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McChrystal Testing the Limits
It is not too late for President Barack Obama to follow the example of Harry Truman, who fired Gen. Douglas McArthur in 1951 for insubordination. Then, as now, the stakes were high. Then it was Korea; now it is Afghanistan.
No more slaps on the wrist for Gen. Stanley McChrystal. In my view, Commander-in-Chief Obama should fire him for cause.
Then
In the Truman-McArthur showdown nearly six decades ago, the President and his senior advisers were preparing to engage North Korea and China in peace negotiations, when MacArthur, commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the war into China.
McArthur had been playing a back-channel game to win the support of like-minded Republican congressmen to widen the war, when Truman faced him down. With the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretaries of state and defense, he rose to the occasion and fired the distinguished "old soldier."
Now
Today, Gen. McChrystal is conducting a subtler but equally insubordinate campaign for wider war in Afghanistan, with the backing of CENTCOM commander David Petraeus. It is now even clearer in retrospect that the President should not have appointed McChrystal in the first place, given what was already known of his role in covering up the killing of football star Pat Tillman and condoning the torture practices by troops under McChrystal's earlier command in Iraq.
Two months ago when McChrystal became more and more outspoken about what he considered the best approach to the Afghanistan war, policy discussions were under way in Washington to help the President make enlightened policy choices among the various views and possibilities. Since decisions were (are?) still pending, and since McChrystal's private input was already part of the mix, he was clearly out of line in going public at so sensitive a time.
Senior generals know better than to do that; there is little doubt his outspokenness was deliberate. McChrystal should meet the same fate as McArthur, and "silently steal away." Obama should have taken the telegenic general to the woodshed instead of inviting him to confer quietly on Air Force One.
McChrystal to Obama: Fogh You
McChrystal's continuing defiance shines through in the
gratuitous remarks by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at a NATO
meeting on Nov. 17 in Edinburgh.
Siding clearly with McChrystal, Petraeus, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike
Mullen in the intense debate over sending more forces to Afghanistan, Rasmussen
blithely announced that NATO countries will soon order "substantially more
forces" there.
Rasmussen promised "new momentum" behind the military campaign, adding, "I'm confident it will be a counter-insurgency approach," which is what McChrystal says he needs 40,000 additional American troops to undertake.
But here's the thing: Rasmussen's past behavior makes it abundantly clear that, on such matters, the only tea leaves he reads are the ones given him by those he concludes wield the real power in Washington. Besides, he was one of George W. Bush's best buddies in the days of "shock and awe."
Something Rotten in Denmark
As Denmark's Prime Minister (2001-2009), Anders Fogh Rasmussen was one of George W. Bush's most sycophantic supporters-particularly when it came to the war on Iraq. Although amply warned by Danish intelligence officers of the deceptive nature of the U.S. case for war, he shunned them and outdid himself cheerleading for war.
For example, while Danish intelligence professionals told then-Prime Minister Rasmussen there was very little evidence that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction," he decided to take his cue from the neo-cons in Washington. On the day before the invasion of Iraq he told the Danish Parliament:
"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know."
Thus, Rasmussen has a long record of kowtowing to what he perceives to be the power center in Washington. And his perception now? Apparently it is that the real power ain't in the White House this time; it's in the Pentagon.
As NATO Secretary General Rasmussen was announcing what he called plans to send "substantially more forces" to Afghanistan, President Obama, in Beijing, struck a defensive tone in telling CBS News, "I think that Gen. McChrystal shares the same goal I do."
Wait a second; he thinks?
Granted that the President has a lot on his plate and, in my view, is to be applauded for the deliberate pace he has set on making big decisions on Afghanistan, he is projecting the image of a Mr. Milquetoast-a highly educated, well-spoken wuss on many key issues. This is not only damaging on the international scene; it gives the U.S. military and domestic political rivals the idea that he is a slow-moving lightweight, who can be either easily pushed around or evaded when it comes to issues on which they are deeply engaged-like Afghanistan.
Even regarding Rasmussen himself, President Obama was warned about the former Danish prime minister's subservience to Bush and the neo-cons, and yet did not lift a finger to prevent Rasmussen from becoming NATO Secretary General.
