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Official: Obama wants his war options changed

The Prof said:
who cares about your personal proclivities?
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OMG I cannot believe I missed that post.Indecision is not a good military trait.
 
Strucky said:
OMG I cannot believe I missed that post.Indecision is not a good military trait.
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Thousands of lives and billions of dollars are at stake.
 
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obama WANTS OUT

hello

he lacks guts

our soldiers spill theirs
 
What's the general consensus on Pakistan's dislike of good ol' Afghanistan? Do they hate them or really hate them?
 
I guess he wasn't ready to be President by simply voting "Present" all those times in his many, many years in Congress. Well, at least he's...er...WOOHOO! HOPE AND CHANGE!
 
STILL on the front page of dp-msm is a thread started by RightinNYC---cbs (nov 9) reports the ditherer in chief has finally decided on his strategy, "about 40K more troops"

just two days later, he inexplicably and publicly starts from scratch

mcchrystal, obama's hand picked commander and expert in the field, warned in his secret assessment, leaked to bob woodward---hurry, else our efforts "will likely result in failure"

McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure' - washingtonpost.com

just who leaked mcchrystal's assessment and exactly why the watergate wonderboy decided to publish it are worries still unanswered

of course, obama was totally decisive when he announced his "comprehensive, new strategy" for the region

Obama's Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, March 2009 - Council on Foreign Relations

he sounded exactly like his malcontent general

what's changed?

karzai?

the election?

obama just last week endorsed the corrupt curator

White House Calls Karzai 'Legitimate' Leader of Afghanistan, Downplays Concerns - FOXNews.com

obama is all over the place, he has no clue what he's doing

he's playing politics with this war he doesn't want but owns while warriors twist

afghanistan is killing this president, it's exposing his amateurish "abilities" and his crass political motivations

and it's gonna get a lot worse
 
About the article by RightinNYC. Click on the link prof. You will see that same day, at 10 PM the whitehouse said it was a false report.

Why does he need to make a descision now? If you read the article we cannot even begin to deploy troops for a year anyways. He might as well weigh all his options and make the best decision he can by hearing all of the arguments. It is completely irrational to make a rushed decision in this case.

I completely disagree with anyone saying he does not have guts because he is actually taking time to make an informed descision with more than one persons opinion. It takes more guts to stand up to a general than to just give him everything he wants.

He does not "want out." He wants to make a smart decision.

One more thing; who is playing politics? The president by weighing different options from different people and trying to implement the best strategy, or the people who are trying to marginalize him by calling this "indecisive" when there is no reason for a rushed descision.
 
drz-400 said:
About the article by RightinNYC. Click on the link prof. You will see that same day, at 10 PM the whitehouse said it was a false report.

Why does he need to make a descision now? If you read the article we cannot even begin to deploy troops for a year anyways. He might as well weigh all his options and make the best decision he can by hearing all of the arguments. It is completely irrational to make a rushed decision in this case.

I completely disagree with anyone saying he does not have guts because he is actually taking time to make an informed descision with more than one persons opinion. It takes more guts to stand up to a general than to just give him everything he wants.

He does not "want out." He wants to make a smart decision.

One more thing; who is playing politics? The president by weighing different options from different people and trying to implement the best strategy, or the people who are trying to marginalize him by calling this "indecisive" when there is no reason for a rushed descision.
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the white house said (at 10 pm) it was a false report---LOL!

the white house says the exact opposite every 6 hours

unfortunately, abc, cnn, fox, drudge---EVERYONE got ahold of that false report and ran with it for a week

the 34000 figure was the worst kept secret in washington since mcchrystal's call for 40G

i don't know that he "needs to make a decision now"

what he needs to do is LOOK like a president who has a clue

instead of completely undoing his own position stated clear as mcchrystal on march 27

what he needs to do is quit calling karzai a crook mere days before congratulating the corrupt coup

what he needs to do is stop the public dissension within his won DOD

you call for rationality?

all this public chin stroking while soldiers are being slaughtered in record numbers is nothing but

but it sure aint helping

it's been 10 months, hardly "rushed"

by all accounts he didn't even consult mcchrystal until august

it's been four months since he received the "top-to-bottom review" he dishonestly declared on september 20 on five sunday talk shows he was still waiting for

sure, he doesn't want out, no doubt

why, when it comes to afghanistan, he can only be described as eager

let me at em, let me at em

he really needs to be restrained

maybe axelrod can calm him down

meanwhile, we're getting killed over there, we have no chance, his own base is totally opposed to the war

so back to the drawing board he goes---IN PUBLIC

you're right, friend, afghanistan is really working for this president

it's making him a regular george mcclellan
 
donsutherland1 said:
I believe Ambassador Eikenberry is raising urgent and relevant questions.

