Obama V. McChrystal
An interesting personal dynamic is building, with Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama and General Stanley McChrystal.
Obama is currently pondering what to do next in the troubled Afghan war. Obama and the White House realigned the entire Afghan strategy in March, after Obama spent the entire Presidential election stating that Afghanistan was the war of necessity, the war we must win.
So Obama searched for his military leader, and he handpicked Gen. McChrystal. McChrystal had a unique background. For several years, he had led the anti-insurgency effort in Iraq. He was instrumental in building the intelligence and special forces structure to successfully attack the hierarchy of the insurgency and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The irony is that Obama chose McChrystal for one other reason. He felt the General, who is one of the new cohort of generals in the military led by General David Petraeus, that believe that they have a duty to the President, but also have a duty to speak out about what they think is the best strategy going forward.
And it is that characteristic more than any other that has come back to haunt the President.
While Obama sits and ponders and debates his new Afghan strategy, he allowed McChrystal to attend a conference at the Institute of International and Strategic Studies In London. McChrystal also had a 60 minutes interview last week. Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda. In both interviews, he clearly stated his belief: that the war could be lost if the correct strategy was not chosen; that the formula of limited anti-terrorism (which, ironically, has a handbook within the military written by…yup, Gen. McChrystal himself) which is favored by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to “Chaos-istan”; and that any half measure would certainly lead to mission failure.
When asked whether he would support it, he said: “The short answer is: No.”
He went on to say: “Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support.”
American President’s have rarely heard such a strong-armed approach from their Generals. But in this, Obama is at fault; when McChrystal was picked over the quiet and more mundate Gen. McKiernan, one of the attributes that many White House Staffers praised was his openess and his ability to strongly advocate his own opinion.
Now, of course, that is not what the White House really wants. They want generals that capitulate. But Obama failed to understand the man he had picked. McChrystal was and is fully behind the Obama plan for Afghanistan circa March 2009: an anti-insurgency plan along the lines of Iraq, where you clear, hold and maintain the peace, in order to allow the local government to materialize. McChrystal has not changed; and in all honesty, the facts on the ground in Afghanistan have not changed in the interim.
What has changed is public opinion, and Obama’s will power. Earlier this year, when asked what his toughest decision has been as President, Mr. Obama quickly pointed to sending 17,000 additional troops to the Afghan theater. Obama (not unexpectedly) has always felt unsure about his position on Afghanistan. It was the obvious position needed to win the election, but in his heart of hearts, I doubt Obama (who til this day is steadfastly of the opinion that the Surge in Iraq was not the right choice) really believed that his own surge was the right path to take.
Obama would rather not worry about Afghanistan at all. McChrystal let a small secret out of the bag in his 60 Minutes interview: since be chosen as head General in March, he had talked to the President only once. That is an incredible statement of fact; that during a war in which 70,000 U.S. troops are involved, that the President is not concerned to make a phone call more than once every 6 months.
For the White House now to be angry at McChrystal for his honesty is disturbing. It is as disturbing as the President and Democrats in Congress blocking the Senate from hearings with McChrystal. And the White House knows they are again losing the public relations battle: it is not a good sign when the Secretary of Defense has to go out and say that the President will not abandon the war…a war, that the President 6 months ago, promised to win.
Obama now has been boxed in by his own General. He can choose to stay the course, and continue the Obama surge, supported by the military establishment, to the anger of his political left; or he can choose to discard his short lived Afghanistan policy that he supported through out the campaign, admitting that he was clearly wrong, and basically admit a slow, organized retreat…which would ultimately lead to victory for the Taliban. And in the course of that retreat, he may see the mass defection of generals who had bought into his earlier policy, but will not accept this kind of wholesale defeat in the war that the President called ‘the war we must win.’
Talk about a rock and a hard place.
Lets see, whom do I trust? An American General with years of experience, training and hands on involvement in such affairs or the community organizer who is too weak to stand up to anyone? Hmm, tuff choice.
Obama is quickly becoming the biggest failure of any president in history. When I hear the media talk about his accomplishments, I want to gag. What accomplishments? He’s losing the war in Afghanistan and thinks he knows more than the General in charge of NATO. Unemployment is at a 30 year high at 10%, the GDP is declining for the first time in 26 years, he killed the American Auto Industry, Chrysler and GM won’t last another 12 months. He’s trying to kill our health care system and wants to take over the Energy Industry and raise our taxes by $3800 per household to solve global warming that doesn’t exist. Can this man think of anything else to cost us taxpayers more money or that will raise the prices of necessary goods and services. America might not last until 2010 at this rate. If Iran gets a nuclear bomb, kiss it goodbye.
Forget that…this is OBAMA’S OWN POLICY. This is not the Bush policy. Obama realigned everything in March. Now, after 6 months, when his own troop surge just completed last month, he wants to move in a different direction?
It is a sad fact that we have not had a president since Harry S. Truman that was aware when to pull the trigger on our most gifted weapon of choice…the rail splitter, the bomb to end all other bombs…the ATOMIC BOMB. This weapon needs no backtalk from enemies as Japan was ours in WWII. When the Japanese saw the after effects of this weapon they immediately were willing to sign any insturment of a peace treaty. It is too bad that our last president was such a pussy. And Jimmy Carter was before him. And Obama is NOW! Obama could have stopped the Taliban in its tracks just as Bush before him could have. For the love of Mrs. Daisy, it is time that someone think like Harry Truman did in 1945 and use our most fabulous weapon…just drop one of them on a suspected Al Qaida holdout and watch those bastards run to surrender…Just what keeps Obama from doing this? Someone please tell me?
Obama is merely getting these highly paid generals to blow hot gas about the Taliban and all that crap anyway. These generals demand high pay and want to keep their jobs so they say conditions are worsening in Afghanistan and Iraq…so SEND MORE TROOPS!!! The commander in chef needs to get off his dallying ass, vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard and Copenhagen recently and doing nothing but spending any hard worker’s tax money he can get his little hands on…and I mean get off his tuckus!!! Obama needs to stop riding the race wave of being first blacque prez. and start working at this newfound job as dallier in charge of the fat, stupid and lazy US. He needs to drop some atomic bombs and let them do the talking for a change…we have heard enough of his well-modulated voice that says absolutely nothing but what he can read off a teleprompter that has been written for him to say.
The generals make about 80-100k…not exactly a gold mine.
I have tremendous respect for our nuclear arsenal. It is a testament to the destructive power initially (but also the after affects) that these weapons are used in the context of MAD. For the same reasons we no longer conduct above ground tests of these weapons is the same reason for not using them in war unless it is the last choice: fallout impacts wide ranging areas and is not localized.
Don’t take this as I don’t want the taliban whacked because I do. However, nukes are not selective and the aftermath of the radioactivity does not simply go away just because the enemy is dead. Iran having these weapons is grave situation because they very well may not consider these issues. All this said I am very much pro-nuke but for deterrent reasons… I only believe a Pollyanna would be so naive as to think that if we get rid of ours no one else will seek to develop this now 60+ year old technology.
Obama is starting to remind me of a disasterous combination of Jimmy Carter and L B J. However, I doubt Obama ever fired a Daisy BB gun so I can not imagine why he might think he knows anything better than his Generals as to how win this war. The most likely issue is that he does not want to win. I believe this was a campaign issue of political expediency as he has had far more interest in domestic affairs of power grabbing. Sorry folks: Elections have consequences, we are suffering them, and more are to come.