Must stunning is Obama's caving in on the issue of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian areas. In a plaintive, powerless tone, Obama told Fox News on Nov. 18: "Well, there is no doubt that I haven't been able to stop the settlements."
As for his domestic priority of health care, he has not been heard to protest as the draft legislation falls far short of his own expectations.
Kid Gloves for Karzai
In the same acquiescent tone, Obama's senior policy people are telling the Washington Post that U.S. officials, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on down, have now "turned on the charm" with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. According to the Post, the administration has decided that its tough approach to Karzai was counterproductive, "fueling stress and anger in a beleaguered, conspiracy-minded leader whom the U.S. government needs as a partner."
The Post article says that criticism of the earlier approach is most pronounced among senior U.S. military leaders, who complain about the failure of the State Department to "fix" Karzai's government. Sensitive to that kind of charge, Secretary Clinton is said to have urged Karzai "to use merit, not cronyism, as a criteria (sic) for filling cabinet posts," according to the Post. That should be enough to take care of that problem, don't you suppose?
This may be part of what the Post's hard-right columnist, Michael Gerson had in mind in his Friday op-ed, titled "Obama the Undecider," as Gerson criticized Washington's "dysfunctional Afghan decision-making process." More to the point, Gerson reported that Gen. McChrystal is feeling "stabbed in the back" by the leak of two classified messages from U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (and former Army general) Karl Eikenberry, arguing against troop increases.
Gerson, actually, makes a valid point in summing up Obama's dilemma. Depending on his ultimate decision, the president "will be vulnerable to charges of buckling to military pressure or disregarding the advice of his commanders."
The sooner President Obama accepts that there is no win-win solution to his dilemma, the better.
Right-wing pressure, including from Robert Gates, the defense secretary Obama kept on from the Bush administration, will not abate. At a press conference yesterday, Gates, who reportedly favors sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan made it seem like a foregone conclusion that the President will opt (has opted?) to escalate. He said:
"...I anticipate that as soon as the president makes his decision, we can probably begin flowing some forces pretty quickly after that."
Adm. Mullen was even more specific:
"We think we have a way ahead. But as the secretary said, it's not going to be five brigades -- it's not going to be a brigade a month because of the infrastructure piece -- the ability to receive it, literally, in Afghanistan.
Pundit Certainty
Most pundits already had concluded, even before Thursday's remarks, that the basic decision to send more troops was a done deal, that the only question remaining is how many can be sent and how quickly, and that Obama's continuing consultation with senior advisors is a charade. They may be right. I'm not sure.
However, if the President is, as he claimed this week, "angrier than Bob Gates about the leaks" regarding Afghanistan policy deliberations, I would think his anger would extend to those feeding talking points to the likes of Rasmussen. There remains a chance, I believe, that Obama may decide to stop letting himself be pushed around.
If Obama does not put a decisive end to McChrystal's politicking, and does not remonstrate with Rasmussen, we can conclude that the pundits are right. If so, and if the troop increase is substantial-even though it will probably be portrayed as mostly for training of the (barely existent) Afghan army-disaster looms both in Afghanistan and in the corridors of power in Washington.
The dangerous impression would persist that, when the chips were down, Obama is no Jack Kennedy, nor Harry Truman, both of whom had the guts to face down the Pentagon by rebuffing military demands for wider war.
It would be difficult indeed to write a Profile in Courage for one who bowed as low to his recalcitrant, myopic generals, as he did, de rigueur, to the Japanese emperor last Saturday.
If Obama does bow to the generals, "transfer cases" (the euphemism the Washington Post uses for coffins carrying soldiers' remains) will continue to arrive in Delaware-and in greater numbers. By expanding the war in Afghanistan, Obama would let down these dead soldiers and their grieving families. Euphemism will be no help at all. And it will be a daunting challenge, to even the most soaring rhetoric, to make a persuasive case that these dead have not died in vain.
The supreme irony would remain; namely, that the Republicans would continue to batter Obama, whatever he does regarding a war that their erstwhile hero George W. Bush started but could not finish.
Already, many demoralized Democrats are looking fearfully toward Election 2010 and then Election 2012 when the Republicans could attribute the continuing quagmire in Afghanistan to Obama's "indecision," and to cite this as proof that he does not deserve a second term.