Although I agree that additional manpower is needed, I believe a full discussion needs to examine, among other things, the past experiences concerning Czarist, British, and Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the failure of earlier "surges" to bring about a stable outcome, and Afghanistan's historically decentralized framework in which tribal leaders/local institutions play a larger role than its central government. Former Soviet President Gorbachev's warning, while unpleasant, goes to the heart of the convergence of Afghanstan's history and lack of governance structure. The Soviets had much greater manpower and much freer operating constraints and still failed to pacify Afghanistan.

Currently, Kabul is defined by corruption, cronyism, and incompetence, if not leadership that may not adequately represent all of Afghanistan's various ethnic or tribal groups. Afghanistan remains closer to a failed state than a viable national unit. The leadership issue is one that the military planners need to address. In the wake of previous failed strategies, they have a genuine burden to address the issues as to why the previous troop surges in Afghanistan, including one from earlier this year, proved ineffective, why their earlier plans failed to foresee how events unfolded to date, why one should have confidence that the outcome this time around will be different given Afghanistan's historic experience and current dynamics. They need to identify who specifically will be the key tribal leaders whose efforts will be leveraged in implementing the plan and how reliable have they been in the past. They need to identify what local institutions will be relied upon to complement the efforts of the additional troops, among others.

The historic experience, failure of earlier troop surges, and, arguably worst of all, previous strategies' failure to come close to anticipating the overall evolution of events does not inspire much confidence. Neither do the realities associated with failed or failing states. As a result, difficult questions need to be raised and addressed.

The assumptions on which the strategy is based must fit reality. Those assumptions need to be sober, not excessively optimistic. The new strategy cannot simply be a "patch" that changes one or two variables but does not fit the current environment nor address issues raised by the historic and recent experience, otherwise it will rapidly become obsolete well short of achieving its goals as happened with the previous strategies. It also needs to specifically identify and address a wide range of contingencies.

Experience with failing or failed states with a history of highly fragmented leadership/multiplicity of tribal leaders with widely varied interests e.g., Somalia, illustrate the enormous difficulties involved in Afghanistan. Historic and recent experience in Afghanistan demonstrate the reality of those difficulties.

In the end, it seems to me that Ambassador Eikenberry is asking the difficult questions that need to be asked. It would be prudent for the President to give those questions and issues a thorough review in the planning exercise, even if the exercise requires some additional time.
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I think you encapsulate the situation extremely well. This highlights why Obama is wise not to rush, and needs to explore all option or possibilities. The stability of Afghanistan is not as straight as some people think. As you have pointed out Tribal traditions path the way, in an Afghan society, and in my opinion its here we need to be concentrating our-negotiating efforts. Win from the bottom up. As has been highlighted recently the Afghan people are fickle in terms of allegiances, and often invest there support 'in the wining side' at that particular moment. An obvious way of 'winning them over' is to improve there lot, on a local scale. After speaking recently with serving friends it seems locals are far more grateful of an engineering success [re-diverting water supplies-the fixing of a generator etc] than any Military success that we can deliver. This is perhaps as we no full well that military success is often short lived, where as, life enhancement projects tend to last.

Paul
 
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sure, decide correctly

great point---LOL!

but---dispute your military leadership in public?

unmake your own "comprehensive strategy," stated with mcchrystal clarity on march 27?

dissemble on five sunday talks, only to be exposed the next day by assessment leaker woodward?

say one thing about karzai on a monday, then the opposite on wednesday?

the only reason the president so deliberatively dithers in the first place, according to obama, is cuz karzai's so recently uncovered (LOL!) corruption changes fundamentally the equation

so the prez calls to congratulate the dictator on his coup?

have your own secty defense go out in public and criticize your sitting on your hands?

solemn deliberation is one thing

crass executive incompetence is obama

afghanistan is killing him, the only reason he's there is cuz his CAMPAIGN decreed he's not your traditional anti-military dem

he RAN hard on this right war

he clearly does NOT want to fight it
 
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