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How to Trap a President in a Losing War
Petraeus, McChrystal, and the Surgettes
Front and center in the debate over the Afghan War these days are General Stanley "Stan" McChrystal, Afghan war commander, whose "classified, pre-decisional" and devastating report -- almost eight years and at least $220 billion later, the war is a complete disaster -- was conveniently, not to say suspiciously, leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post by we-know-not-who at a particularly embarrassing moment for Barack Obama; Admiral Michael "Mike" Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has been increasingly vocal about a "deteriorating" war and the need for more American boots on the ground; and the president himself, who blitzed every TV show in sight last Sunday and Monday for his health reform program, but spent significant time expressing doubts about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. ("I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan... or sending a message that America is here for the duration.")
On the other hand, here's someone you haven't seen front and center for a while: General David Petraeus. He was, of course, George W. Bush's pick to lead the president's last-ditch effort in Iraq. He was the poster boy for Bush's military policies in his last two years. He was the highly praised architect and symbol of "the surge." He appeared repeatedly, his chest a mass of medals and ribbons, for heavily publicized, widely televised congressional testimony, complete with charts and graphs, that was meant, at least in part, for the American public. He was the man who, to use an image from that period which has recently resurfaced, managed to synchronize the American and Baghdad "clocks," pacifying for a time both the home and war fronts.
He never met a journalist, as far as we can tell, he didn't want to woo. (And he clearly won over the influential Tom Ricks, then of the Washington Post, who wrote The Gamble, a bestselling paean to him and his sub-commanders.) From the look of it, he's the most political general to come down the pike since, in 1951 in the midst of the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur said his goodbyes to Congress after being cashiered by President Truman for insubordination -- for, in effect, wanting to run his own war and the foreign policy that went with it. It was Petraeus who brought Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine (COIN) back from the crypt, overseeing the writing of a new Army counterinsurgency manual that would make it central to both the ongoing wars and what are already being referred to as the "next" ones.
Before he left office, Bush advanced his favorite general to the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the former president's Global War on Terror across the energy heartlands of the planet from Egypt to Pakistan. The command is, of course, especially focused on Bush's two full-scale wars: the Iraq War, now being pursued under Petraeus's former subordinate, General Ray Odierno, and the Afghan War, for which Petraeus seems to have personally handpicked a new commanding general, Stan McChrystal. From the military's dark side world of special ops and targeted assassinations, McChrystal had operated in Iraq and was also part of an Army promotion board headed by Petraeus that advanced the careers of officers committed to counterinsurgency. To install McChrystal in May, Obama abruptly sacked the then-Afghan war commander, General David McKiernan, in what was then considered, with some exaggeration, a new MacArthur moment.
On taking over, McChrystal, who had previously been a counterterrorism guy (and isn't about to give that up, either), swore fealty to counterinsurgency doctrine (that is, to Petraeus) by proclaiming that the American goal in Afghanistan must not be primarily to hunt down and kill Taliban insurgents, but to "protect the population." He also turned to a "team" of civilian experts, largely gathered from Washington think-tanks, a number of whom had been involved in planning out Petraeus's Iraq surge of 2007, to make an assessment of the state of the war and what needed to be done. Think of them as the Surgettes.
As in many official reassessments, the cast of characters essentially guaranteed the results before a single meeting was held. Based on past history and opinions, this team could only provide one Petraeus-approved answer to the war: more -- more troops, up to 40,000-45,000 of them, and other resources for an American counterinsurgency operation without end.
Hence, even if McChrystal's name is on it, the report slipped to Bob Woodward which just sandbagged the president has a distinctly Petraeusian shape to it. In a piece linked to Woodward's bombshell in the Washington Post, Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung wrote of unnamed officials in Washington who claimed "the military has been trying to push Obama into a corner." The language in the coverage elsewhere has been similar.
There is, wrote DeYoung a day later, now a "rupture" between the military "pushing for an early decision to send more troops" and civilian policymakers "increasingly doubtful of an escalating nation-building effort." Nancy Youssef of McClatchy News wrote about how "mixed signals" from Washington were causing "increasing ire from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan"; a group of McClatchy reporters talked of military advocates of escalation feeling "frustration" over "White House dithering." David Sanger of the New York Times described "a split between an American military that says it needs more troops now and an American president clearly reluctant to leap into that abyss." "Impatient" is about the calmest word you'll see for the attitude of the military top command right now.
Buyer's Remorse, the Afghan War, and the President
In
the midst of all this, between Admiral Mullen and General McChrystal
is, it seems, a missing man. The most photogenic general in our recent
history, the man who created the doctrine and oversees the war, the man
who is now shaping the U.S. Army (and its future plans and career
patterns), is somehow, at this crucial moment, out of the Washington
spotlight. This last week General Petraeus was, in fact, in England,
giving a speech and writing an article for the (London) Times
laying out his basic "protect the population" version of
counterinsurgency and praising our British allies by quoting one of
their great imperial plunderers. ("If Cecil Rhodes was correct in his
wonderful observation that 'being an Englishman is the greatest prize
in the lottery of life,' and I'm inclined to think that he was, then
the second greatest prize in the lottery of life must be to be a friend
of an Englishman, and based on that, the more than 230,000 men and
women in uniform who work with your country's finest day by day are
very lucky indeed, as am I.")
