Some good info from Jake Tapper:
In Wednesday’s meeting, Pentagon officials presented more details about four strategies — two from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and two others — but President Obama was not satisfied with their assessments.
Specicially, he pushed the generals to clarify how and when U.S. troops would be able to turn over responsibility to the Afghan government.
“The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government,” an administration official said, adding that the President “wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time to ensure a successful transition to our Afghan partner.”
I’m sure this will be met in greater Wingnuttia with abject horror, as they all have their marching orders from the Cheneys and will need to pursue the “dithering” story line no matter what. In fact, a quick perusal find that Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive is very close to soiling his camouflaged knickers:
If this is true then just about all the worst fears we had about Obama as Commander in Chief are coming true.
Meanwhile, Colonel Mustard, with his years of military and geopolitical training, offers up his sage advice:
Will someone tell our President this is not a term paper. You don’t get to move the paragraphs around, tweak the punctuation, and cut and paste until it reads just right.
I’m sure there is more, but why bother digging it all up? And while the usual suspects are all getting the vapors, it is probably worth remembering that the conservative position, back when there were actual conservatives, and not just reactionary loudmouths and know-nothing war-mongering idiots, was to weigh all the options before making momentous and important decisions. We even used to call it the “Powell Doctrine”:
The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:
1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?
Funny that. Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell, both of whom served under St. Ronald of Reagan, the man who single-handedly beat the Soviets. Now granted, the Powell Doctrine was there because some folks in the Pentagon and in the National Security apparatus actually learned some lessons from Viet Nam, and tried to avoid making that same mistake again. In fact, as Jake Tapper notes, someone with more brains than the 101st Chairborne is urging Obama to take his time:
“This is a very difficult one for him,” Powell said. “And it isn’t just a one-time decision. This is the decision that will have consequences for the better part of his administration. So Mr. President, don’t get pushed by the left to do nothing; don’t get pushed by the right to do everything. You take your time and you figure it out. You’re the commander-in-chief and this is what you were elected for.”
Powell said he had “advised him is to not be rushed into a decision because this one is the decision that will have consequences for years to come.”
The fact that Obama is concerned with details like timelines and a schedule for handing over control makes me feel about as positive as I have regarding the Afghan dilemma in a long, long time.
Zifnab
Wait, what does this have to do with Obama’s smoking habit?
Cat Lady
Colin Powell is black.
/Rush
Zifnab
If only Powell had been in a position of authority in the run up to the Afghan and Iraq invasions. Le Sigh.
He’s in a tough spot and he’s taking the situation seriously. I don’t think he’s going to make the mistakes of LBJ. He may make totally new mistakes. But I’ve never really doubted that Obama wants out of our two-front Asian land war as much as any on-the-street protester.
Redshirt
Glad to see a return of the Powell Doctrine, since, for no other reason, it should limit our involvement in future conflagrations.
General Winfield Stuck
And the Gawds honest truth is that the new Tea Bag Doctrine of kill them all now, would cast these hero wingnuts into the bonfire of libtard treason. They have turned right, put the pedal to the metal and pointed the clown car toward hell.
Keith
I love bringing up Fox n Friends because it’s so damn funny, but Gretchen Carlson’s theory on Powell’s “take your time” statement was not that the consequences are so momentous but because Powell wants to save face after having endorsed Obama. Unfortunately, the Dooce wasn’t able to match her chutzpah today.
sunsin
Indeed. I don’t remember any term papers of mine where a mistake ended up getting people f*cking well killed.
Do these people have any remote idea how asinine they sound?
Comrade Dread
Not to mention he now reportedly has the Afghan ambassador telling him not to send more troops since all we’d be doing is propping up a corrupt semi-dictatorship rife with drug dealers.
JM
I fully expected Obama to just go with the corrupt guy. That would have been the safe choice, politically. If things went to hell, he could always say “but I gave McCrystal the numbers he wanted.”