At that point I can visualize a GOP ticket headed by Petraeus and Gates and a platform advocating, as McArthur did so many years ago, for wider war.
Now is the time for President Obama to stop this latest March of Folly. Now.
Comments
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63 Comments so far
Show AllCheck out (here on the CD site under More Videos) the Grit TV interviews with Russ Baker and John Perkins. Obama is actually under threat from America's ruling corporatocracy and from the military. If Baker and Perkins are telling the truth Obama's hands are more securely tied than we know. Notice that the Joint Chiefs backed Truman; they're apparently not backing Obama.
The Octopus has many tentacles.
"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations."
- President John F. Kennedy-
Perfect description of Empire USA,
maybe that is why wasted he was by Empire USA.
3654 12:00 ----- Sorry my wimpy dial-up does not do videos, but the blurb before the Video has a falsehood, if the war the blurb is referring to is Afghanistan then it is false to say Obama wanted to end the war, for he has never publiclly stated this.
And if Obama wanted to change course why did he keep and promote Bushites when he could have easily dumped them?
Buck ------- I think JFK was reffering to the Soviet Union.
Obama never spoke of ending either occupation, never peace.
In Iraq, he talked of reduced numbers, but not abandoning the forts.
He openly spoke of escalation in Afghanistan.
JFK
Maybe. There has always been debate. It could have been a double entendre.
Either way it fits today's situation to a tee.
I'm convinced that we are facing just such a monstrosity.
I misspoke Obomber was recently qouted as saying he wished to find a way to end the Afghan war.
If Obama deescalates he has a brain and a backbone, if he sends more troops he possesses neither.
It would be absolutely impossible for you to believe that.
Alabama --- 1:59 --------- Pray tell why is it impossible?
Because you are among the top 10% of those most intelligent,
and planet earth is an absolute dictatorship controlled
by those most intelligent.
Alabama 2:12 -------- Very intriguing reply.
Supposedly I am in the top 10% percentile intelligence(USA not World).
But it is the top 1% of wealth that controls the Planet but I do not believe it to be absolute.
And I am no where near materially wealthy by USA standards.
Very true, for you are a self-sacrificing person. And as the purpose of this
world is to establish a full and perfect understanding of darkness, only
by persons of intelligence like yourself forcing the darkness to give way
could we ever get the job done.
But surely you agree that Obama having degrees from two Ivy
League colleges establishes he was born with a superb brain,
and surely you realize that courage is in direct proportion to
ability to kill, which is of course in direct proportion to
intelligence.
Alabama 6:17 -------- I must say you have some interesting propositions.
But "courage is in direct proportion to ability to kill", Even with my Ivy League education I can not agree with you.
My models for courage are Ghandi, MLK, and Jesus. None of them killed but who knows what their ability to do so was?
Ability I would think would be a combination of training,position of power,temperment,spiritual evolution,weapons available, physical condition and finally also intelligence.
No mention of Congress? Oh, that's right. We live in a land where only the President should solve our problems. That's because Presidents who solve all the problems are good and not at all like Dictators who solve all the problems but are bad.
- ...the president "will be vulnerable to charges of buckling to military pressure or disregarding the advice of his commanders...The sooner President Obama accepts that there is no win-win solution to his dilemma, the better. -
Mr. Obama is stuck along with America and here is yet another article asking him to solve the problem by himself.
I will repeat yet again, the war against terrorists that Mr. Obama speaks of is the war that we need to end.
- The supreme irony would remain; namely, that the Republicans would continue to batter Obama, whatever he does regarding a war -
I suggest that WE end the war, and then the Republicans could not batter Obama.
Locust 12:24 -------- You are correct, both or either Congress and Obama could end the wars. Obama would be perfectly correct under the USA Constitution to do so and can do it today if he wished. Congress could do it today, but even less likely.
People must keep in mind Obama kept all these bad military players when he could have easily dumped them.
Nothing excuses Obamas actions, unless he does deesalates.
No, paid actors can only act, as their hired to only obey orders.
. . . enlightened policy choices . . .