Only at mid-week, with Washington aboil, did he arrive in the capital for a counterinsurgency conference at the National Press Club and quietly "endorse" "General McChrystal's assessment." Whatever the look of things, however, it's unlikely that Petraeus is actually on the sidelines at this moment of heightened tension. He is undoubtedly still The Man.
So much is, of course, happening just beyond the sightlines of those of us who are mere citizens of this country, which is why inference and guesswork are, unfortunately, the order of the day. Read any account in a major newspaper right now and it's guaranteed to be chock-a-block full of senior officials and top military officers who are never "authorized to speak," but nonetheless yak away from behind a scrim of anonymity. Petraeus may or may not be one of them, but the odds are reasonable that this is still a Petraeus Moment.
If so, Obama has only himself to blame. He took up Afghanistan ("the right war") in the presidential campaign as proof that, despite wanting to end the war in Iraq, he was tough. (Why is it that a Democratic candidate needs a war or threat of war to trash-talk about in order to prove his "strength," when doing so is obviously a sign of weakness?)
Once in office, Obama compounded the damage by doubling down his bet on the war. In March, he introduced a "comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan" in his first significant public statement on the subject, which had expansion written all over it. He also agreed to send in 21,000 more troops (which, by the way, Petraeus reportedly convinced him to do). In August, in another sign of weakness masquerading as strength, before an unenthusiastic audience at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, he unnecessarily declared: "This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity." All of this he will now pay for at the hands of Petraeus, or if not him, then a coterie of military men behind the latest push for a new kind of Afghan War.
As it happens, this was never Obama's "war of necessity." It was always Petraeus's. And the new report from McChrystal and the Surgettes is undoubtedly Petraeus's progeny as well. It seems, in fact, cleverly put together to catch a cautious president, who wasn't cautious enough about his war of choice, in a potentially devastating trap. The military insistence on quick action on a troop decision sets up a devastating choice for the president: "Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure." Go against your chosen general and the failure that follows is yours alone. (Unnamed figures supposedly close to McChrystal are already launching test balloons, passed on by others, suggesting that the general might resign in protest if the president doesn't deliver -- a possibility he has denied even considering.) On the other hand, offer him somewhere between 15,000 and 45,000 more American troops as well as other resources, and the failure that follows will still be yours.
It's a basic lose-lose proposition and, as journalist Eric Schmitt wrote in a New York Times assessment of the situation, "it will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal." No wonder the president and some of his men are dragging their feet and looking elsewhere. As one typically anonymous "defense analyst" quoted in the Los Angeles Times said, the administration is suffering "buyer's remorse for this war... They never really thought about what was required, and now they have sticker shock."
Admittedly, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 51% of Americans are against sending in more troops. (Who knows how they would react to a president who went on TV to announce that he had genuinely reconsidered?) Official Washington is another matter. For General Petraeus, who claims to have no political ambitions but is periodically mentioned as the Eisenhower of 2012, how potentially peachy to launch your campaign against the president who lost you the war.
A Petraeus Moment?
In the present context, the media language being used to describe this military-civilian conflict of wills -- frustration, impatience, split, rupture, ire -- may fall short of capturing the import of a moment which has been brewing, institutionally speaking, for a long time. There have been increasing numbers of generals' "revolts" of various sorts in our recent past. Of course, George W. Bush was insistent on turning planning over to his generals (though only when he liked them), something Barack Obama criticized him for during the election campaign. ("The job of the commander in chief is to listen to the best counsel available and to listen even to people you don't agree with and then ultimately you make the final decision and you take responsibility for those actions.")
Now, it looks as if we are about to have a civilian-military encounter of the first order in which Obama will indeed need to take responsibility for difficult actions (or the lack thereof). If a genuine clash heats up, expect more discussion of "MacArthur moments," but this will not be Truman versus MacArthur redux, and not just because Petraeus seems to be a subtler political player than MacArthur ever was.
Over the nearly six decades that separate us from Truman's great moment, the Pentagon has become a far more overwhelming institution. In Afghanistan, as in Washington, it has swallowed up much of what once was intelligence, as it is swallowing up much of what once was diplomacy. It is linked to one of the two businesses, the Pentagon-subsidized weapons industry, which has proven an American success story even in the worst of economic times (the other remains Hollywood). It now holds a far different position in a society that seems to feed on war.
It's one thing for the leaders of a country to say that war should be left to the generals when suddenly embroiled in conflict, quite another when that country is eternally in a state of war. In such a case, if you turn crucial war decisions over to the military, you functionally turn foreign policy over to them as well. All of this is made more complicated, because the cast of "civilians" theoretically pitted against the military right now includes Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general who is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Douglas Lute, a lieutenant general who is the president's special advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan (dubbed the "war czar" when he held the same position in the Bush administration), and James Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, who is national security advisor, not to speak of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The question is: will an already heavily militarized foreign policy geared to endless global war be surrendered to the generals? Depending on what Obama does, the answer to that question may not be fully, or even largely, clarified this time around. He may quietly give way, or they may, or compromises may be reached behind the scenes. After all, careers and political futures are at stake.