This is much more risky, and much more intelligent.
Derelict
Oh, Powell’s just saying all the because Obama’s black. [/RushLimbaughImitation]
General Winfield Stuck
A three star General no less. Another phony soldier gone weenie liberal.
Randy P
Yes, you do actually. This is a war of choice. Cheney diddled around there for 8 f-ing years. We have time to think about it. You write the strategy, you review it, and you make damned sure it “reads just right”. As in defines what the national security interests are and what the objectives are.
What the hell do these people have against having objectives when we are killing people and putting our own soldiers in harms way?
geg6
I am so heartened by his decision-making process that I can barely speak. I happy we have this intelligent, deliberative man running things. OTOH, I wish we’d had someone like this running things back in 2001. And that we didn’t chokes me up when reading about this.
Brick Oven Bill
Sun Tzu teaches us: Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
Obama’s behavior is typical for a person with no executive experience. He is scared of consequences. He does not know what to do. Afghanistan is a result of his debate tactic in the Primaries, that he learned at college, summarized as follows:
“Hillary you voted for the wrong war in Iraq, the correct war is Afghanistan.”
He voiced these words because the war in Afghanistan was relatively popular at the time, the war in Iraq was unpopular, and Obama is a man with little Character, who is willing to voice the words that are beneficial to him.
Now he has actual responsibility and does not know what to do. So I, as a concerned Citizen, will help him.
Get out of Afghanistan and let those people live at whatever level of society they can achieve. Bomb them if they get too organized and become a threat. There has never been, and never will be, a Thomas Jefferson in Afghanistan.
geg6
Damn, no edit.
At #13, that is meant to say, “I am happy we have this…”
Xanthippas
That NY Times article made it sound like the hard sell was on from Gates, Clinton and Mullen. I’m glad we have President who’s determined to explore all the options, even if in the end he doesn’t pick the one I personally agree with. At least he’s making an effort, and better someone like that be in charge of a war than someone who just figures we should send more troops because his advisors and generals say so. This is one of those examples of Obama being a clear and concrete step up from his predecessor.
Rick Massimo
Right. You don’t get to think stuff over; you go in there and kill people!!!!! (Wipes spittle, calms down breathing, checks pants to see that bulge has gone down)
Ahem. After all, it’s worked so well so far.
Viet Nam? A MISTAKE?
BURN HIM!!!!!!!!!!
Shawn in ShowMe
How long before Jane Hamsher and the Poutrage Lobby take credit for “pushing” Obama?
Randy P
More from Uncle Jimbo, whoever that is:
He really is against the concept of having objectives before you start shooting.
Will
I haven’t really followed Gene Lyons’ writing, but this piece at Salon contained some gems:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/11/11/republican_crazies
and
McDuckism. I think that one has legs.
feebog
BOB@14:
Never let facts get in the way of your ideology. Fact one, Bush was asked for additional troops in Afghanistan and turned down the request. Of course, he has already depleted his choices by upping the ante in Iraq. Obama has already authorized and deployed over 21,000 additional troops. Before we send any more troops is it too much to ask that we have an actual PLAN in mind? You know, something more than smoke ’em out and shoot ’em dead.
JM
BOB’s posts are typical of an autistic freak.
Sun Tzu also said “seek victory first, battle second.”
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
In an alternate Universe in which America is run by President Palin, Afghanistan is a smoldering, nuclear wasteland by now.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
This is a candidate for the Stupidest Thing Ever Said on Balloon-Juice.
Even for you, Brickhead Bill, remarkable, uber-spoofy in its absurdiness.
I especially like the “bomb them if they get too far out of line” theme. We are all Israelis now, eh?
Keep up the good work, Bill. Really, you are on a roll.
joe from Lowell
I certainly hope so. The worst military thinkers in American history – the people who assured us Saddam had WMDs and was working with bin Laden, the people who supported letting bin Laden escape so we could invade Iraq, the people who kept telling us that Arab Spring had come, the people who told us Iraqis would greet us as liberators – think that Barack Obama is going the wrong route.
