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McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Gen. McChrystal to “fix” the war in Afghanistan in the way that his boss, that earlier military prophet Gen. David Petraeus, “fixed” Iraq. Whether by accident or design, McChrystal’s mission became a cause célèbre of sorts for an American media starved for good news, even if entirely fabricated, coming out of Afghanistan. One must remember that the general has accomplished little of note during his short tenure to date as the military commander in Afghanistan. His entire reputation is built around the potential to turn things around in Afghanistan. And to do this, McChrystal has said he needs time, and 40,000-plus additional American troops. There are currently around 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s request would raise that number to around 110,000 troops – the same number as the Soviets had deployed in Afghanistan at the height of their failed military adventure some 20 years ago.
McChrystal, or more accurately, his staff, has authored a not-so-secret report that outlines the reasoning behind this massive increase in American military involvement in Afghanistan. Rightly noting that the American-led effort is currently failing, McChrystal argues that only a massive infusion of U.S. troops, and a corresponding “surge” of American civilians, can achieve the stability necessary to transform Afghanistan from the failed state it is today. A viable nation capable of self-government, the new Afghanistan could maintain internal security so that terrorist organizations like al-Qaida will not be able to take root, flourish and once again threaten American security from the sanctuary of a lawless land. This concept certainly looks good on paper and plays well in the editorial section. And why shouldn’t it? It touches on all the romantic notions of America as liberator and defender of the oppressed. The problem is that the assumptions made in the McChrystal report are so far removed from reality as to be ludicrous.
McChrystal operates under the illusion that American military power can provide a shield from behind which Afghanistan can remake itself into a viable modern society. He has deluded himself and others into believing that the people of Afghanistan want to be part of such a grand social experiment, and furthermore that they will tolerate the United States being in charge. The reality of Afghan history, culture and society argue otherwise. The Taliban, once a defeated entity in the months following the initial American military incursion into Afghanistan, are resurgent and growing stronger every day. The principle source of the Taliban’s popularity is the resentment of the Afghan people toward the American occupation and the corrupt proxy government of Hamid Karzai. There is nothing an additional 40,000 American troops will be able to do to change that basic equation. The Soviets tried and failed. They deployed 110,000 troops, operating on less restrictive lines of communication and logistical supply than the United States. They built an Afghan army of some 45,000 troops. They operated without the constraints of American rules of engagement. They slaughtered around a million Afghans. And they lost, for the simple reason that the people of Afghanistan did not want them, or their Afghan proxies.
Some pundits and observers make note of the fact that the Afghan people were able to prevail over the Soviets only because of billions of dollars of U.S. aid, which together with similar funding from Saudi Arabia and the logistical support of Pakistan, allowed the Afghan resistance to coalesce, grow and ultimately defeat the Soviets and their Afghan allies. They note that there is no equivalent source of empowerment for the Taliban in Afghanistan today. But they are wrong. The Taliban receive millions of dollars from sympathetic sources in the Middle East, in particular from Saudi Arabia, and they operate not only from within Afghanistan, but also out of safe havens inside Pakistan.
Indeed, one of the unique aspects of the Afghan conflict is the degree to which it has expanded into Pakistan, making any military solution in one theater contingent on military victory in the other. But the reality is that the more one employs military force in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, the more one strengthens the cause and resources of the Islamic insurgents in both places. Pashtunistan, once a fanciful notion built around the concept of a united Pashtun people (the population in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan are primarily drawn from Pashtun tribes), has become a de facto reality. The decision by the British in 1897 to separate the Pashtun through the artificial device of the so-called Durand Line (which today constitutes the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) has been exposed today as a futile effort to undermine tribal links. No amount of military force can reverse this.
Thus the solution itself becomes the problem, thereby creating a never-ending circular conflict which has the United States expending more and more resources to resolve a situation that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, and everything to do with crafting a politically viable salve for what is in essence a massive self-inflicted wound. It is the proverbial dog chasing after its own tail, a frustrating experience made even more so by the fact that any massive commitment of troops brings with it the fatal attachment of national pride, individual hubris and, worst of all, the scourge of domestic American politics, so that by the time this dog bites its tail, it will be so blinded by artificialities that rather than recognize its mistake, it will instead proceed to consume itself. In the case of Afghanistan, our consumption will be measured in the lives of American servicemen and women, national treasure, national honor, and, of course the lives of countless Afghan dead and wounded.