But consider us warned. This is a question that is not likely to go away and that may determine what this country becomes.
We know what a MacArthur moment was; we may find out soon enough what a Petraeus moment is.
- Posted in
45 Comments so far
Show AllJust think - if the MIC and all the brass in our military were completely focused on establishing a just and lasting peace among all nations and truly worked at it with all their energy, how the standard of living and the prosperity of all nations would be so enhanced that no one would ever consider war again!
As it stands - we are all "losers!"
WHAT?!
If no one would ever consider war again, the Lockheeds, General Dynamics,Boeings, Halliburtons, et al would go broke. And they won't stand for it, nor even the thought of it.
war = profiteering
sarc off
And lots of people would become unemployed. Fully 60% of employed people in the U.S. depend upon the military and war for their livelihoods. We live in a war economy. Our very existence depends upon more and more war. We look for any excuse to go to war. No more war? No more work! War is good for the U.S., maybe not so good for those on the receiving end of U.S. "diplomacy by other means". But tough shit. Most of them are just little brown people living on top of OUR oil deposits. How dare they? We simply must bring them democracy. Maybe we can even get some of them to manufacture weapons for us at a greatly reduced labor cost. So there go the "good" jobs in the domestic defense industry. Current events just whirl around us totally out of control. Not to worry though. It won't last much longer. Someone this decade will doubtless throw a nuclear punch at some point. Then the "fun" really begins. God, don't you just LOVE war? Yes, I am asking GOD if he just doesn't LOVE war. I'm sure he does. That is why we were put here. For God's amusement as we destroy ourselves. Some loving God, eh? My fear is that GOD DOES exist, and that unlike everyone might assume, he is NOT a "just and loving" GOD. It occurs to me that we may already be IN HELL, and that GOD is simply turning up the heat very slowly. A just and loving God, eh? There is at least a 50/50 chance that any GOD that might exist is wholly malevolent. Put THAT in your ritualistic incense burner and smoke it for awhile.
Ekaton: " It occurs to me we may already be in hell". That reminds me of a story I read awhile ago about a devotee that asked a very wise man: " is there really a hell, sir"? And he answered: " where do you think you are now "!
Life is what you make of what you are born into.
Do they serve beer in hell?
" We are all losers ". Wrong, the majority of Americans are losers not the 1% of Americans that love wars and control 95% of the wealth!
I have seen the following statistics:
ONE PERCENT of the population in the U.S. owns THIRTY FOUR PERCENT of the wealth.
TEN PERCENT of the population in the U.S. owns SEVENTY ONE PERCENT of the wealth.
TEN PERCENT of the population in the U.S. receives FORTY-TWO PERCENT of the YEARLY INCOME.
So you see, it isn't as bad as you state. The one percent that love wars only control around 34% of the wealth. This just makes me feel SO MUCH better. Don't you agree?
(sarcasm and cynicism directed at the warmongers, not at Paul Revere)
Sioux Rose
Since the premise that anyone can WIN a war is effete as well as over-rated, and given that these generals are as programmed as robots to find a way to "win," the entire expensive (in bodies and treasure) equation is unbalanced.
I think we, as a society, would be wise to look to the American Indigenous model wherein it was the COUNCILS OF THE GRANDMOTHERS, those long in the experience of nurturing (thus situated to recognize the inherent value of) life, would be called upon first to determine if conditions warranted war at all.
The military is such a bloated, out-dated behemoth--seeking to justify its raison d'etre by ensuring that most of the world is now stacked with dangerous weapons WE sold to them which effectively sets up a sickening Catch-22. This, when they're not in the business (it is anything BUT intelligence!) of FINDING wars TO next fight. It's interesting that Engelhardt cites Hollywood and the weapons industry as America's two "successful" industries. Note their correspondence! One sets up the imagery as soft propaganda to make the other free to go about the world like some kind of drunk, sociopathic Goliath. It would be one thing if Mars, warrior, acted as great protector; but it's quite another when it protects those industries that are the moral equivalent of a cloud of mosquitoes, circling the world with intent to drain the blood from others' livelihoods. The entire paradigm serves the ethos of destruction, and the natural world is littered in scar tissue that in some instances (radioactive detritus of DU, etc) will take centuries to heal. That's some score card, and yet it has been granted homage by our nation's leaders, and steals the majority of funds from the public trough. 18,000 and counting die each year due to lack of medical funds in our dearth-of-compassion state, but we call our marching armies a sound basis for national defense?
