Obama to Decide Future of US Commander in Afghanistan

[BigBadBrian]

Although I could have easily said those same "armchair" comments during the Bush Administration....

But the bottom line, and BBB knows this just as much as I do, Obama MUST relieve him, he MUST.... Like him, hate him, but Obama, Biden and Gates are directly in their chain of command and McChrystal's comments are absolutely insubordination.....

I agree on both counts. Somehow civilians in the White House and Pentagon, and this goes clear back to Rumsfeld and his lackeys in 2001, seem to think they know more than the commanders in the field.

McChrystal must be relieved, although this doesn't look good for Obama: firing two commanding generals in Afghanistan in the last year. I just wonder how this will affect the upcoming offensive.

[Nickdfresh]

It's not just the civilians at the White House and Pentagon, it's the brass too! Many of the people that fucked up the Iraq War were people like Gen. Tommy Franks, who fled the minute the initial shooting stopped and let things fall into an insurgency...

NYT: General faces unease from 'handcuffed' troops
McChrystal's problems reach beyond White House as GIs resent restrictions
By C.J. Chivers
The New York Times
updated 7:49 a.m. ET, Wed., June 23, 2010

Riding shotgun in an armored vehicle as it passed through the heat and confusion of southern Afghanistan this month, an Army sergeant spoke into his headset, summarizing a sentiment often heard in the field this year.

“I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said to a reporter in the back. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.”

The sergeant was speaking of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and the circle of counterinsurgents who since last year have been running the Afghan war, and who have, as a matter of both policy and practice, made it much more difficult for troops to use airstrikes and artillery in the fight against the Taliban.

No matter the outcome of his meeting on Wednesday in Washington over caustic comments he and his staff made about President Obama and his national security team, the general, or his successor, faces problems from a constituency as important as his bosses and that no commander wants to lose: his own troops.

As levels of violence in Afghanistan climb, there is a palpable and building sense of unease among troops surrounding one of the most confounding questions about how to wage the war: when and how lethal force should be used.

Since last year, the counterinsurgency doctrine championed by those now leading the campaign has assumed an almost unchallenged supremacy in the ranks of the American military’s career officers. The doctrine, which has been supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations, rests on core assumptions, including that using lethal force against an insurgency intermingled with a civilian population is often counterproductive.

Rules tightened
Since General McChrystal assumed command, he has been a central face and salesman of this idea, and he has applied it to warfare in a tangible way: by further tightening rules guiding the use of Western firepower — airstrikes and guided rocket attacks, artillery barrages and even mortar fire — to support troops on the ground.

“Winning hearts and minds in COIN is a coldblooded thing,” General McChrystal was quoted as telling an upset American soldier in the Rolling Stone profile that has landed him in trouble. “The Russians killed 1 million Afghans, and that didn’t work.” COIN is the often used abbreviation for counterinsurgency.

The rules have shifted risks from Afghan civilians to Western combatants. They have earned praise in many circles, hailed as a much needed corrective to looser practices that since 2001 killed or maimed many Afghan civilians and undermined support for the American-led war.

But the new rules have also come with costs, including a perception now frequently heard among troops that the effort to limit risks to civilians has swung too far, and endangers the lives of Afghan and Western soldiers caught in firefights with insurgents who need not observe any rules at all.

Young officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.”

Some rules meant to enshrine counterinsurgency principles into daily practices, they say, do not merely transfer risks away from civilians. They transfer risks away from the Taliban.

Firefights drag on
Before the rules were tightened, one Army major who had commanded an infantry company said, “firefights in Afghanistan had a half-life.” By this he meant that skirmishes often were brief, lasting roughly a half-hour. The Taliban would ambush patrols and typically break contact and slip away as patrol leaders organized and escalated Western firepower in response.

Now, with fire support often restricted, or even idled, Taliban fighters seem noticeably less worried about an American response, many soldiers and Marines say. Firefights often drag on, sometimes lasting hours, and costing lives. The United States’ material advantages are not robustly applied; troops are engaged in rifle-on-rifle fights on their enemy’s turf.

One Marine infantry lieutenant, during fighting in Marja this year, said he had all but stopped seeking air support while engaged in firefights. He spent too much time on the radio trying to justify its need, he said, and the aircraft never arrived or they arrived too late or the pilots were reluctant to drop their ordnance.

“I’m better off just trying to fight my fight, and maneuver the squads, and not waste the time or focus trying to get air,” he said.

Several infantrymen have also said that the rules are so restrictive that pilots are often not allowed to attack fixed targets — say, a building or tree line from which troops are taking fire — unless they can personally see the insurgents doing the firing.