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69 Comments so far
Show AllAmerica looks to a NEW general who has a MORE violent plan.
The only strategy allowed into conversation in America is More, More, More.
I again insist that the way for Progressives to end this madness is to work to end the DAFT war, not just try again (and fail again) to deal with Afghanistan in isolation.
This problem that America faces is so huge that it will need multi-partisan and general public support to agree on the way out.
I suggest getting that support by focusing on the insanity of the DAFT war, a war that cannot be won because our retarded Congress (except Barbara Lee) wrote into law unachievable victory conditions for the US military.
DAFT - Defense against Future Terrorism
Show America how DAFT our war is. Maybe if enough people try, we can even pierce the media blanket on Progressive voices by being clever and sane.
"The only strategy allowed into conversation in America is More, More, More."
Actually what drives it is More$$. More$$. More$$.
If they haven't gotten it yet they will soon enough, as the body count starts to rise. There is still time to declare victory and come home. Delay this more and the end result will still be the same with only the body count being higher.
But then who cares about the body count, it's only a number. We have plenty of young men and now women too in America that we can sacrifice for the glory of the empire.
I just want to remind you all that war is a racket.
Scott Ritter doesn't get it--Wall Street, its multinational banking and other corporate consortiums, as well as their military and political errand boys and girls, (aka the Congress, Senate, President, and "his" --as oppossed to "our" military) don't care in the least about the lives of anyone but themselves.
The sheer audacity of their cyicism and greed is so appalingly unbelievable to most of the United States electorate that they don't get it either.
When they do get it we will know because the violence against very important people and their property will explode. It will have to explode to get the attention of the ruling oligarchial elites because this is the only language that the ruling oligarchial elites understand or speak.
Poet
Do you really suppose Scott Ritter does not understand your very conventional (though mostly accurate ) take on things?
Like Ray McGovern, jut jawed Scott is billed as a "former intelligence operative". Are any of these high-profile boyz and girlz ever "former" or have they just cultivated a new cover story for their assigned operations as government officials?
Poet
You're out of control with you holier-than-thou, leftoid delusions. Likely you should stick to writing poetry, which people expect to be confused, jumbled, self-flattering garbage by self-absorbed pseudo 'ARTISTS'.
genicon
McChrystal's plan for a surge will be to do the same as Petraeus did in Iraq, pass out millions in bribes to get a temporary stand down. That makes him look like a military genius.
How many more bombs have to go off in Pakistan, before we declare our destabilization efforts there a success?
It's amazing that the supposed "best and brightest" think that we can build a peaceful democracy thru war and violence. That's the same mentality as a spouce thinking that beating his wife will make her love him more. Simply absurd!
Thank Obama for Change we can belive in.
And oh by the way - we now have MORE soldiers deployed than we had at the height of the Bush wars. Now the Obama wars.
Has Obama done even ONE THING he promsied during the election?
GOd what a disappointment. I'm washing my hands of the national democratic party after this administration. At least Obama has been a clarion call to understanding that the democrats are even worse than the republicans. At least the rethugs tell us they're going to screw us. While the demos tell us what we want to hear and do the EXACT OPPOSITE.
The true lesson of the 60's was that money can buy out idealism. Nothing will change until we mass mobilize on the streets. And right now the left is letting the right grab the populist movement(whether it's astro-turf or not - it's happening).
I guess the USA needs to fall even further into the abyss before we come to our senses. Or maybe we're too far gone to ever recover our good sense as a nation.
GREED IS THE NEW GOD! and America is the avenging angel of darkness pretending to be light.
The "best and the brightest" are educated at places like Ivy league schools where the worst and the stupidest policies are institutionalized.
And yet 90% of Democrats give Obama a favorable rating.
Sounds like an awfully old poll.
If still true, then those 90% of Democrats are deluded and in denial, just as Bush's supporters were.
How utterly depressingly correct you are
Agreed, sadly.
mtdon, you're right, Obama is not admitting the real issue behind the curtain.