As the U.S. continues under Obama in policies of unapologetic aggression and resource acquisition painted over with lofty titles, the probability of an attack on our own soil grows. Not every mind outside of the US purview thinks along traditional military lines; and it will be those out-of-the-box thinkers (think box cutters) that end up branding our nation with a serious wound. Out of the pain it's hopeful that rather than vengeance a process of catharsis will emerge. America must search its collective conscience and do BETTER with its human and natural resources. It is too late in humanity's game plan for primitive wars to continue. The technology has grown inordinately, but consciousness has remained nearly at a cave man level. The moral chasm that results is in plain sight, seen in the many senseless conflicts that leave millions the undeserved beneficiaries of bereavement that will last their entire lives, added to homelessness, and now, no prospect of rain in communities that depended upon that resource. It's been aborted thanks to the profligate usage of fossil fuels on the part of developed nations, primarily our own. A wake-up call is imminent. Too many are passive supporters of positions that no longer belong within our world community. America's list of trespasses is long, and remedial action is overdue. War is the great sin against humanity, the gravest crime... it must NOT be respected as national policy any longer!
The Indigenous peoples were also far more democratic when it came to going to war.
Once decided a war would be fought the various War Chiefs who were in favor would all speak to the warriors.
The Warriors would then all get up and speak whether they were for or against.
If it was decided they would go to war , no warrior was obligated to join in that war. They could go back to their villages. If a war chief proved to be incompetent he would soon find himself without any followers.
In the book Champlains dream the author outlines this process. It took many days for the various tribes to decide to go to war against the Iroquois and even then, when the expedition finally launched many warriors just did not show up.
Champlain was both fustrated by and intrigued by this system.
Sioux Rose
GW NORTH: You always contribute useful data to these threads. The conceit that Western civilization presents evident progress over earlier, more "savage" attempts at communal living is a tragic farce. Certainly many wise provisions, policies, and approaches can be learned from American Indigenous societies and the cultures they embodied. Someone like McCrystal probably would have been laughed off the reservation. If only that wisdom was at work now. How many thousands of lives would not then be sacrificed on his narrow ego's "auction" block? Kill scores = heroism, by what morally deficient yardstick of measurement? Only in the landscape of a horrific nightmare scenario dreamt up by Hollywood and the MIC in their dark collaboration.
SiouxRose - thank you again for these present comments and all others recently. as always , insightful (NEVER INCITEFUL as the generals are - hehe) .
you reminded me of a remark i heard from a documentary on native indians, involving interviews with current elders.
one spoke of the "disappearance" of their culture ...but also said: (something like this) :
"this does not mean we are gone forever and the wisdoms are gone forever...it means, rather that the wisdom, the good spirit, is like the Bear...it is in hibernation...and just when you think the darkness never ends...when you least expect it...the bear spirit, will awake..it will find its way in human beings again...for that is the True reality of existence..the good spirit will still prevail...this is a very old belief we have".
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: Kind words of praise as always. You are a truly good-hearted soul, and I LOVE the parable from the Native American. Those cultures that lived with the land and saw in it (and its creatures) a genuine partner are closest to my heart. I'm waiting for the sun to go down (the heat is unbearable still) so I can take off for my bike ride into the forest and get into the springs. If it were not for Mother Nature's healing sources it would be so much harder to cope with the legion of human follies passing for leadership (since it impacts us all) these days. Contact with nature keeps me sane and generally balanced (LOL). Enjoy your evening. And thank you for all that YOU do and post.
The Zuni and Hopi had traditional ritual war. Every few years one pueblo would taunt the other to come out and fight. Then they would line up man to man and battle until one man died. Then victory was declared and peace reigned until the next testoserone surge.
Also counting coup( tapping an enemy) is widespread among Native Americans and considered more noble and braver than injuring an enemy.
Great post. You're on your game today, SR.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: Thank you very much. When I get my (other) work done I can give myself license to "marinade" on this site. Today is such a day. In this forum I learn much, and I hope to in turn provide insights of benefit to others. It's that great circle route of knowledge orbing amongst us.
"compromises may be reached behind the scenes. After all, careers and political futures are at stake."
This is sickening. Millions of lives are at stake, the health and well-being of entire nations are at stake, and decisions will be main based on the vanity of a few people in Washington.
AND THE END OF THE FIGHT,
IS A TOMBSTONE WHITE,
WITH THE NAME OF THE LATE DECEASED.
AND AN EPITAPH DR'ER, 'A FOOL LIES HERE,
WHO TRIED TO HUSTLE THE EAST.'
KIPLING
I hate to say this, but... I have to disagree with the consensus (hehe) on this one. If the latest revelations are true (if), and McChrystal is indicating a need for 500,000 troops for at least five years, then he is well justified in leaking through his staff, a determination to resign if he doesn't get most of what he is requesting. I would not wish to be in charge of a war needing half a million well-trained troops, given only 120,000 (half mercs), and made to smile and take responsibility for the resulting debacle. That's not to say that we should be there or that we can win, but if your boss asks what you need and you know he isn't going to deliver, one might be well justified in putting word out. Everything I've heard about McChrystal seems pretty "run of the pentagon mill" shady but in this case he reminds me more of Shinseki than Petraeus. Hell, if anything, asking for more than congress or the president can stomach might just end up providing the best mainstream argument against the further prosecution of this war.
sarayakat:
"Hell, if anything, asking for more than congress or the president can stomach might just end up providing the best mainstream argument against the further prosecution of this war."
Or, the asking for so much and not receiving it might be a great excuse for not succeeding in this war. "You didn't support the troops, so of course we lost." That sort of thing. A great way to maintain the generals' reputation for greatness and it lets the Pentagon off the hook, too.