This has lead to situations many soldiers describe as absurd, including decisions by patrol leaders to have fellow soldiers move briefly out into the open to draw fire once aircraft arrive, so the pilots might be cleared to participate in the fight.

The grand puzzle
Moments like those bring into sharp relief the grand puzzle faced by any outside general trying to wage war in Afghanistan. An American counterinsurgency campaign seeks support from at least two publics — the Afghan and the American. Efforts to satisfy one can undermine support in the other.

Video: McChrystal profile author surprised at fallout
The restrictions on using fire support are part of a larger bundle of instructions, known as rules of engagement, that guide decisions on how troops can interact with Afghans, and how they can fight. The rules have shifted frequently over the years, becoming tighter and tighter.

Each change, often at the urging of the government of President Hamid Karzai, has shown the delicacy of the balance.

NATO needs the Afghan government’s support. But restrictions that are popular in Kabul have often alienated soldiers and Marines whose lives are at stake, including rules that limit when Western troops can enter Afghan homes. Such rules, soldiers and Marines say, concede advantages to insurgents, making it easier for them to hide, to fight, to meet and to store their weapons or assemble their makeshift bombs.

It is an axiom of military service that troops gripe; venting is part of barracks and battlefield life. Troops complain about food, equipment, lack of sleep, delays in their transportation and the weather where they work.

Complaints about how they are allowed to fight are another matter and can be read as a sign of deeper disaffection and strains within the military over policy choices. One Army colonel, in a conversation this month, said the discomfort and anger about the rules had reached a high pitch.

“The troops hate it,” he said. “Right now we’re losing the tactical-level fight in the chase for a strategic victory. How long can that be sustained?”

Whatever the fate of General McChrystal, the Pentagon’s Afghan conundrum remains. No one wants to advocate loosening rules that might see more civilians killed. But no one wants to explain whether the restrictions are increasing the number of coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base, and seeding disillusionment among those sent to fight.

This article, "General Faces Unease Among His Own Troops, Too," first appeared in The New York Times.


Copyright © 2010 The New York Times

[ELVIS]

If Obama doesn't fire this him..then his presidency is a sham..and that makes Elvis look legititmate...Gawd help us...

He should be relieved of his command, but his comments give yet more insight into this administration's total lack of leadership and shows how out of touch with reality they really are...

Either way, it's a SHAM

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Word is he's out, Obama to speak in a few minutes....

[BigBadBrian]

Word is he's out..

...and that Petraeus is in.

[Jagermeister]

AP Source: Obama ousts Afghan commander McChrystal

By JENNIFER LOVEN and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers Jennifer Loven And Anne Gearan, Associated Press Writers – 3 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday, choosing the embattled general's direct boss — Gen. David Petraeus — to take over the troubled 9-year-old war, a source told The Associated Press.

McChrystal was summoned to Washington from Kabul to explain scathing, mocking remarks about administration officials, including Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, by him and his team in a magazine article. But the morning showdown with Obama in the Oval Office was not enough to save his job.

McChrystal offered his resignation and Obama accepted it, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the president's decision was not yet made public.

Obama planned to speak at 1:30 p.m. EDT from the Rose Garden, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the controversy.

Petraeus, who attended a formal Afghanistan war meeting at the White House Wednesday, now oversees the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq as head of U.S. Central Command.

By pairing the decision on McChrystal's departure with the name of his replacement, Obama is seeking to move on as quickly as possible from the firestorm surrounding the Rolling Stone magazine story and the renewed debate over his Afghanistan policy that it provoked.

With Washington abuzz about this controversy, there was an almost complete lockdown on information about the morning's developments. It was not even known where McChrystal went after his half-hour meeting with Obama at the White House, which came not long after his early morning arrival from Afghanistan.

Petraeus is the nation's best-known military man, having risen to prominence as the commander who turned around the Iraq war in 2007. The Afghanistan job is actually a step down from his current post.

Petraeus has a reputation for rigorous discipline and careful attention to his image. He keeps a punishing pace — spending more than 300 days on the road last year.

Petraeus briefly collapsed during Senate testimony last week, apparently from dehydration. It was a rare glimpse of weakness for a man known as among the military's most driven.

He is also among the brightest, and rose to command through a mix of brains and now has been adapted for Afghanistan.

Petraeus has repeatedly denied that he plans to run for president in 2012, and is said to want only one job: chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the hearing last week, Petraeus told Congress he would recommend delaying the pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011 if need be, saying security and political conditions in Afghanistan must be ready to handle a U.S. drawdown.