First Year: Is Obama ‘overwhelmed’ --- or just ducking the central issue?
Multiplicity of problems --- unity of cause: Empire.
WOW! Obama appears to be fighting a multi-front battle on a wide array of domestic and foreign policy problems of almost overwhelming scope --- Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Nuclear Proliferation, Middle East peace, Global Warming, 'the dollar', financial reform, health care, the economy, H1N1 flu, jobs, domestic spying, torture policy, UN investigation of drones, State Department resignations, returning body-bags, etc. etc. ....
But is Obama really fighting all these battles, or is he just posing and pretending to fight? And what is the common thread that links all these seemingly complex and disparate problems?
The reality is the all of these multiple problems domestically and abroad emanate from only one singular cause: EMPIRE --- and the sad truth is that Obama will not even whisper the name of the disease, EMPIRE, which is at the heart, and is the proximate cause, of all of America's foreign and domestic problems.
Obama is blindly touching the front, the back, the truck, and the tail of this elephant of EMPIRE that is killing our country, but he will not (or can not), despite his reputed genius and rhetorical skills, articulate, nor even begin to confront, the whole image of the cancerous elephant of EMPIRE, which is killing our country 'abroad' and 'at home'.
Obama needs to step back from the fog of battling dozens of supposedly different symptoms and recognize the cause of all of our 'sorrows' --- EMPIRE.
Obama needs to re-read and understand Hannah Arendt's prescient warning, from her experience with the Nazi and Soviet Empires, "Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home".
There is something hidden, blocking, and obscuring ‘hope’ and ‘change’ for America, and Obama will not even whisper the name of that hidden thing ---- ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Pashtunistan has become a reality". This is what the whore press and the rest of the cheerleaders for war fail to tell you and like I said over a year ago, there are approximately 40 million Pashtuns who sympathize with each other even though in separate tribes scattered throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. These people belong to the same Muslim,sect and will fight to the death to protect it. Like Mr. Ritter says, that is a reality that one never hears about.
Perhaps you've heard of the Afghan's saying (and I paraphrase):
It's me against my brother
Me and my brother against my cousin
Me and my cousin against the foreigner
I think its an Arab saying (also paraphrased here)
I against my brother.
I and my brother against my cousin.
I and my cousin against my tribe.
I and my tribe against other tribes.
etc. etc. etc. something like that
From Google:
Time Magazine: Somalians have a familiar proverb -- "I and Somalia against the world. I and my clan against Somalia. I and my family against the clan. I and my brother against the family. I against my brother" -- and they seem determined to fight their way to the very last line.
From Bedouin Proverbs:
“I against my brother I and my brother against our cousin, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors all of us against the foreigner.”
Unforgiven666 and Kent Shaw: You have got it!
McChrystal and the military have a war going. They're going to keep it going. Victory or defeat in any conventional (MSM defined) sense is immaterial. Just keep it going and claim you're making progress. In the year 2509 you'll hear all this same BS.
Another red herring from Truthdig. This site appears to be a fossil-fuel industry shill. Lots of shrill "criticism" and "analysis", but no mention of natural gas pipeline routes. Thus, they get you off the scent.
.
here is a better site to read:
http://freepublictransit.org
Don't forget the ultimate goal of the elite...to blow up the budget to such an enormously unsustainable level that it implodes unto itself leading to a slashing of all entitlement programs.
Shrinking the government to a miniaturized size so you can drown it in a bathtub, Grover Norquist style.
They're dreaming of a government where 90 cents of every dollar goes straight to the Pentagon.
So any critique and analysis, shrill or otherwise, that does not mention your particular hobby horse (natural gas pipelines, as though that explains EVERYTHING), is a red herring?
Am I "a shill for the fossil fuel industry" do you suppose?
Implied message from our warrior General: KILL FOR PEACE! IGNORE THE CASKETS OF OUR DEAD SOLDIERS!
it only take a glimpse at the terrain there to realize this is an impossible situation, and besides, what does 'winning' even look like? This is their country...not ours...this world domination game has already been lost. Time to pick up the pieces and come home...we have our own 'battles' to win, over poverty, hunger, homelessness, rotten infrastructure,ignorance, disillusionment...oh yeah, and don't forget the 'big game' (distraction) over what is really going on.
winning will be a Wall mart on every block next to the Mc Dummies.. Just who the heck gave the usa the right to tell any one what to do.. Look around you tea baggers you are not living in a utopia.