One thing gentles my heart: By snapping one's fingers, one ends this war. It has been ill-conceived from the outset, planned by a military that has no understanding of other peoples. The war will fail because it is not based upon those principles that guide human behavior: the need for people to solve their own problems, the antagonism between invaders and the invaded, the discomfort people feel when they are confronted with those unlike themselves. Time will end this war, sooner or later. Sooner, if Obama exerts his leadership. Later, if he doesn't.
McChrystal is crystal clear: he is covering his ass.
asking for 500,000 over five years is nearly impossible. it becomes a "REAL ATTENTION GETTER" for the american public...increased american casualties, increased ferocity of defending their homeland by the afghanis...etc...
the MORE troops there are - the more the americans are seen as occupiers...the more the afghanis ferociously fight back no matter how long it takes...the more the stakes go up for other parties with stakes in the region, iran, russia, other central asian states...the more it escalates...the MORE it keeps centered on WHICH COUNTRY DID IT..the USA....
now, the genius mcchrystal of course has calculated all that. HE KNOWS the usa will NEVER win this war. it will NEVER succeed in occupying afghanistan beyond the few years of pretend "metrics" of shifting "victories" and in the end the USA WILL be kicked out ignominuously.
BUT he has to APPEAR "victorious" for his real PATRON --
the wanna-be-president Julius Caesar - General Petreaus...
who will then come in in four years' time - the SAME TIME FRAME of McChrystal's 500,000 soldiers "over five years" to
proclaim ANOTHER "extension" because "we are ALMOST THERE in the end line"...whatever THAT Is...which they DREAM UP or WISH - but DON'T KNOW is going to happen or even what WILL happen except more POTEMKIN VILLAGE 'victories'
producing YET MORE ENEMIES and "threats to our way of life"....
and YET more wars...
with mister Julius Caesar now a VIRTUAL DICTATOR of the NEW ROMAN EMPIRE....
until of course one day - it all collapses on everyone in the USA -- as the USA is EATEN UP BY THE "barbarians" piece by piece and left in ruins .
these 500,000 is a request as PREPARATION for the "coming of the great Julius Caesar" Petreaus - the UPDATED version, the SUPERMAN
that John McCain NEVER was...and the Embodiment of america's SUPERHEROES in its comic strip nonsense of american mythical "greatness".
but JUST in case Obama gets "cold feet" (by the standards of the war hawks for which Obama will be Crucified) - and refuses the 500,000 ...McChrystal and Petreaus and the war hawks have a READY-MADE excuse and GOAT to BLAME :
Mister Obama who will however have shown , either way , that he can't even control HIS OWN SUBORDINATES...
and as the writer and reporter, Pepe Escobar , for Asiatimesonline puts it:
"IF OBAMA can't even handle his OWN warmongering subordinates in Washington -- how does he expect to stand up TO the Russians and Chinese..? he will be seen worldwide as a very , very weak POTUS..."
but that's THE OBJECTIVE by the war hawks after all:
to ensure that "SINCE we didn't get 500,000 and more....we LOST BECAUSE of those unpatriotic, unamerican, little boys ...we NEED REAL MEN, like Generals PETREAUS, MCHRYSTAL to show the world who's BOSS !!!"
and so america will of course - "DIE BY THE SWORD as it LIVED BY THE SWORD" for having refused to "turn your swords into plowshares".
and history will say:
there goes an empire - that deserved what it sowed.
OR simply Bush-hog tie (i.e., blackmail) him, along with the rest of DEM using information obtained from years of Bushist illegal wiretapping.
Not only are those who fail who learn from history condemned to repeat it, they are also (in this case the United States) condemned to defecate on their own heads. This is an exceedingly difficult act of contortion but Circus USA is the world's leading practitioner since Vietnam.
Congress started this insanity and they must end it. The American people must force them to, or elect new leaders who will end it.
Public Law 107-40 must be repealed, just as we repealed Prohibition when it obviously failed.
End the DAFT war by repealing the DAFT law that gives the US military the goal of 'preventing future terrorism', an absurdity that condemns the American military to fight a war that has no victory.
(psst-that's why there's no exit strategy. the military is ordered to fight to win, but there's no 'win' possible, and nobody wants to think of defeat-so the only strategy allowed into conversation is 'more').
Repeal the DAFT law and end the madness. Repeal one little itty bitty law...
...and change the world.
DAFT = Defense against Future Terrorism (previously called GWOT, WOT and 'The Long War')
- cont'd -
A reason why all our efforts have been unsuccessful in achieving peace is that so many efforts are diluting progressive strength.
Work to repeal Public Law 107-40. One focus for all our efforts.
Repeal this law. End the DAFT war that gives birth to all the other US 'wars', current and future.
There is incredible unrest and unease in this country. It could be channeled into a 'sweep out the House' political campaign by disgruntled people.
