September 23rd, 2009
Team Obama debates Pakghanistan in big confused way
Today in the Times: an excellent followup to the Sunday-Monday explosion of Team Obama’s Pakghanistan policy debate into public view.
Clearly: The Administration is alarmed. And has nothing like a consensus within its walls. And seems to have no good practical options.
Biden’s notion is perhaps the best (of those detailed). But amounts to advocating terrorism plain and simple: more mass murderous smart bombs and special force attacks in Pakistan, while giving up any hope (good idea) of dominating the fearsome land and diverse tribal powers of Afghanistan.
ed says:
And now here’s McChrystal, live from wherever he is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/asia/24general.html
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
ed says:
Washington Post says it delayed publishing the 66-page McChrystal Report at the Pentagon’s request.
Pentagon told the Post that publishing the report would endanger soldiers.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
ed says:
Looking all the way back to August 2008, when we began to attack Pakistan …
It does seem — given the confusion and danger this week’s revelations have … revealed — that worries about Petraeus as son of Lansdale may have been justified.
My Captain, My Captain …
Hard to see how Obama might have played the dealt hand differently.
Might he have said, while debating McCain: We’re getting out of Iraq — and we’re getting out of Afghanistan too?
It would have been harder to say, and harder then to sell himself as Ready to Be Commander in Chief. By endorsing (in unison with McCain) the new Gates-Mullen strategy for Pakghanistan, Obama was able to Seem Tough.
And that’s important when running for president.
But the whole setup is beginning to look perfectly Tragic. Johnson gave the Pentagon its Vietnam war (in 1965), but Obama is certainly inheriting Afghanistan.
Well, the ship of state seems to be reducing speed, if not yet changing course.
There would be no easy way for Obama to tell the Pentagon and CIA that, contrary to plans and campaign promises, he’s turning off their big Aimless war. “You and what army?” would be the gist of the reply.
Perhaps this week, then, is the beginning of the best possible world in this sphere. When in a hole, stop digging.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
ed says:
More detail — very important — about divisions within the Apparat about the basic Pakghanistan policy.
SoS Hillary and Special Rep Holbroke are lining up behind Petraeus and McChrystal.
Hillary was clearly the Pentagon’s friend going into last year’s elections (a result of serving on the Armed Services committee) — one reason why I wasn’t thrilled with notion of putting her at State.
Gates, however, is portrayed as being somewhat on the fence. Interesting.
And clearly against Surging Further are not only Biden (whom I respect in this sphere) but:
– Gen. James Jones, the National Security Advisor
– Colin Powell
– CoS Rahm Emanuel (who I’ve come to like, having heard him speak a number of times)
– Senators John Kerry and Jack Reed, both of whom have the Prez’s ear.
SO. There seems to be quite a bit of weighty, even brassy opinion against digging the hole deeper.
If somebody would only articulate a War Aim. Laugh or cry, at least a coherent dialog and analysis might take shape.
But Community Policing in perpetuity is not a War Aim. (It means forever, more or less, without necessarily engaging the nominated enemy, let alone defeating…)
So, again … Why do the Pentagon and affiliated Owner-Operators want to be over there forever?
Surely there’s a reason?
Surely it’s not simply that they want to play with toys?
It’s bracing that Jones seems to see that neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda (for different reasons) are things an Army can dismantle. The one is a loose alliance of sand dunes. The other an association that lives largely and will die between the member ears.
And Obama clearly understands that — his whole broad approach, from the Cairo speech thru this past week’s before the UN — is about truly winning the hearts and minds of a critical mass within the islamic world, by showing, for the first time since 1954, some f#&#$ng respect.
That IS the true way.
But don’t ask Israel or its lobbyists to agree, and
it can’t be accomplished with guns and bombs.
The good news today is that:
– Jones seems to be on Obama’s side.
– Colin Powell is speaking up.
– Biden-Kerry-Reed constitute quite a front in Congress.
It’s good news because Obama would lose his head trying to turn the war off alone.
“Yeah, punk? You and what army?”