The problem is that a Democracy can not survive a stupid electorate. We are now feeling the results of this fact..
When are you obomba people going to wake up the teleprompter reader is not the answer he is now the problem.. His handlers lied he is not getting the usa out of war he is enlarging it.
WE must bleed the beast.. I for one have taken the small step of buying next to nothing and nothing at all on Sunday..
"In the case of Afghanistan, our consumption will be measured in the lives of American servicemen and women, national treasure, national honor, and, of course the lives of countless Afghan dead and wounded."
Yes, of course, but it will also be just so damn profitable for the MIC, and for that reason alone the war and occupation must continue. This is America after all. Profit uber alles.
If you stop the war the US economy will crumble and you will be living in a 3rd world country. You're all going to need a lot of big balls to make these wars stop.
Sioux Rose
MACHINE: Given the outsourcing of many jobs to foreign lands, that Wall st's smoke and mirrors are beginning to prove transparent to foreign investors, that over a million are homeless, 47 million without medical insurance, the nation's infrastructure not receiving the renewal it requires, and so many social diseases based on fear and dysfunction... the 3rd world country outcome may be inevitable, either way! Stopping war would at least begin to reverse the nation's karma.
Ritter is always right...has been, will be..
Out of Af/Pak now!!!!
It inevitably boils down to who has the biggest nuts and the smallest brains makes the rules. It's balls to the walls, take cover.
McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?
"McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history."
____________________________________________
Let's answer the pregnant headline question by a little rephrasing, shall we?:
"Obama has generally been sold to the Amerikan public as a “Zen warrior,” a political genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Imperial Amerika into a noble polity that will rank as one of the greatest political and humanitarian triumphs of modern history."
Perhaps the Nobel Committee should've slipped a Peace Prize to McChrystal, too.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Yes, it's just war for war's sake, America's favorite hobby and reason for being. McChrystal has to be trumpeted in the MSM as a "Zen warrior" or whatever hyperbolic horseshit seems to work for the distracted majority, just as Petraeus was, and the situation on the ground will remain open to embedded media interpretation. They can say anything, the only important consideration being keep the war cheerleading at full throttle. October has been the worst month in 8 years for American casualties in Afghanistan, but that just means we need more troops and better propaganda. This can go on literally indefinitely, and of course Obama "gets it"--he gets that the business of the USA is war, under any avaliable pretext, the more absurd the better. We've always been at war with Eurasia; we've never been at war with Eurasia. It's the same thing. Either way, we can remain at war anywhere we like for as long as we like. Catapult the propaganda, as that great Zen president, W, put it so eloquently.
having mentioned "EURASIA" --
the US MSM portraying Bush or McChrystal as "ZEN" warriors is an affront to ZEN buddhism. it's just another example of how the USA WarState will appropriate anything "exotic" and then TWIST it around .
might there be any doubt that if this known TORTURER McChrystal - the known supervisor of the US army's TORTURE Detention programs in Iraq - were in the reverse position. somehow Captured by his enemies and then TORTURED ...not even physically touched but they used on him the USA's OWN technic of psychological torture that "leaves no physical trace"....
that he would be so ZEN LIKE ?....
he'd probably be the first to cry "UNCLE O-SAM-A".
he and bush are mister ZEN warriors of the USA only because they're not exactly left without battalions of BODIES, Helicopters, Fighter and bomber jets , carriers and what-not, to PROTECT them in their "Roman Caesar" processions, acting like they fought the "enemy" in their hundreds ALL by THEMSELVES
with ZENLIKE calm......
if this guy was left in a barbed wire cell alone with some Fierce Insanely Sadistic Taliban his own size or bigger and leering at the prospect of pinning him down to RAPE him ...he'd probably be begging to wear a taliban turban....
McChrystal is like every other general staff officer. Every clown that comes out of West Point thinks he is going to be the next Patton, Alexander, or Caesar.
