EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
Popular content
Today's Top News
Rift in US War Cabinet as Obama Throws out All Options in Debate Over Troop Surge
Two leaked classified cables from the US Ambassador in Kabul voicing grave concern about sending more American troops to Afghanistan have exposed open conflict inside President Obama’s national security team over his war strategy.
A US soldier walks past the flags of NATO member countries at a "Veterans Day" ceremony at Camp Eggers in Kabul. (AFP/File/Massoud Hossaini) The contents of the cables, passed to The Washington Post and The New York Times yesterday by three officials, also highlighted growing uncertainty inside the White House about how to prosecute the war, amid deep concerns over the corruption of Hamid Karzai’s Government.
The cables put the Ambassador, Karl Eikenberry — a retired general who in 2007 was the top military commander in Afghanistan — starkly at odds with the current ground commander, General Stanley McChrystal, who has requested an increase of at least 40,000 troops.
In the memos, General Eikenberry said that he had deep reservations about sending in more US troops because he was concerned by the unreliability and corrupt nature of Mr Karzai’s Government. It is a problem that has dogged Mr Obama’s deliberations and undermined the urgent demand by General McChrystal for more troops.
The cables appear to have been shown to the media in an orchestrated effort by some members of Mr Obama’s war Cabinet to increase pressure on Mr Karzai to revamp his corruption-riddled Government.They lay bare, however, the deepening rifts within the White House. “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on,” Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said.
He was referring to the almost daily anonymous briefings given by American officials about how many troops Mr Obama is considering sending to Afghanistan; a numbers game that has led to wildly fluctuating press reports.
Hours before the publication of the cables — which were sent by General Eikenberry in the past week to an unspecified government office in Washington — Mr Obama rejected all four options that he and his national security team had debated in his eighth strategy review meeting. After weeks of deliberation, he essentially sent his advisers back to the drawing board to come up with more, or improved, options.
After the White House strategy session on Wednesday, aides to Mr Obama released a statement that appeared to reflect General Eikenberry’s concerns.
“The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan Government that our commitment is not open-ended,” the statement said. “After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time.”
General Eikenberry’s memos raise questions about how US policy can be implemented in Afghanistan, given his now very public disagreement with General McChrystal on war strategy. General McChrystal has said that without the additional troops he was requesting, the mission in Afghanistan would “likely result in failure”.
The Ambassador also appears to be at odds with Mr Gates, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who have in recent days reportedly backed a proposal to send about 30,000 more troops.
At Wednesday’s strategy session, Mr Obama was shown four options: to send relatively few troops to Afghanistan — between 10,000 and 15,000 — and another three scenarios, with troop levels set at about 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000. The President questioned Mr Eikenberry, on a video link from Kabul, about his concerns.
His greatest worry, which was reflected in the questions he put, was his desire to know what the exit strategy was. He wanted to know when America and its allies would be able to hand over responsibility to the Afghan Government — or, as one official said, “where the off-ramps for the military are”.
Mr Gates said that the Obama Administration was trying to balance the need to show a commitment to Afghanistan at the same time as conveying to the Kabul Government that the American presence was not indefinite. Mr Obama’s slow deliberations are, in part, intended to demonstrate that he is not being railroaded by his ground commander and will not send more troops without thinking through the long-term implications for a surge.
The delay has been sharply criticised by Republicans, however. John McCain, his opponent in last year’s presidential election, expressed anger last week about Mr Obama’s perceived indecision. Dick Cheney, the former Vice-President, has accused Mr Obama of “dithering”.
John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN and a foreign policy hardliner, said: “This is like a slowmotion train wreck, watching this decision-making process, and it really is having a debilitating effect on troop morale in Afghanistan.”
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
19 Comments so far
Show All"John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN and a foreign policy hardliner, said: “This is like a slowmotion train wreck, watching this decision-making process."
As opposed to Bush's decision making process, which was like a FAST train wreck. Well it really wasnt a "decision making process" per se...Bush just did what Cheney told him to do.
So the US government installs a puppet Oil Executive as the "government" of a foreign country, and is now concerned that this government is corrupt????? Gee..who could have forseen THAT outcome?
There are only two outcomes for Afganistan...the US military stays and bleeds over the next several generations until the oil and gas run out....or declare victory and get the hell out. Any other decision is just playing politics with soldiers lives.
Are you, or anyone else, aware of any general since WWII that did not want more troops in his command? The Pentagon uses a simple formula: more troops, more money. If they were asked to recommend a way to stop five year olds from fighting on the playground, they would recommend at least another division or two. After all, what are a few dead enlisted men?