It could fester and explode along racial/class lines if the American people continue to ignore their responsibility to the Republic for which we stand.
tom suggests that obama could rethink his current posture: "Who knows how they would react to a president who went on TV to announce that he had genuinely reconsidered"
we all know what happened to jfk for re-thinking the vietnam policy
cia hit squad - secret service stand down, corporate media cover up
dealey plaza dallas texas nov 63 - even the house committee on assassination said there were at least two gunmen - on national tv they blew his brains out - framed the patsy cia employee oswald - then had another cia employee - ruby - shoot the fellow emplyee to death in the basement of a police department once again on national tv
ray mcgovern said here last week that panetta and obama are both afraid of the cia
no wonder
i don't think obama is going to either think or "rethink" anything
Right you are! Obama wants to keep the climate coming down his throat, not be assassinated by some exotic CIA supplied poison that imitates sudden, complete liver failure.
"ray mcgovern said here last week that panetta and obama are both afraid of the cia
no wonder
i don't think obama is going to either think or "rethink" anything." –(lebeau)
–If anything, this important comment understates a situation that is much further along than even ardent "Common Dream's "readers would dare to suspect.
America has never come to terms with the CIA, but the CIA has long come to terms with America.What is commonly acknowledged as prima facie fact in most of the world, elides the consciousness of most Americans.
Having lived for the better part of the last two years in Laos and North Vietnam I was shocked with how prevalent this 'belief' was and not merely in what we could call 'the intelligentsia.' The CIA and the Pentagon for many ARE the American government. Latin American friends have told me much the same story.
The American security apparat remains the "elephant in the room." How big? Big enough to efface itself, all the while totalizing itself. Does Congress run America or do the Pentagon and the CIA, call the shots? Or is that simply a false distinction?
Despite the overwhelming preponderance of information available, just how profoundly this transformation has been is that the argument can be made that it has entirely subsumed the civilian government, bending it to it's dictates.
Modern fascism is at its best when it is seamlessly invisible. That delicacy constitutes the genius of American politics. No need for the accoutrements and regalia of fascist paraphernalia. The results speak for themselves. No need for grandiloquent posturing.
Obama won't be "re-thinking anything," just as you say. He is conducting a feint, an illusory finesse that is all but guaranteed to succeed. What we are witnessing now is a scripted charade, no less than an evasive maneuver. Muddy the waters a little.
It would be inconceivable that an American President could come about against more troops for Afghanistan. There would be MORE troops even if Obama went on TV to claim he was withdrawing 90,000 troops!
That circus travels by night. –(Jill Bains)
Lets make this clear. Obama is in charge. Any strategies, requests or analysis are done to the Presidents order. He sets the goal.
McChrystal is a typical General, he is telling the President what he thinks he needs to do the job. Of course Petraeus is supporting him, if you don't have enough troopps for the job at hand you get more soldiers killed.
There is only one person in charge here, its the President. Juist as GWB has to accept the blame for starting therse bloody useless wars, this President must accept responsibility for them now.
He has to decide what we are going to do. No one else. He can remove McChrystal tomorrow just as he did the last General. He can remove anyone.
Or he could as he should order our withdrawal from Afganistan.
Blaming anybody else is just dishonest.
Thanks for another excellent piece, Tom. Your work is really a light in the world of journalism, and much needed, because so much of the mainstream news is no better than very clever propaganda.
If only more of our country's citizens would realize that all the networks are controlled or willing accomplices to so many government deceptions! Even PBS is not immune to the Follow The Leader mentality so evident in the large news agencies. That is why it is so refreshing to read an article by someone who just plain tells the truth and uses sane, not twisted, logic.
As for this half a million warm bodies in Afghanistan question:
A. it sucks
B. it is b___s___.
C It really sucks.
Almost everything we hear from the gov't about the "wars" is a lie. Why the citizens of the country have any faith in the veracity of people in high office makes very little sense these days, when lying has almost become the norm in political life and of foreign policy.
The Middle East conflicts- the U.S. invasions/occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan- have their ideological root as much in fundamentalist "Christianity" as in any other area. This is more important than many people realize: the influence of the "Christians" who see the conflicts in a Biblical context, a moral context, and a racist context, all together.
I wonder why Obama, or anyone else, should even pay attention to this general. Also, the general should be very clear about his rank in relation to the Commander in Chief.
Our society is becoming militarized in all sorts of ways, and becoming a place where the citizenry is subservient to the military, rather than the other way around, as it should be.
Perhaps General McChrystal is confused about whether or not the president outranks him, and perhaps Obama is confused about it too.
I hope Obama does not fall for this trick. But he may be very cleverly trapped, and will have to cave.
It seems to me the general is not serving the country by asking for 500,000 warm bodies to go fight strangers who have done them no harm, in this corrupt (from the start) foreign entanglement involving the murder of both civilians and so-called insurgents- the civilians, obviously, including women and children as well as men.
This is what is misnamed a "good war". The fact that no one, in or out of government, from top to bottom, has yet been able to explain one good thing about it, is usually passed by.
The "training" of a competent and large Afghani security force- i.e. military and police- is little more than a rumor.
The whole "training Afghani security forces" meme is a red herring, to shift the blame- "if only the Afghanis would stand up and defend their own country!"
Well, they are defending their own country, but OUR country calls those defenders "insurgents" or terrorists.