That does not mean Petraeus is opposed to bringing some troops home, and he said repeatedly that he supports the new Afghanistan strategy that Obama announced in December. Petraeus' caution is rooted in the fact that the uniformed military — and counterinsurgency specialists in particular — have always been uncomfortable with fixed parameters.

[Nickdfresh]

Well, Gen. McChrystal should have been happy, as he used that intimidation to goad Obama into spending trillion$ on his "COIN" baby in a nation where I don't think we have a whole lot of vital interests anymore...

And while I respect Stanley McChrystal as a warrior, I've read he's alienated a lot of folks (I read an article on him months ago where he intimated that Gen. Peterus was a dandy and that he didn't like him), both military and civilian and runs with a posse of group-thinkers posing as renegades. And while that quote is in the article, the article goes onto explain a tense meeting where Obama wasn't quite as "intimidated" and basically told the general to shut the fuck up and keep his head down in the press.

In the end, if the war is going badly--and I think it is--he can talk shit about Obama all he wants (which I think is overstated here). But McChrystal (in the parts of the article you didn't quote) is under fire from his own troops for second guessing his combat commander junior officers and NCOs. And he's taken heat for overstepping into the political arena and undermining everyone by allowing a free-for-all with visiting politicians, both Dem and Repub, that destroys any political cohesiveness while basically shilling for the ineffective Hamid "Mayor of Kabul" Karzai, thusly doing the very thing he sought to avoid--pandering to an ineffective, corrupt regime just like we did with those Saigon RVN dictator-faggots in Vietnam...

In the end, you can't just fight against something nebulous like al Qaida, terrorism, or the Taliban. You have to fight FOR something, something we are apparently incapable of learning...

[Guitar Shark]

And the countdown to the book tour begins.

[ELVIS]

I might read such a book...

[Nickdfresh]

Read "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks...

It would give you a lot of insight into this stuff...

[Catfish]

Unless this is interfering with the job he was sent out there to do, I don't see the point in any of this.

This "sending people to the principals office" for saying what they feel is getting a bit ridiculous.

He's a United States General, and they're taking him away from his job (which is defending America) to sit in the fucking "time-out" chair.

The fact that he's apologizing so profusely is more disturbing than anything else.......

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The pussiest president ever just trying to look like Mr. Toughguy.

[Catfish]

All you did was weaken a nation!

[Blaze]

Well, Gen. McChrystal should have been happy, as he used that intimidation to goad Obama into spending trillion$ on his "COIN" baby in a nation where I don't think we have a whole lot of vital interests anymore...

And while I respect Stanley McChrystal as a warrior, I've read he's alienated a lot of folks (I read an article on him months ago where he intimated that Gen. Peterus was a dandy and that he didn't like him), both military and civilian and runs with a posse of group-thinkers posing as renegades. And while that quote is in the article, the article goes onto explain a tense meeting where Obama wasn't quite as "intimidated" and basically told the general to shut the fuck up and keep his head down in the press.

In the end, if the war is going badly--and I think it is--he can talk shit about Obama all he wants (which I think is overstated here). But McChrystal (in the parts of the article you didn't quote) is under fire from his own troops for second guessing his combat commander junior officers and NCOs. And he's taken heat for overstepping into the political arena and undermining everyone by allowing a free-for-all with visiting politicians, both Dem and Repub, that destroys any political cohesiveness while basically shilling for the ineffective Hamid "Mayor of Kabul" Karzai, thusly doing the very thing he sought to avoid--pandering to an ineffective, corrupt regime just like we did with those Saigon RVN dictator-faggots in Vietnam...

In the end, you can't just fight against something nebulous like al Qaida, terrorism, or the Taliban. You have to fight FOR something, something we are apparently incapable of learning...

I noticed this popped up the other day. First in the AP on the 14th, then in the DOD on the 15th.

You are right, you can't fight a concept. All that can be done is help refine the concept to something workable.
Think about it, if your culture did not have Lady Gag-Gag, Lil Wayne, and so much other "social" aspects that are unregulated ( industrialized farming IE McDonald's) unaccountable information ( Fox, Rush Limba,) a place to be heard you have to be outlandish ( Colbert and Jon).
I could imagine being and saying Strongly : Holy Shit! Cover the woman! Cover yourselves! Monitor the presses! We don't want THAT here! And a final glance at Nigeria would confirm the conclusion. Keep the cancer away at all costs!


That said.... Here are the clips and a few I see are not on here yet.


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



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[Blaze]

And on a side note funny....
Biden is really does look like Sam the Eagle. :D

[Nickdfresh]

All you did was weaken a nation!

Oh look, another douche that's never served with an opinion about all things badass!