation, in fact I disclaim it, but Afghanistan received the fanfare and Iraq received the thunder.
You attack me for the lack of facts, without providing facts yourself.
Coral Seas and Midway were naval battles between air craft carriers.
It was a handful of ships on each side.
The strategic implications were disproportional to the numbers involved, they proved the air craft carrier was the new dominant form. This seriously affected Japan's strategic operations and options.
My question and my point is on the overall material effort.
I continue to say that there was very much more on the European side.
The grim tale of battle casualties is shown in the Groliers article as thus:
The number is those in service, the second is the battle casualties.
The Navy and Marines predominated in the Pacific but were in support in the Atlantic.
The Army predominated in Europe. The number includes the Army Air Force.
Army - 11,260,000 - 234,874
Navy - 4,183,466 - 36,950
Marine Corps - 669,100 - 19,733
Coast Guard - 241,093 - 574
I have yet to document the simple number of 95%, I will keep trying, it is solid in my memory.
I was just pointing out that your claim that the US was more vested in the European theater right after Pearl Harbor was a tad disingenuous/uninformed claim. As I said, the US was involved in two quite large battles in the Pacific right after Pearl Harbor before a single shot was fired by American GIs in Northern Africa. I thought that was factual enough, to at least justify the position I was coming from.
The number 95% seems to only exist in your memory. The Pacific and European theaters were different: one involved mainly air and sea battles, while the other involved massive land campaigns.
There were 22 army divisions in the Pacific vs. 61 in Europe, so indeed there were more boots in the ground in Europe. But both theaters were very very different, so I don't think it is fair to claim there was an overwhelming support for just one of them right from the start.
From growing up in a military family, let me assure you that if there is a constant in the US military is that each service is going to bitch about the other getting more attention/funding/resources (even among subdivisions of each service).
The word 'disingenuous' to me, is inflammatory in itself.
My statement was this:
I stand by it.
Two articles that correspond to this thesis, the first actually indicates the priority of Europe in planning even before the US was at war, (my emphasis in both), they are from the narrower standpoint of the Army and not more broadly the US government funding and production en toto which went to all avenues of outlay, lend/lease and outright aid. I described 95% of the resources going to Europe, I have yet to document it, that is my clear recollection from what I took at the time to be a credible source.
The Victory Program here
I am not totally sanguine about looking to the army for hard numbers. The statement of the central strategic principle I think is correct.
The second is here
At the outset of the war Japan had one fifth of the industrial capacity of the US, that number was to fall dramatically. Germany was twice that of Japan and even managed to increase its capacity.
Germany which had already gobbled up nearly the entirety of Europe was perceived, in my estimation, as the much greater threat. That is born out in the two articles.
Much was made of the atrocities of unrestricted German submarine warfare, which succeeded at first but then failed. Not much is said of American unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan which was slow to start but by the war's end had brought shipments there to a virtual halt. Lots of bang for the resource buck, so to speak. An article discusses GDP of the combatants at the time, here.
On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked the US. On the same day because Stalin had penetrated Japanese diplomatic elements and he had known that the Japanese was giving up their attacks against the USSR from Manchuria he had brought those prime troops to the defense of Moscow and Germany was stopped. The war tilted dramatically on December 7, yet four days later Hitler declared war against the US, which was not smart at all.
We built 14 aircraft carriers, converted 141 other ships to be escort carriers but we built over two million trucks. I don't know the comparison between to the theaters but I think most of them went to Europe.
There were tremendous resources directed to the USSR, trucks, see the article below. All of this goes into making up my point.
Perhaps rather than looking for numbers I should look more for political statements, after all that is as much of what the statement entails.
Except that the Navy, obviously, was engaged instantly. Most of the battle ships were decommissioned at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
Billy Mitchell had predicted the demise of the battle ship as the premier capital ship, the Japanese proved him right.
The facts on the ground took a while to develop.
The Mediterranean campaign turned into a vast operation.
If we hadn't been fraudulently drawn into WWI, the rest of the century would have been very different.
---
An interesting article from Australian Nigel Davies is here
He talks about quality comparison versus number comparisons.