Thank God.
The Grand Panjandrum
After reading a couple of these stories (that Obama wants an exit strategy) I wasn’t surprised to read this about his unscheduled stop at Section 60 in Arlington Cemetery yesterday.
It is a must read. At least he seems to fully understand the burden our military faces and he’s taking it very seriously.
JGabriel
Shorter Winguts:
.
joe from Lowell
I usually ignore BOB, but his lack of awareness of his self-pwnage here is too funny to ignore.
And he offers this sentiment as a criticism of Obama’s reticence to escalate the 8-year-old Afghan War without a timetable.
geg6
@joe from Lowell:
Word.
Rick Massimo
Did Sun Tzu land at Dieppe?
So shoot first and ask questions later, and ready, fire, aim. Literally.
Ash Can
Having to think with their other heads makes their dicks feel smaller.
joe from Lowell
If I were one of those “11-dimensional chess” types, which I’m not, but if I were, I’d take note of the fact that Republicans have spent the last week going on TV and insisting that they’d support whatever decision the president made.
I’d further note that they were saying this during a period in which it was assumed, without any real evidence, that Obama was going to choose from the various “stay the course” and “stay the course but escalate” options.
But I’m not an 11-dimensional chess type. I think the Republicans just have a habit of saying whatever they think is politically useful for that days’ news cycle, without looking down the road.
wilfred
Eventually someone will have to sit down with the Taliban; that’s the unspeakable, unthinkable truth. They’re all Once that happens, of course, the ideology created over the past 30 years or so will collapse leaving all sorts of openings for reasonable minded people. That’s the paradigm shift that thugs like Clinton et al. cannot abide.
I don’t trust Obama yet. If he stands up to the war pig he has a chance of becoming a great President, but floating test balloons in the media is not the same as just saying no. Wait a couple of weeks.
As an aside, I have a CV/application afoot with USAid Afghanistan. Based on the process so far, it is a peculiar organization to say the least.
Ron
This is one of the reasons I voted for Obama. I want someone to be deliberate when considering a decision involving a military conflict. I think Powell said it just right. Powell really screwed up badly with his UN presentation, but I think he’s done a lot since then to redeem himself.
donovong
I take great comfort in knowing full well that Obama does not give a flying fuck about the opinions of the armchair commandos (including, and especially the Cheneys).
donovong
@The Grand Panjandrum: Wow. Just wow. I can’t see to type.
Comrade Dread
Hey, BOB. I like pie too.
Banana Cream is my favorite.
El Cid
Observing Powell’s performance in Gulf War II, it appears that the vaunted “Powell Doctrine” was a bit more like “Powell’s Favorite Recipe Recommendations”.
Zifnab
@wilfred:
It’s going to be a lot easier if we stop calling them “The Taliban” and “The Al Ka-duh”. If Obama wants to pull the George Bush rhetorical trick, stop buying into the GOP lines.
The guys fighting in Afghanistan right now are about as much like the Taliban as we are like the USSR circa 1979. They’ve got a completely new leadership, completely different reasons for fighting, and radically different supporters and opponents. They’re no more the Taliban than I am a Dixiecrat.
Why would anyone claim to be “sitting down to talk to the Taliban” when we all know it’s public relations poison and it is tenuously true at best?
Da Bomb
@Shawn in ShowMe: THIS. Your comment needs to be in spotlights and have firecrackers shouting from it.
Ash
@The Grand Panjandrum: Thanks for the link to that article.
Just Some Fuckhead
I don’t think the Powell Doctrine (or the Bush Doctrine) are applicable once we are already in an intractable morass, like we are in Afghanistan. I think the only operating doctrine now is the Pursestrings Doctrine.
