Thursday, October 15, 2009

Dear President Obama - Get It In Writing


And please ensure it has Stan McChrystal's and David Petraeus' signatures on the bottom of the page. Word is that President Barack Obama has given in to the thinly veiled arm-twisting of Afghan commander, General Stan McChrystal, and Stan's boss, even bigger General and future Republican presidential hopeful, David Petraeus, and will send another 40-45,000 American troops to Afghanistan.


As far as I can tell, the Pentagon is trying to play "Pin the Debacle" on the new president by leaving him two choices (carefully leaked to the media of course): give us another 40,000 troops or take personal responsibility for our failure in Afghanistan for the past eight years.


Perhaps Obama sees what they have in store for him if he doesn't give in to their tantrum. Well he's not the first political leader and he won't be the last to get strongarmed by incompetent military bosses. But that doesn't mean that he can't - and shouldn't - demand a few concessions of his own.


David Petraeus. This guy has some explaining to do. Make that a lot of explaining. He's been stirring the pot over there since the first Bush term. Why wasn't he twisting Bush's arm for more troops four or five years ago when the Taliban resurgence began? Just what has he been doing these past five years? Oh that's right, the "surge" in Iraq, a fine bit of sleight of hand by which Petraeus could claim the victor's laurels for pretty much nothing. Why 40,000 and why now? I think Obama should ask Petraeus to respond to those questions in essay form.


And Stan McChrystal. This character says he needs 40,000 troops or else America loses Afghanistan. But Stan is long on dire threats and fantastically short on promises. Stan needs to explain just what he promises (that's right, p-r-o-m-i-s-e) to achieve with those 40,000 soldiers. Something tangible, something measurable. So far none of these Pentagon jackasses, not one, has done what they were sent there to do. One after another, they've all put in their time, got their ticket punched, and handed the mess off to the next guy just in time to retire.


Somebody from the Pentagon, preferrably McChrystal and Petraeus, should explain how the omnipotent United States military screwed this up so badly for the past eight years. (We should also get a few answers from Canada's military brass to the same questions) There's this pattern of consistent failure evidenced in the West's military leadership. Somehow, some way they've become dysfunctional, worse than useless.


The way I see it, not one of these bemedalled clowns is willing to admit that they haven't got a clue how to 'win' anything in Afghanistan which is why they've lowered the bar to a goal of simply "not failing." These guys are shooting for a low D, not a B, not even a C. All their threats and warnings and advice are given in the context of hoping to achieve a low D. Yeah, that's some winning team, no?

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