I definitely hate war. But even so, I might not mind these two "wars" QUITE so much if the Bush government had been honest about them, and, now, if the Obama administration would be honest about them. I can't abide liars.
"McChrystal has never explained why the early reports of Tillman's death were covered up, why his clothes and field journal were burned and destroyed on the scene or why Pat's brother Kevin, serving alongside him in the Rangers, was lied to on the spot. Even the cover-up was covered up. This should be a cause for dismissal--or indictment--not promotion."
- excerpt from "McChrystal's Pat Tillman Connection",
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/zirin2
0 trapped?
That's an interesting term. At what point does a citizen rise to sufficient status in this society to have an opinion?
Had 0 entered the presidency to get something done, he could risk whatever he does or does not imagine he's risking and get to it. As is, it isn't public opinion that holds him.
- The Af-Pak war, whatever an Af-Pak is, is sinking daily in popularity.
- The Iraq war has been unpopular for years.
0 ran a campaign by presenting himself as an antiwar candidate while making astonishingly few concrete statements that would suggest withdrawal from anything anywhere.
He did that on purpose - with talent, even.
You had might as well say 0bama has Petraeus trapped in Afghanistan.
Af-Pak is for Afghanistan-Pakistan, which I'd assume you knew and that you're only being sarcastic (maybe). Enough people, including Pepe Escobar, and people with articles at www.globalresearch.ca, have been using "Af-Pak" for months now and it's a fitting usage, for the war has been expanded by Obama into Pakistan.
Were you joking or being sarcastic, or serious in saying you didn't know what "Af-Pak" means?
It's interesting that a president can start a war (esp one based on lies), fail to end it, then leave office where the next guy inherits it.
This is Obama's war to END, and I think he knows that in his heart. The fact that there is doubt about the extremely foolish move of sending more troops is a very good sign.
Considering the men and material that the US has in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and looking at the state of affairs in those nations, it ought to be obvious that the only thing to do is end this madness.
The people behind this madness are indeed mad, quite worthy of being placed in lockdown for the rest of their lives.
How backward it all is, a great cloud over the nation and a pariah for the entire world.
War is its own reason for being.---Orwell
No general ever got another star for asking for fewer troops.
These guys will assure that the lemmings go off the cliff in neat rank and file.
Tom Engelhardt is right. Petraeus wants to be President and he will do whatever it takes. Of course, Obama walked right into this, had the opportunity to "reconsider" in February, and then appointed the dubious McChrystal. Is he stupid, weak, or is there a gun to the heads of his children?
of course he wants to be president. i've said as much in another thread - he wants to be not JUST president - but sets himself up as the "HERO" to be acclaimed as JULIUS CAESAR. for even a possible lifetime Dictatorship...to be acclaimed by the sufficiently prepped and "instructed in warloving" american populace who will acclaim him as the conquering hero that will "make things right for america".
remember how the CAESAR of ROME came in with the Roman Senate Declaring him as Dictator for Life?.
in the USA - the institutions are already in place:
the Corporations and Lawyers and Congress and Presidential Committees are there to make the "choices"..along with Media.
what they are waiting for is a JULIUS CAESAR palatable to the masses.
SET UP OBAMA for "failure as leader" ...so the GREAT REAL DEAR LEADER can enter to save the USA.
why not just let the dod formulate war policy? obama is a lawyer, not a soldier. if he could put all his energy into domestic realities like health care and the economy maybe he could succeed at something. and these days stuck playing videos and jobless, it'd be nothing but a blessing for the right half a million kids to get a life, learn something. my neighbor max is back unhurt except he takes endless pictures of butterflies at night. but there are none.
we don't tell him.
Tom Engelhardt quotes General Petraeus, either from a speech he gave in London or from his piece in the Times of London, as follows:
("If Cecil Rhodes was correct in his wonderful observation that 'being an Englishman is the greatest prize in the lottery of life,' and I'm inclined to think that he was, then the second greatest prize in the lottery of life must be to be a friend of an Englishman, and based on that, the more than 230,000 men and women in uniform who work with your country's finest day by day are very lucky indeed, as am I.")
I checked Engelhardt's Times URL link. The quote turns out to be the last paragraph of Gen. Petraeus' article. Following which the Times immediately reports:
"General David Petraeus is Commander, United States Central Command. This is an edited and abridged version of a speech that he gave last night at a Policy Exchange event in London."
Gen. Petraeus' second to last paragraph in his Times piece reads in its entirety as follows:
"Iran constitutes the main state-based threat to stability in the region. The impact of its malign activities and harsh rhetoric are felt throughout the Arabian Peninsula, making it, ironically, the best recruiter with prospective partners. We now have eight Patriot missile batteries spread across countries on the western side of the Gulf, where two years ago we had far, far fewer."
This is the only paragraph in Gen. Petraeus' significant article that mentions Iran. Everything else has to do with 'winning hearts and minds' as they used to say about Viet Nam, but now in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the same old same old counterinsurgency, but in this case a blatant effort by a clever general to appeal to the people of the former British Empire who remain historically embarrassed by their own defeat by the insurgents in that part of the world a century ago.