They all want the same thing: more troops, more bombs, and more death, so they will be remembered as the great conqueror.
Unfortunately, all that West Point seems to be able to produce is an endless stream of Westmoreland clones. if you give McChrystal what he wants, he may likely outdo Westmoreland.
The fact that Obama did not fire him the same day he tried to pressure the White House by manipulating the media says a lot about Obama's ability to command.
Still waiting to hear what McCrystal's strategu is. If he doesn't define it, then sending more troops to a nebulous mission is irresponsible.
The best plan is pack up and go home.
Obama - EMPTY SUIT!!!!
Obama - FAILURE!!!!
Obama - Corporate-Military Whore!!!!
Obama - ??????????
Figure it out people!
I don't give a rat's ass what happens in Afghanistan. The Taliban can institute Sharia law, they can set off car bombs, they can do any godawful thing they want to their own people. I don't care.
In the end they will have to deal with their own problems. Maybe some countries deserve to fail--our own included, but we shouldn't be burning our national treasure over there while killing the innocent and guilty. Time for our guys to come home and start nation-building over here.
The generals always say that one more "surge" in troops will do the job. Westmoreland told Lyndon Johnson that and look what happened.
I cannot imagine why any politician believes anything a general says about the status of a conflict. They are always confident and they are always wrong.
I know you have surge in parenthesizes and thereby infer to real meaning of the term.... but lets all try and refer to it exactly what it is: a dangerous and aggressive "escalation" of the war... same in Pashtanizon.
War, like a fire, is easy to start, but more then often, very difficult to put out.
Remember the first step in the right direction, is realizing your going in the wrong direction.
It is fascinating to study how wars were ended in the time of the absolute kings such as Louis 14th, or Henry II of England. Often, when the conflict seemed to lead to stalemate, they agreed to stop fighting and accept some compromise. It did not matter what the people of their countries wanted. Absolute rulers apparently knew much better than the rulers of republics today where their breads were buttered.
Eh? Louis Quartorze only stopped fighting when he caused pretty much the whole of Europe to gang up against him, and hand him catastrophic defeats, and France itself was in danger if invasion if he persisted. When his wars stalemated, he would just stop for the moment, and try again a couple years later.
He stopped fighting when France was bankrupted, and its young men were all dead or crippled. He wasted the wealth and lives of France attempting to build an empire.
The fossil-fuel wars will continue until fossil-fuels are no longer critical to the world economy. All the "war for war's sake" and "it's about macho" talk on this site simply misdirect you into dead-end solutions. In the age of information, they cannot hide the facts. So they spread disinformation with a shiny "this is criticism of current policy" spinner-bait. Don't bite. Instead you can get involved in a real solution: free public transit.
http://freepublictransit.org
And the funny thing is, we could be free of our dependency on fossil fuels for a price considerably less than what we spend on these damnable wars. Public transit, solar and wind, even insulation and efficient house design can get us off oil, but the industries that depend upon war--Boeing, Lockheed-Douglas, GE and all the rest--will never permit a new direction. In Chinese there is a word, "small men," which points not just to physical size but to diminutive moral stature. Those small men are running our country now (and most of the world, for that matter).
drosera,
I totally agree. And thank you for the lesson on "small men"--I was not aware. But I had previously made up my own, similar term, for roughly the same personality disorder--I call them "empty men."
Thanks for your VERY insightful comment.
Unfortunately, these 'small men' are "running our country" to the ground, and many of the other countries are trying to quietly distance themselves in various degrees and ways.
While China, our largest creditor, is negotiating with other countries to use currencies other than the dollar in their mutual transactions, it is also using its dollars to lend to and invest in various countries, including a recent joint venture in a windpower farm in Texas. Lo, Texas is the leading windpower generator in the US! GE has a subsidiary that manufactures a part that's involved in windpower turbine motion. Militarism and alternative energy might not be mutually exclusive for the time being.
War is the US economy. When the oil is gone they will always have something to create wars for; land, water, air, etc. We're fucked. We're all going to H.E. double hockey sticks whether we like it or not.
Libs:
Want to scare some chickenhawks this Halloween?
Buy guns.
I liiiiiike it----