Citizen_X
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
DC, Moscow, and Beijing, too. (‘Lil problem with Mr. Atom: nuke usage tends to inspire panicky escalation. ‘S why they haven’t been used all that much.) Also, too, all those Air Force bases–equals: A Lot–in Alaska.
But hey: the 40,000 post-nuclear Alaskan survivors would then be independent! VICTORY!
soonergrunt
Let us note for the record that the Ambassador to Afghanistan, LTG (RET) Karl Eikenberry, is on record opposing a troop build-up:
Source: US Envoy objects to troop increase
Supposedly, the commander of US Special Operations Command, ADM Eric Olson is advocating a go-slow approach.
Last but not least, GEN McChrystal’s request for 40,000 personnel is based on what the current strategy is. It’s not a blackmail request or anything else. It says essentially that in his opinion, if you want to do a certain thing, then ideally you need a certain level of troops–the ideal “troop to task ratio” as all of the field manuals say.
@Brick Oven Bill:
As shown here, the actual people who are paid to think about such things disagree with you. So too would just about any marginally intelligent graduate of the Army’s lowest level leadership school.
IndieTarheel
@Brick Oven Bill: The level of absolute stupidity you express would leave Rich Lowry all starbursty, provided you did it in a red dress and pumps.
__
Thanks for reminding me what I needed to do to complete my system rebuild. Time for pie!
Tsulagi
Have respect for Powell, but would have been nice if Powell had honestly gone down the Powell Doctrine checklist prior to doing Iraq. Every question other than #7 would have been a ‘No’ answer. #7 would have been ‘Yes’ mainly due to the anger/fear soon after 9/11 and a good sales job by the Bush admin helped in no small measure by Powell.
Iraq would have happened with or without Powell’s support in the admin, but remember general, you were the credible voice within the admin selling the bullshit. Went a bit beyond being merely the good soldier supporting the mission after decided upon by civilian leadership.
Was bugged at Obama not more quickly implementing his campaign promises/rhetoric regarding Afghanistan and our mission in that area, but can see reason for the current delay. Afghanis are not big on central government, but what little there is is a fucking mess with zero cred. Just went though an election that would have a vote rigging banana republic dictator envious. Karzai’s brother, not only in the drug biz, but according to the NYT has been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years to create paramilitary forces. Wonderful.
wilfred
@Zifnab:
You’re wrong on all counts. Taliban as an ideological formation never really went away, while the loosely organized groups that carried the fight against the Soviets were either wiped out in the civil war or made hudna with Taliban when they took over center stage.
The motivations are different. Afghans are as much patriots as anyone else and will resist any occupation, however well meaning. As an umbrella term, Taliban is as useful as mujahadeen once was. Certainly they are carrying the fight.
Taliban arose from the Catastrophe, the destruction of the fabric of Afghan society brought on by the Soviets and exacerbated by the civil war, none of whose principal actors were anything remotely secular. The leader of Afghanistan has always been a Pashtun; the leadership of the Pashtuns is, at the moment, with Taliban.
Taliban stabilized Afghanistan after the civil war. They brought justice to people who had none. We’ve had 8 years of secular fantasy and we’re still discussing strategy. What have we brought?
BC
?
The worst thing to come out of Cheney – They (the troops) are volunteers. Seemingly, because we have a volunteer military, the powers-that-be are free to send them anywhere and treat them any old way. After all, they volunteered. I am so glad that Obama treats the volunteers as valuable citizens and makes sure he gives them the best strategy and tactics as well as knowing what the endpoint should be and metrics for success.
Anne Laurie
@Randy P:
The 101st Chairborne don’t get what passes them for stiffies when the Commander-in-Chief wastes his beautiful mind on strategery, instead of just going full-metal Chuck Norris.
For an authoritarian, there is no worse hell than having a leader whose philosophy extends beyond ‘kick ass & take names, or at least — kick ass.’
thomas
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Thank you
joe from Lowell
Collin Powell was not in the chain of command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was Secretary of State.