By calling on the mythology of the "great" Cecil Rhodes, who established scholarships at a major Brit university that gave us such renowned Scholars as Bill Clinton and Robert Reich after Cecil Rhodes got rich plundering Africa (remember Rhodesia?), Gen. Petraeus would seek to revive the Imperial ambitions of the Brits, in hopes of persuading them to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of yet another execrable defeat in exactly the same geographical places they lost their asses to bands of bandits on horse and camelback or barefoot in the mountains.
Civilization is not an easy Construct. Perhaps Gen. Petraeus with his access to all the knowledge that the DOD computers have to offer, should spend a year or so investigating the origins of the Durand Line that artificially created the Afpak "border" and then come back to the Brits spewing quotes from Churchill, who during WWII was drinking enough brandy to sink a whaling ship.
Engelhardt has written a brilliant article here. Gen. Petraeus has Presidential ambitions, as many others even in the MSM over the past months have suggested. He is, as Engelhardt suggests, closer to MacArthur than to Eisenhower; the latter came back from Europe the victor while MacArthur was defeated time and again by the Japs despite his corncob pipe. Gen. McChrystal, legalized by Dubya as an assassin along the lines developed in Viet Nam, where thousands of local leaders were targeted and eliminated, is merely the Executor, as it were. Pol Pot in Cambodia with his Killing Fields merely expanded the metaphor so that bifocals became a black market item.
President Obama may indeed by trapped here, but the setup he walked into came from Dubya, who probably will go down in history as destroying the United States of America.
Ignorant, stupid and ultimately insane White Men who thought that because they "won" WWII they had won the World. At the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Dr. Oppenheimer finally got it right. Vishnu.
It would be good if Gen. Petraeus were to take a Sabbatical. The longer the better. Let him write an autobiography instead of a failed Counterinsurgency Manual. If the United States and its Nato allies need more troops to win in Afghanistan that is an Astrological sign that the so-called War is lost. Hearts and Minds. To say nothing of the global opium economy which he does not address. He cannot.
Hubris is not called for in these trying times. Gen. Petraeus is no Eisenhower. He is not even a MacArthur. He is Entropy personified.
Ambition is the enemy of Wisdom.
And, consider this: Despite his expensive sartorial demeanor, Joe Biden would not a good President make.
-30-
and their talk boils down to this:
"WHITE MAN'S BURDEN OF EMPIRE BUILDING" .
it has never gone away.
"IRAN , AFGHANISTAN, TALIBAN, INSURGENTS...TERRORISTS" represent
the BAD PEOPLE - EASTERNERS, SOUTHERNERS, DARK RACES, BROWN, NOT-WHITE enough...GOTTA CIVILIZE 'em....CAN"T MANAGE themselves...CAN'T USE their RESOURCES PROPERLY...GOTTA TEACH 'EM.....
that's what it boils down to ....
but even deeper behind that is
PLAIN THEFT, MURDER and BLOODLUST and BARELY DISGUISED ENVY of the RICHES of the EAST.
and what does it really come down to?
same as Rudyard Kipling's poem said:
THE WHITE MAN "order" TRIES TO HUSTLE THE EAST.
"ALL WARS ARE WAGED FOR PILLAGE, POWER AND MONEY..."
SOCRATES -- fellow Greek but ancient and far wiser of DAVID PETRAEUS -- and THAT's the irony.
Afghanistan is not a losing war. It's making many of Obama's financiers a lot of money, so it's a winning war for sure.
Yet, many of the 60 million losers who voted for this creep are still finding excuses to differentiate him from Bush or Reagan. Blind fools.
Afghanistan is not a losing war. It's making many of Obama's financiers a lot of money, so it's a winning war for sure.
Yet, many of the 60 million losers who voted for this creep are still finding excuses to differentiate him from Bush or Reagan. Blind fools.
Obama is obligated as President to risk his life and his families, if that is the case, for the constitution and world peace.
If he cannot create a loyal presidential guard, he is neither intelligent nor courageous.
I personally do not value his life above an Afghan child's life.
That said, the corporate masters are extremely clever to allow us to elect a mulatto president to hold the reigns of the obvious collapse from the Neocon gutting of the USA, and thus have the fanatic racist violent,( often christian fundalmentalists(sp?)) right to operate as their puppet brownshirts.
I wish these Generals oversaw American schools- wow half a million more teacher's boots hitting the ground. If these festooned baboons ran the health care reform, we would have military precision and oneness. Sad, these public fund hogs are blind to all patriotic duty but the silk and metal rewards that reek death and drip blood. Mr Obama is a great fraud. His legacy--the death rattle from the vast majority of Americans as they are buried by the top ten per cent of their fellow citizens. Oh he did well in his "snap to" salute lessons- my oh my, the lure of a private private personal jet. Thats all folks.
the mis-management of war by civilian CIC's is setting the scene for a military rule.
which will also mis-manage war.
According to a recent news release, the CIA is sending more agents to Afghanistan. The Bay of Pigs was an appropriately named place for them to demonstrate the effectiveness of their reverse Midas touch. The presence of the CIA should be sufficient to motivate local resistance for the next eternity.