No such thing exists anywhere in the United States government. Makes no difference who runs that engine of homicide and total corruption. The cancer of George Wanker Bush has metasticized into every vital organ of Uncle Sam's body. And as an oncologist will tell you, once the cancer moves into another vital organ, you ultimately cannot be saved.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You should have seen Saturday Night Live tonight when they juxtaposed scenes of the apocalypse from the movie 2012 with the electoral victory of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as president and vice president (respectively). I've got a headache...I'm getting dizzy...must lie down....
"Thank" Bob! Firing the McChrystal Oildinero BetrayUS generals will do no good without showing them ALL, including Bob, the Gates!! Make 'em see, War is Hell, for ALL!!!
Obama is dancing to guns firing at his feet by the MilitaryIndustrialComplex. The MIC owns the white house and most all MSM. It is truly disgusting to witness.
The fundamental flaw of this article is an underlying presupposition that Obama has a set of balls like Harry Truman. As we have seen in issue after issue, this is certainly not the case. Obama trembles in fear of upsetting the his military industrial handlers. He capitulated the moment he named McChrystal who was Cheney's assassination general in Iraq to his current post as assassination general in Afghanistan. When will the pretenders wake up to this fact. McChrystal has as much chance of getting fired as Geithnier has of getting fired. Geithner, of course, is doing to the financial markets what McChrystal is doing on behalf of perpetual war in Afghanistan.
Ray McGovern is most on the money in guessing what may
happen next in Afghan War, but I must wonder if he is
correct in avoiding the issue of the corporate rich
having absolute control of government.
Pardon my asking, but wasn't there a thought that JFK was killed because he called off the air cover on the bay of pigs invasion? Since then presidents are wary of offending the Military.
Sadly, Obama is proving to be a no-go-to guy--totally useless to progressives. He has the backbone of chocolate eclair as Teddy Roosevelt used to say.
Paid actors are given a script to follow and a part to play,
surely they have no control over what they may do or say.
I generally like McGovern's analyses and I'd love to see 0bama fire McChrystal, but a darker view better fits the data.
Let us quit praising feigned "caution." While 0 plays at dithering, the troops shoot and drones shoot, the bases open, the tortures and murders and thefts continue apace.
That's not neutral. It's not cautious. With decisions made and orders in progress, the appearance of hesitation constitutes a delaying action to guard 0's rear against moralists like McGovern and the popular reaction they might catalyze.
0bama may flutter in Afghanistan because his insurance bill has not given him the political brownie points he likely hoped from it. With inflation likely to accompany deepening unemployment and shrinking education budgets; with a heavily Democratic legislature unwilling to pass even a sham healthcare bill; with any hope of anything green firmly ruled out and ruled against; escalation in Afghanistan leaves 0bama with no base for re-election.
The idea, I assume, was to pass a nominal health insurance bill. 0 cut the deal with Pharma to partially nix the insurance companies and bring the feds into the insurance business in some nominal way.
Left-leaning Democrats would have said, "Ah, but at least we have health coverage; that's better than we would have done under McCain" -- and they would likely have been correct.
But that has not happened.
So 0baama has escalated Afghanstan, but somewhat under-the-table. If the Senate passes anything like this Frankenstein Insurance Bill (FIB), and 0's mediavolken think the thing can be sold to the plebes once in 2012, before anyone lives through the horrors conveniently postponed until 2013, then we will see more direct and open violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
No other measure will be necessary to draw the progressives to 0 as a least-worst in 2012.