If Obama adopts a strategy of withdrawing from Afghanistan on a timeline while negotiating an acceptable political outcome, as he is doing in Iraq, are we going to give Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the credit?
Of course not; so don’t blame Powell for the fact that Cheney and Rumsfeld ignored his war-fighting advice.
An Outhouse
I hate to admit that Rumsfeld was partly correct. He didn’t want to do Afghanistan because there was nothing there to bomb. The reason there is nothing there is because there is no government, and there never really was one.
I don’t always agree with Nickolas Kristoff but he has a very good column here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29kristof.html
You can still help the Afghan people even if you have no military presence. Greg Mortenson has proven this.
Joel
correction: shouldn’t it be G.I. Joe underpants?
El Cid
@joe from Lowell: The Powell ‘doctrine’, basically a gloriously over-admired list of preferences for basic sane questions instead of warfighting fantasy (and it is a shame that our typical policies are so outrageously idiotic that a basic list of rational questions are seen as a brilliant and courageous insight), actually is not merely about how, but whether, to fight wars.
People who admire Powell can certainly see some subtle evidence of noble intentions regarding the 2nd US-Iraq war, and it’s certainly true that the Administration shut him out to the extent possible, but I really don’t see how Powell attempted in any way whatsoever, even the slightest, to truly use his Secretary of State position to push for those parts of his Doctrine which apply to his agency, which is the Cabinet agency responsible for the U.S.’ non-military foreign policy.
The Populist
I am one of these people who has followed the saga of one Casey Serin. I am not an active poster like some are but I check in to see what this idiot is doing from time to time. For those not in the know, he’s a 20-something “Christian” house flipper wannabe who bought 8 homes by lying on the paperwork. All the homes were purchased in a period of 3 months to allegedly duck the chance they show up on his credit reports.
Well, as you might guess he defaulted on all of them. He got cash back upfront on all and promptly did nothing to improve them so they can be resold at a profit.
He’s spent years trying to get that mojo back by using up his parent’s credit, he started a corporation, tried to write books and has had numerous chances to succeed by listening to the sage advice of others only to keep making the same mistakes he did last time. His whole M.O. is to throw as many dumb ideas against the net as he can to attract people who will give him money so he can act like a player.
Well, my point on Casey Serin is this. He is impulsive and complains that you do things for the moment. He spends a lot of time saying “time doesn’t exist” and argues against people who think ahead and plan for details. He’s the perfect republican.
If Obama needs time to make the right decision, he can have them. It’s better than watching Bush move as fast as possible on Iraq only to find out he didn’t cross one t or dot one i.
Joel
@wilfred: a beef with this
they also brought misery, oppression and violence to many more. never mind ethnic cleansing and other wonderful tidings. just because our occupation in afghanistan is a terrible mistake with horrible human cost doesn’t make the taliban any less villainous.
Mike in NC
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
matoko_chan
New sane American foreign policy–
Big White Christian Bwana go home
wilfred
@Joel:
I’m no supporter of Taliban, but I do know what it was like in Afghanistan when the civil war began; I can only imagine what it was like by the time it ended.
My own belief is in the gallant people of Afghanistan and their own inherent good sense. I believe that left to their own devices they would have put aside the nostalgia of Taliban for the 7th century Hijaz and arrived at what they had before 1977-79 – a deeply conservative, non-secular society that functioned within the framework of tribalism and a kind of Muslim presbyterianism.
I applauded when they hanged Najibullah – he deserved it. They brought a rough justice that I think would have eventually returned the country to what was really an almost idyllic past.
Anyone who was in Afghanistan before all this fell in love with it.
Mad Dogs
Rabid dogs need no thought process. If you’re not us, you’re them and you must be destroyed. See how simple it is?
OC
@sunsin: Of course not.