I would interested to know qualitatively the difference between the army in the Pacific and Europe. The number of divisions don't tell the entire story.
One point about the trucks we built which correlates to my thesis:
I was starting with the ground war, but we lost a lot of men in the skies.
The Daily Show summed it up very nicely, as per.
We need the money here to care for our injured troops.
This is throwing good money after bad
n/t
everything looks like a nail. McChystal spent a year underminning Gen McKeirnin. He was then promised a free hand in Afghanistan. He has to prove he can win and that means throwing more troops onto the fire.
Ooh, they only answer more! more! more! yoh,
— "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Have Generals in any of these various "small" wars ever asked to have some troops sent home?
Bring them home now.
Let the corporations who profit from these wars hire Blackwater-Xe to do their dirty work
instead of hijacking the US military.
No more military welfare for corporations.
there are more mercs in afghanistan and iraq than US troops.
As of March, there were over 68,000 contractors in Afghanistan and over 52,000 military personnel
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/200...
Let's get all US troops out.
Let the mercs stay.
Let a UN force squash 'em.
Oh, but that would interfere with Free Trade(tm)
And as we draw down in Iraq, our troops are being replaced with more expensive foreign contractors, instead of Iraqis. We are paying the bill.
It would actually be cheaper to keep our troops in Iraq than to pull them out because we are REPLACING them.
"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there -- beyond what we already have," Obama
huh? hasn't obama already sent over thousands of new troops to afghanistan... and he did that not knowing if we have the right strategy? (which we don't)
political triangulation, wetted finger in the PR wind
I say we pull our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, invade Saudi Arabia, capture and torture Bin Laden's family until they tell us where he is, whether they know or not.
Anyone else with me?
then anything else that's been done the past 8 years.
Bin Laden is either dead or living very comfortably in some villa courtesy of some family member. The trail's cold we never will find him . Get out and blame the Bush adminstration like we should have in the first place. You can't fight an invisible army with Soldiers.
Or a huge yacht.
... and just what does this "defeat" look like? A series of countries falling like dominoes until California is forced into Islam?
Did we think they were all going to throw down their weapons, convert to Christianity and hand over the keys to the oil wells? I guess if you're a Republican, that's exactly what you thought.
A complicated mess... "Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who commanded all U.S. forces in Afghanistan [...] made it clear: drugs are bad, but his orders were that drugs were not a priority of the U.S. military in Afghanistan" "the Pentagon strategy was “sequencing” — defeat the Taliban, then have someone else clean up the drug business." "...in 2006, when Benjamin Freakley, the two-star U.S. general who ran the eastern front, shut down all operations by the D.E.A. and Afghan counternarcotics police in Nangarhar — a key heroin-trafficking province. The general said that antidrug operations were an unnecessary obstacle to his military operations." (Thomas Schweich, www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/magazine/27AFGHAN-...)
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
One of the principal reasons the Bush-Cheney Gang invaded Afghanistan was to get the poppy production back up and the heroin flowing again.
The Taliban had just about completely eradicated poppies. Certainly not acceptable to the International Heroin Cartels.
Great to see C&L watching and linking to RT (RussiaToday) Channel at YouTube. They do a lot of excellent reporting. Some is a bit propagandistic, but certainly not as bad as most of the American Media. Al Jazeera is another YouTube Channel well worth watching for the same reason.
soldiers home. How can we fail?? Fail at what?? What was the reason for sending so many troops into Afghanistan in the first place - the goal?
Afghanistan will never be a 'democratic country' with a unified government - it's a conglomeration of various tribal peoples who like hanging out in mountains and deserts and smoking dope. Lots of other armies have tried to change/conquer them and gave up - we should have done that about 5 years ago.
If the oil companies want to access the gas fields and build pipelines, let them pay for the privilege: "Stop using our children to steal resources and stuff your pockets with money!!!"
is that when something is already a failure to say it may become a failure sounds retarded. Sorry General McChrystal but no matter how much you believe you can you can't turn shit into gold.
I think the question of what is failure is much clearer than the question of what is "winning."
Get. Out. Now.