ray juxtaposes truman and obama
ok - let's do that but not in isolation, ray as i'm sure you are aware, there have been a few presidents in between
each can be assessed in terms of their relationship to the military with interesting results
truman may have fired macarthur but he was also the one who developed the notion of maintaining an ongoing military whether in times of peace or war
thanks for that harry
he was the decider who committed america's greatest sin against the world (and that is saying something) by dropping two atomic bombs on a defeated and defenseless country
he was followed by ike - the supreme commander of the allied forces of ww2 - a guy who knew a thing or two about the military industrial complex
ike warned us to be on guard against this beast - a warning that went in one ear and out the other
ike was followed by jfk - he was a true decider - he decided to break up the cia, stand down the war in vietnam, issue government backed dollars and end the cold war
dealey plaza - bang bang bang - the cia stood him down
then came lbj often implicated in the assassination of jfk, a man he despised, a man who he thought stole the presidency from him in 1960. a man so disillusioned by his turn at bat that he stood himself down declining to run for a second term
then came nixon - scum of the earth in many ways but a president who reached out to both russia and china in significant ways - a paranoid and schizophrenic leech who paid his way through college by scamming his friends in fixed poker games
a man who resigned the whitehouse insisting he was not a crook
then came gerald ford - enough said about that
then carter - nwo stooge - enough said about that
then the senile reagan who abandoned foreign policy to bush daddy due to lack of interest. to be fair, in his degenerating mind he wasn't that interested in domestic policy either
then came the nwo bush daddy for what was in effect his third term as president - two under reagan and one of his own
he was one of the few president's who failed to win a second term - an honor he shares with carter
then there was bubba - brought down by a dna stained dress
then bush baby - the decider - alcoholic and drug addict who imagined his way into the war against islam and took us all along for the ride
now we have prez pecenik
i'm sorry ray - were you saying something about this sorry list of suits that come and go...
and the power you seem to imagine they have
General Stanley Chrystal's shenanigans hark back not only to General Douglas McArthur's insubordination during the Korean War, but to the infamous Retired Marine General Smedley Butler's involvement in the aborted Plot Against FDR*, whereby he was to lead a fascist march on Washington for the purpose of overthrowing the government of the US of A. Far-fetched? Except why wouldn't the dynamic duo of Generals McChyrstal & Petreaus go for broke, considering how easily they've mastered the art of insubordination? Not only mastering but getting away with it? And if the Generals do go for broke, is there any doubt as to whether right-wing talk radio & cable TV will back them? Which raises the question as to whether President Military/Intelligence advisers have warned our President that either he orders circa 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan or he'll be deposed? Worse yet, have these masterminds of deception & criminality said something like, "Watch your step, Mr. President, cause we wouldn't want what happened to JFK to happen to you, nor, God forbid, to your family." Oh but would our military/intelligence do something as evil as that? Did they not send our sons & daughters off to Iraq to fight and die in a war that was based on lies? What'll prevent a military takeover? One way would be for President Obama to public with his predicament, vis a vis the squeeze play that the military's putting on him, and call for a mass uprising, (as per Hugo Chavez 7 years ago when a CIA engineered military coup d'etat briefly toppled the Venezualean government). And should President Obama's ball-less nature not allow him to speak out, what then? Same game plan, except without President Obama leading, as in all mass uprisings, everyone has to be a leader.
yours: get your facts straight
first off smedley butler was major general not a general - at the time of his death he was the most decorated marine in the country's history
he was not involved with the plot against fdr as you say - you couldn't be more wrong
the attempted coup was called the business plot:
The Business Plot (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was a reported political conspiracy in 1933 which involved wealthy businessmen plotting a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934 retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional committee that a group of men had approached him as part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a coup. In the opinion of the committee these allegations were credible. One of the purported plotters, Gerald MacGuire, vehemently denied any such plot. In their report, the Congressional committee stated that it was able to confirm Butler's statements other than the proposal from MacGuire which it considered more or less confirmed by MacGuire's European reports.[2] However, no prosecutions or further investigations followed. While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed. Contemporaneous media initially dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax". When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated"
as for the major himself:
Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye", was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps
During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.
In addition to his military career, Smedley Butler was noted for his outspoken anti-interventionist views, and his book War is a Racket. His book was one of the first describing the workings of the military-industrial complex, and after retiring from service, he became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.