Brachiator
I applaud the president’s caution and deliberation. However, details like timelines are, I think, for public consumption. The idea that hard timelines or dates to hand over control can be accurately projected is a fantasy. The real question is what your military and political goals are, and the possibility of achieving them. The notion of handing over control to some Afghan national government presumes that there is something that can be done to establish and secure a stable, self-sustaining national political entity there.
sparky
@Brachiator: yes. depends on what exactly the real options being considered are. if this is just an exercise in how to make a fantasy more plausible it will likewise vanish in a puff of burning dollars and charred bodies.
i would like to believe in the hope of a real policy, but as most (NOT all) of what the Obama administration has been up to is pretending that a bad policy is fine so long as the procedure enabling it is improved from Bushville, i have my doubts.
i’d like to be wrong.
flukebucket
My favorite Sun Tzu soundbite is that “to win without fighting is best”
I am proud of Obama. He is thinking. And by thinking he is forcing those around him to think.
I get a kick out of those who say we must do something and we must do it NOW!
We have been there for 8 years. Whatever we do now needs to be well thought out with clear cut objectives and timelines.
kay
@sparky:
It’s a real difference, you’re right, but our whole system is based on this: “follow the process”. That’s it. That’s all. The Big Idea was really simple, and it doesn’t guarantee an outcome, although partisans always insist it does. It doesn’t.
Obama actually believes in process. Not individuals. Not in a guaranteed result. He makes the same bet the Founders did: that if he allows process he’ll end up with a “right” result, “right” being any one of many within a HUGE sphere.
It’s appealing to me, because I do too. I don’t really have faith in anything else, including Obama’s (or anyone else’s) personal judgment. That faith fails, because people fail.
His eventual decision might suck, in (our) opinion, and it may not even result in success (because the result isn’t guaranteed) but he’ll have run it through an orderly, sequential process, and looked for flaws and bias and that’s the best he can do.
That assumes good faith, of course, and I’m giving him that. I’m giving him the assumption that he has not made a decision.
Original Lee
@soonergrunt: If there were a level of enthusiastic applause above and beyond Standing O, I would be giving it to you right now.
trollhattan
The wingers recently decided on “dither” to describe the president’s Afghanistan decisionmaking, so I expect a winger dithersturm(tm), followed by intermittent dither showers in response to the latest.
Gazoogling yields 550k hits for “obama dither” and I tracked down what might perhaps be the source of the fusillade: an op-ed by the mustashioed cloaca himself.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bolton18-2009oct18,0,4090854.story
I loathe these asswipes and their gradeschool tactics. And intellects.
p.s. Bomb Iran now, please. Also.
gwangung
I suspect that Obama “dithers” because he realizes that ALL his options are shitty, and trying to discern which option is the least shittiest takes a lot of time and brainpower.
Brachiator
I hope that Obama and his people are junking the old conventional wisdom and seriously considering how the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan has mutated. The current edition of The New Yorker mentions some outstanding collections on what is happening there now (“DECODING THE NEW TALIBAN”)
Graeme
The Right made a lot more sense to me when they were against nation building.
8 years in, this is one hell of a nation building project.
Why don’t we just start calling Iraq and Afghanistan The (U.S.) Occupied Territories?
All the wingnuts and jeebus freaks can move there as settlers.
That said, I am so glad for the ‘dithering’ with an eye toward accountability and an exit strategy. That’s why I voted Donkey last year.
sheiler
Apologies to St Powell but ‘the left’ doesn’t want Obama to do nothing. We want the US out of both wars!
Tired of this boring binary false choice-a-teria.
Batocchio
Yes, Uncle Jimbo, who refuses to admit waterboarding is torture, pretends Abu Ghraib was the work of a few bad apples, and apparently claims we “won” in Iraq. I hope he’ll let those 4-5 million displaced Iraqis know! All that, plus this gem of reckless, incoherent idiocy: “You can’t set the circumstances for victory before you commit to trying to win one.”