September 26th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
ed says:
Yesterday: David Brooks in the Times did his very best to argue that we must, indeed, dig the hole deeper — and to pressure Obama with his own (Obama’s) prior rhetoric.
Not bad, not bad …
But nevertheless wrong. For reasons I’ve been blathering about for a year.
The bit of testimony he cites and links to is worthwhile, and worth talking about.
But honey, not today ….
September 26th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
ed says:
And, of course, just days after opening the can of worms on the Sunday talk shows, the Prez went on Letterman.
Pretty stiff — maintaining the Wait a Second view. No more boots until there’s a, gee, a plan.
September 27th, 2009 at 1:14 am
ed says:
Another poll showing the Pakistanis are angry about the American missile attacks.
Three our of four say Yanks Go Home, even with Obama.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
ed says:
McChrystal says more is better and we better get crackin’. Rejects Biden notion to scale down.
Thus, it seems, at odds with NS Advisor General James Jones.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:21 am
ed says:
Aha, the Onion has a timely report re Paki outrage over the White House’s preemptive deployment of Hillary Clinton over there.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
ed says:
Story on the and demand/request for more troops.
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:01 am
ed says:
Gates rebukes McChrystal for going public with policy ideas on Pakghanistan.
And assures public that the Pentagon will faithfully execute the President’s decisions.
Supports the notion that serious dissent exists across the river.
Suggests (second time now) that Gates perhaps leans more toward the White House than the brass.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
ed says:
The latest leader of the so-called Pakistan Taliban holds a press conference.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/05/world/AP-AS-Pakistan-Taliban-Leader.html
October 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
ed says:
Late afternoon, Gibbs, the White House press man, at a preference conference says Obama has no intention of pulling out of Afghanistan.
“I don’t think we have the option to leave. That’s quite clear.”
Clear as mud. But the question of sending more troops remains unsettled and on the table.
Any number of ways to read this. The NY Times headline, over the shoddily written AP story, chooses one.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/05/us/politics/AP-US-US-Afghanistan.html
October 5th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
ed says:
Yet again. Senior Pakistani officials: Yankees go home.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/world/asia/06islamabad.html?hp
October 5th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
ed says:
Obama says recent attacks have crippled Al Qaeda.
Good perhaps. Declare victory and go home …?
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/obama-talks-up-counterterrorism-efforts/?hp
October 6th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
ed says:
Major meetings underway.
Pulling Out not an option.
But it seems Obama is indeed resisting sending more.
So McCain warns darkly of “half measures.”
But (Times says) “John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said after the meeting that “it would be irresponsible” to send more troops until it became clear “what is possible in Afghanistan.”
That’s the crux.
Obama, by trying to play the middle, is in an almost intractable mess.
Largely tragic, but in part his own doing.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
ed says:
Times reports that Obama’s Nat’l Sec advisors have decided the Taliban is not a threat in Afghanistan.
We are at war with Eurasia and we have always been at war with Eurasia. Never mind! We are at war with East Asia and we have always been at war with East Asia …
And Washington Post reports the White House’s experts now believe “there are few, if any, links between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan today and senior Al Qaeda members.”
This Post piece is a major story. See and read.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
ed says:
Big car bomb, on street between Indian embassy and Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul.
Twelve dead at first count, 82 wounded.
Indians believe they were the target and Paki folk, of course, behind it.
What is the American War Aim over there? Defeat Terror? It will never be done with guns.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:42 am
ed says:
Gore Vidal’s assessment of the Obama-Pentagon relationship, from a recent Independent interview:
See more here.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
ed says:
Rebellious forces in Pakistan cap a violent, bloody week with the assault and capture (however temporary it may prove) of a major Paki Army headquarters.
Just outside Islamabad. Perhaps having hoped to bag the Army’s top commander.
Brazen stuff. After attacks on a UN office and on the people of Peshwar earlier in the week.
This as the Pakghanistan policy debate in Washington reaches its crescendo. It would seem the so-called Pakistan Talliban don’t want the Yankees to go home after all.
Let’s go to a new thread to continue following the whither and wherefore in Washington D.C.
October 10th, 2009 at 2:37 pm