In 1934, he alleged to the United States Congress that a group of wealthy industrialists had plotted a military coup known as the Business Plot to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
get your smears my boy
Appreciate the correction but (from that same Wikipedia source) didn't the Business Plot purportedly involve other military top brass?
yours: it sure did
it also involved the rockefellers as well as other oligarchs of the day
major butler was told that the plotters had an army of 500,000 vets and a 13 million dollar budget - which was a fortune in those days
though the congress found merit in the revelations the perpetrators were to big to strike back at, as they are today
what would history look like if the fascists would have taken the american government at the same time that fascism was on the rise in germany, italy and austria
france has always had their fair share of fascist ready to go - still do today. in england the fascists are the royal family - many of whom found the nazis to be right on in their aggressive and racist notions
major butler saved us from that singlehandedly
Buff, thanks for setting the record straight on a military man the likes of which our country sorely needs now. The following Smedley Butler quote appears in his Wikepedia Bio. copied here to give those who might not be familiar with him a taste of the man's character:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."[26]
And you do know of course,
Who Brown Brothers are? It later became the investment bank of Brown Brothers Harriman, the sole holder of the Skull and Bones corporate charter. The same notorious bank that financed Hitler's war machine via Prescott Bush and UBS who's steel and banking interests were found to be "Trading with the enemy" and confiscated by congress. And if I'm not mistaken it later became KBR Kellogg Brown and Root. That gave us a whole bunch more wars around the world.
Small world eh?
Great Article Ray, as always. Thank you.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
The comparison of Truman-MacArthur with Obama-McChrystal is monumentally ridiculous. Truman faced a potential fait-accompli by MA, namely a real shooting war with China. Nothing today in Afghanistan/Pakistan comes even close to the choice Truman had to make then. Compared to a real war with China anything in Afghanistan/Pakistan today is a tempest in a teapot.
Tell that to the men and women who are being sent to Afghanistan to fight and die - "Hey, troops, smile, compared to a real war with China, it's only a tempest in a teapot."
Wrong! I did not say that the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan is a tempest in teapot for the men and women who are sent there. I said that it is for the current commander-in-chief as compared to Truman who knew that a war with China would cost the lives of huge numbers of our soldiers as compared to what Obama faces. Pleas learn to read more carefully in the future.
So when you say "anything in Afghanistsan/Pakistan today is a tempest in a teapot.....", readers are supposed to realize that you intend for the word, anything, to exclude the slaughter of American troops and Afghan civilians? Please learn to be more explicit in the future.
"Are you a prisoner President Obama"?
Hugo Chavez
Unless Obama fears the people more than he fears the military, he will go with the military. In difficult economic times as severe as these, the military needs to back off. Nations decline from within too. Afghanistan is a war that we cannot afford to fight. The Chinese likely told Obama that they were uncomfortable lending to America given the unrealistic economic policies of the administration. Hopefully that will put an end to military expansionism for a while. A government jobs program is going to be necessary since the stimulus was so anemic. Obama should get rid of some generals and his economic team before they completely destroy the economy. He seems over his head in the job.
The only competition for Obama in 2011 is Palin. He has a year or so to get something and health care is not going to get him re-elected. He has so little power because the left is disgusted. I had a Dem fund raiser call me earlier and stay on the phone talking for twenty minutes, unsure if she was even wanting to raise funds.
No one suspected he would fix Israel, and the Pentagon, and the economy but if he turns on some jobs, he will be fine. I still doubt he has a Progressive agenda though. I'm not sure anyone in Washington does.
Obama could announce that the war is won and the Afghan troops can maintain order against the insurgents. However to allow continuing peace the US will maintain overflights of manned and drone aircraft.
He should tranfer McChrystal to Iraq and get the support of the Joints Chiefs and Air Force chief for this move, as well as the suppliers of the drones.
Constrained as he is this could well fit into what might be possible whereas increasing boots on the ground is furthering a multi-decade occupation.
Drones with their 90% civilian kill rate are not the answer for anything except, MIC wish list.
And aerial bombing is one of the Afghans greatest complainst and is incrasing the resistance to occupation.
Any assumption that President Obama totally disagrees with McChrystal/Petraeus is dangerous terrain. Based on Mr. Obama's printed interviews with the Chicago Tribune and his speeches at AIPAC I concluded and wrote in early 2008 that Mr. Obama was an imperialist who wanted to do "good in the world" whatever that meant. Remember his campaign mantra: "we will first change America and then the world"? I was ridiculed for calling that megalomania.
Obama, McChrystal, and Petraeus have similar views on Afghanistan. Their differences are on tactics but not on strategy. While President Obama talks tough on Afghanistan which he has repeatedly called: "a war of necessity and not of choice" his White House also leaks opposite drivel to propitiate his so-called progressive base such as statements to troops: "I will not send you in harms way unless absolutely necessary", something a Commander-in-Chief would not have to state publicly.