We did not get Bin Laden. Now it's time to turn inward for answers. Let's capture John McCain and torture him until he tells us how to capture Osama.
What? Somebody already did that? So the gooks know where Bin Laden is now? I'm confused..
and torture McCains torturers?
hmmm....
can't quite put my finger on it ...
its ...its ...hmmm...
OH YEAH!:
"Graveyard of Empires"
Just ask Cheney and Dubya.
8 friggen years and you can't get it done? Who was running this show? This is corruption. It was suppose to be a "slam dunk" What, we need 56,000 soldiers killed? Arrest Bush and Cheney, reveal the truth and get the hell out of the "holy land". And burn the Mafia's poppy fields.....Our soldiers are professionals, not pawns....Our politicians are just rich!
Bungalo Bill
...that Obama continues to insist we need to be over there...
Robert Dreyfuss ('Safe Haven Myth' Bites the Dust) quotes Paul R. Pillar's OpEd in the Washington Post (Who's Afraid of A Terrorist Haven?):
It's time to initiate talks with the Taliban - negotiate an end to the military actions.
That was one of my thoughts if we pull out of Afghanistan, virtually no impact on terrorism, positive or negative. The effin 911 hijackers trained in Florida for Christ sake.
America has a real need in fighting the war on terra.
Why aren't the Republicans enlisting all their children, and their nieces and nephews and demanding that their base do the same!
We wust WIN this war...even if we have to sacrifice every Republican and right wingnut in this holy endeavor.
Why oh WHY do these people hate America?!?!?
the amount we are spending yearly on the iraq/afghan aggression is nearly double that we would need to institute health reform... thought i'd mention that as we mull the thought of escalating an unwinnable clusterfuck.
i choose health.
Healthier for Americans AND Afghans alike.
but with a proper healthcare reform we would end up saving money.
But then, what would these parasite corporations suck money from? I love the smug attitude of these "free market" and "captain of industry" types who could not make an honest living if they were not being sucking from the public tit. Always claiming they want a "small government." While totally neglecting to mention the fact that what they want to downsize is the level of services provided for the common good, while they want to increase the size of the checks the government writes for their welfare.
There isn't much more you can say about someone that writes a memo like that. He whines he can't do his job, wants more money, more troops to kill more people, and no one knows what in the hell it is for in the first place, least of all the general himself. To make it worse, he knows he can't win anything, because there is nothing to win. He says so.
President Cheney made sure we have no generals that aren't puppets. All the good ones quit, and only this kind seem to remain. We best get rid of the chiefs and let new people with intelligence and competence take over.
The ruthless Russian war in Afghanistan peaked at 120,000 troops. By the time of their withdrawal the Russians had suffered 14,500 dead and 54,000 wounded.
Our current troops level is around 60,000 and allied forces have suffered 1,400 dead. So, if we double our troop levels and increase our deaths tenfold we'll catch up with the Russians effort that lead to their going back home in defeat. The only question seems to be if we'll demonstrate some common sense and cut our losses before we slink away or throw live troops after dead before we slink home.
Come on, Obama, let's get the fuck out of there. Hasn't history taught you anything about the futility of fighting in that barbaric shitheap of the globe? Pull out and let all those crazies self-destruct. Our own people can't afford medical care among other major issues right here at home. At least I can say I voted Nader. He would've gotten our troops out of there and also would've been fighting all-out for single payer. This 2-party system is a sham and is literally killing us.
...sheds some light on what we're really doing over there in his most recent article; one of his best in recent years in my opinion.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200909--.htm
Haven't we seen this tired movie before? Just different actors playing the leading role. No amount of troop increases will ever be enough. It seems the military industrial complex is going to get their way in the end anyway, so why even debate this. We know the ending to this movie. Hasn't vietnam taught us anything. Bring the troops home
just like we did in the 60's and 70's .
The US does not need to be in any country , one would think that the best way to lead is by example . By focusing our efforts against the war we would then out flank the right wingers , and what possible spin could they put on stopping the wars and bringing ALL troops home .
Then we could down size the MIC , and quit being the major arms dealers of the world ( almost 70% ) , end all these G/D wars against common sense .
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