When Obama sends this gang of disputing "advisers" back to the drawing board to furnish him with new "options," is there even the remotest of chances that any one of them will be promoting the option of immediate withdrawal from that conflict (as soon as it can "safely" be done)? I think not in that all of them, civilian and military, are war hawks of one feather or another. There's a wonderful piece in Counter Punch in which Jayne Lyn Stahl mulls on the AP headline "Obama Wants His War Options Changed" and compares it to a baby crying for a diaper change.
http://www.counterpunch.org/stahl11122009.html
If Obama were "house-trained" as a real leader, he would look into his own conscience and the eyes of most of the American people and be "advised" that this withdrawal is the only "option" even worthy of consideration.
Tim Reid of the Times Online/London reports "The [leaked] cables appear to have been shown to the media in an orchestrated effort by some members of Mr. Obama's war Cabinet to increase pressure on Mr. Karzai to revamp his corruption-riddled government."
If that was the theory, putting the US ambassador in Kabul on front street, squarely in the US mainstream partisan crosshairs, seems a rather odd way of focusing pressure upon the president of Afghanistan.
The next paragraph of the news account states "They [the leaked cables] lay bare, however, the deepening rifts within the White House. 'I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that's been going on', Robert Gates, Defence Secretary said."
Methinks Mr. Gates - lifelong Republican, career Langley spy, mentored by Bill Casey of the Carter/Reagan Iranian hostage crisis negotiations and Iran Contra scandal, kept on in charge of running the Pentagon as part of President Obama's advisor team of rivals when Bush and Cheney finally left town - doth protest a bit too much.
Like Captain Renault, Robert Gates is shocked - shocked! - to suddenly discover gambling has been taking place at Rick's nightclub in Casablanca.
Bill from Saginaw
So Obama's "greatest worry, which was reflected in the questions he put, was his desire to know what the exit strategy was." But surely he knows no exit is intended, ever. To retreat is to defy the Empire. I don't think he can do that.
But it seems a good time to call the White House and write letters to editors and such to call for a pullout.
The chicken hawks who've never put on their country's uniform with the exception of John McCain wouldn't troop morale from poop morale. Furthermore, McCain, fly boy that he was crashing navy air arm planes doesn't know diddly about basic infantry combat, and should just shut his yap. He's full of hot air, ace plane crasher that he was in Vietnam.
AD
The chicken hawks who've never put on their country's uniform with the exception of John McCain wouldn't know troop morale from poop morale. Furthermore, McCain, fly boy that he was crashing navy air arm planes doesn't know diddly about basic infantry combat, and should just shut his yap. He's full of hot air, ace plane crasher that he was in Vietnam.
AD
AfPak was always the Bush/Cheney oily cabal's gas pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Overthrowing both countries and installing their own corrupt dictators is required.
A million men can't take it and hold it for the next 50 years.
Obama calling for an exit strategy is good and a change from his determination to win the war a while ago when Bush's Pentagon went from calling it "the War on terror." to the "Long War".
Now Obama is looking for an exit, and changed the name from the Long War to an "Overseas Contingency Operation."
The absence of certainty and necessity is the meaning of Contingency.
We'll See
"The absence of certainty and necessity is the meaning of Contingency."
spot on Jim.
it ain't necessarily so.
"After all, what are a few dead enlisted men?"
And women!
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Bringing in the morale of the troops over there as a reason to hurry up & declare a surge is simply dirty pool. Chances are they would welcome the word that withdrawal was the next move. There have been many reports that uncertainty about what the hell the war is all about has been ruinous to morale. Even frankly admitting that it's about building that pipeline that Karzai was representing Unocal in negotiations for, would be better than the absurd feel-good motives that we occasionally waft about, & that nobody in his right mind believes.
That pipeline is a pipedream that will cost us untold trillions in treasury & lives. We must recognize this NOW, and bring everyone (military & mercenary) home. Rededicate the military budget to domestic needs.
.
Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the NeoCon Gang plunged our nation into this bloody Middle Mess on their 8 year Administration,,,,,,,,6,000 dead U.S. Toopers, plus 70,000 wounded.
Today, President Obama has the responsibility to bring our Troops home,,,,,,safely and ASAP.
The war conducted by Gen. McChrystal, Adm. Mullen, and Sec.of Defense Gates is a bloody repeat of our Viet Nam experience..........it cannot be won by these losers,..fire them.
Remember that Afghanistan has been called the "GRAVEYARD of EMPIRES" for over 3,000 years. Never have Foreign Invaders been able hold this real estate.
.
There is no middle ground with people like Bolton and Cheney. Obama needs to man up and call the shots without listening to these psychopaths.
A rift in Obama's cabinet?
?
?
?
Ooooh, I get it. His china cabinet, duh!
such insight speaks a thousand words about the commentor
When we leave, we win.
For style points, I like the one where the AfPakees wake up to nothing but the steam rising off the portapotties...
The strategic walk-away.
It's about time there was input at this level from diplomatic sources, rather than military. The military peoples' careers require them to focus on armed solutions. Diplomats need not be so myopic. Whatever we do for an unstable government will obviously collapse when it does. Also, this diplomat has the military's information to enhance his credibility. The hawks should all go enlist, or shut up.