The original order of President Bush was, in essence, to start a "Police Action" in Afghanistan: "get Bin Laden and his cronies into court". It was unclear to me how long Bush intended our warriors to stay in that land. The so-called war in Afghanistan has remained very much a police action, albeit a failed/flawed one, during the Bush years. Candidate Obama made it clear that he thought that this was wrong, that Bush had become side-tracked in Iraq, and that the Taliban/terrorists/insurgents must now be brought to heel and Afghanistan rebuilt as a "democratic" nation by himself as a super-community adviser. Now that he is in the White House he realizes that he had been pretty naive about Afghanistan during his candidacy. His current so-called "dithering" is actually mostly a self-education on Afghanistan.
The strategy issue is not so much what McChrystal/Petraeus want. It is whether Mensch Obama will give up his imperialistic impulses towards the Middle East clothed in Utopian "do-good" slobbering. To do that he must above all admit to himself that he was terribly wrong in his political/military evaluations of Afghanistan. That is not an easy thing to do for a proud and slightly arrogant person.
If he does not do a self-confessional and give up his imperialistic impulses he will have to genuflect before the Pentagon because civilians cannot do the job for him.
Fire them all, Fire the joint chiefs of staff, Bernanke, TimmyG,
Call in the council of grandmothers.
The QUAGPIRE STRIKES BACK!
ABSOLUTE ---- TOP-DOWN
An absolute top-down dictatorship is Empire USA, since World War Two
perfection in worldwide plunder, and this could only happen if most
politicians were paid actors in complete submission to the multinational
rich.
Just think what would happen to a Captain who went around Mc with his comments as to how to run a war!!!
Obama wants to remain alive and he knows the Pentagon will have him killed if he does what he should do, which is to clean house. Again, Mr. McGovern speaks his own code rather than to say that the military took over this country long ago and the Faustian bargains since are a smoke screen for the military take over the world. He can't say it, even though lots of us know it because he would put himself in front of Obama at a time when I'm sure the assassins are lining up.
Until someone stands up to the lard asses in the Pentagon, and fires the whole lot, our children will continue to be sacrificed for lightweights, murderers and thieves. One no better than the other.
thong girl - great name
you are close but only half a cigar
the country is controlled by the corporations
the military is the enforcement wing of the corporate rape of the world but they are the last resort due to the expense
john perkins has laid all of this out in his book "confessions of an economic hit man"
from wiki:
"Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly-paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization."
here is his web site: http://www.johnperkins.org/
briefly he claims that while working for Chas. T. Main Inc. and in conjunction with our intelligence services his job as an economic hit man was to go to countries identified as having resources coveted by corporations and corrupt the political leaders.
ideally they would make unpayable loans to these countries where most of the funds are funneled back into american corporations
when the countries were unable to repay the loans they would have their economic policies dictated to them - usually referred to as restructuring - and the takeover is complete
when the leaders of these countries reject the bribes, perkins says, then the jackals are sent in - assassins and terrorists - to kill the leaders
when the jackals fail the corporations then send in the military - usually under the cover of spreading freedom and democracy or some other bullshit
saddaam hussein is an example of this kind of leader
two failures to corrupt by perkins own admission were:
Omar Torrijos of panama - killed by the cia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Torrijos
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán of guatemala - killed by the cia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_Arbenz_Guzm%C3%A1n
thong girl, due to the high costs the military is the choice of last resort
but they are employees not employers - that would be the corporations
If your concept be true, then all is lost and our slavery is forever. A mindless way of living if you ask me, just a do noting but live in fear frame of mind.
I'd like someone to ask the president if he is aware that when the Joint Chiefs chat amongst themselves, they refer to him as that "boy."
Why are we in AfPacistan?
Is it to sieze control for Unocal's unbuilt pipedream or is it to put more stars in General McMayhem's cap?
Is that why we are pouring out our blood and treasure? For some Multi-national's Corporate Hegemony?
We might just as well climb Mount Masada for the same results and we get to be with our families at the end.