It’s good thing we fired the guy who bitched about Obama over a few beers to a Rolling Stone writer. It’s much better to have our commander in Afghanistan giving hour-long interviews to the New York Times undermining the President’s strategy there.
Saint David
by $8 blue check mistermix| 63 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®
cleek
how did he do that?
The Grand Panjandrum
I know the President’s stated goal is to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011. (He also had a stated goal of shutting down Gitmo.) This could very well be the opening round of PR laying the ground work to sell the public on the idea that the Administration wants to keep forces a current levels beyond the 2011 deadline. I’d have to watch the MTP appearance to have a better sense of what is actually being said here, but I just can’t bring myself to watch that Howdie Doodie looking dickhead from NBC.
low-tech cyclist
And shame on him for daring to criticize W’s handling of Afghanistan!
mr. whipple
@The Grand Panjandrum:
If you can’t bear to watch, you need The Bobblespeak Translations.
Allison W.
@The Grand Panjandrum:
He didn’t just state goals on Gitmo, he also took action on and Congress stopped him.
Keith G
Re Gen P:
Obama does not do precipitous.
And a majority of Obama’s base is dead set against it.
It’s gonna be interesting.
Paul W.
Mastermix, a little elaboration would be nice for those of us on busy Monday schedules. I saw this headline elsewhere, but also saw that Gates (an actual arm of the WH) continues to defend the timeline saying it is “set in stone”.
So, push come to shove (after Obama proved that no one man is going to dictate the military’s strategy when he fired McCrystal) I would put my money on Gates and Obama following through. Someone tell me why I am wrong, and someone also please tell me why the left continues to demonize Gates when he has been the foremost advocate for draw-downs on our imperial vestigial military forces abroad as well as the gross amount of overspending that goes on here at home.
jonst
Obama is getting exactly what he deserves. It never even dawns on anyone, anymore, to do something that would be perceived as radical. Like get the fuck out of Afghan now. This is not even seen as option. Or firing Petraus. None of this even contemplated, much less carried out. Ok fine, you want the status quo, or something damn near like it, you want to fiddle fuck around with the same people that helped keep the nation in these wars, fine. You deal with the consequences.
It has been so long since an American President contemplate a radical change in policy, in any policy, I don’t know when it happened last. LBJ maybe? On the civil rights front. But that’s about it.
So Dems, play cautious. Go ahead….see what it buys you. They boot you out after one term, or they impeach you. I would hope Obama would at least want to go out, relatively speaking, on his own terms. Guess not.
soonergrunt
How is it undermining the president to say that the president told me to give him my best advice, and that’s what I’m going to do?
Linda Featheringill
This whole foray into interview-land could have been a way to float an idea out into the public and see what the reaction was.
And it is possible that Petraeus actually believes that Afghanistan is winnable and is pushing for this on the inside as well, through channels and such.
I’m not a big fan of Petraeus and believe that he could be wrong, but I kind of doubt that he is acting in a fit of rebellion against Obama.
He does know the chain of command.
soonergrunt
@Paul W.:
Because Secretary Gates was originally hired by Bush, and because liberals are every bit as capable of knee-jerk reactionary behavior as conservatives. SATSQ.
soonergrunt
@Linda Featheringill:
Anybody who’s watched him over the last couple of years should know that he’s loyal to his boss, whoever that boss may be.
As the commander on the ground, he gets to say “I’ll give the President the most appropriate advice I can give him according to the situation I see.”
The fact that Obama actually takes advice and makes decisions based on that advice was supposed to be one of the things that set him apart from his predecessor who was known for making up his mind on the spot and never changing it in the face of overwhelming data.
I guess that some people have an intense dislike of the President doing what he thinks is right based on observation and advice of his people instead of doing whatever it is that they want him to do.
matoko_chan
The way COIN could work is if we pivot from trying to “stand up” westernstyle democracy at the village level to bricolaging the existing substrate to form representative islamic government. that means making the mosque the local influence hub of the trusted network (which it is already) and using the imams and shayyks to recruit police and defense forces. that they might be islamic police should not be a consideration. we need to gtfo because we cant “win”. We didnt “win” in Iraq and people are going to start noticing.
that might be a hill too steep for Petraeus to climb.
That sounds like the same old crap COIN strat that is unravelling in Iraq.
i think….he was doing damage control before the next wikileaks drop, the 15k docs Assange is redacting right now, and the Garani massacre video which Assange claims to have. those two events will be extremely powerful drivers of the news cycle.
he is saying he won’t be driven.
stuckinred
@jonst: Do you need the link to Firedog lake? I think you got lost.
morzer
He then giggled, rolled over on the floor, barked like a dog and handed out free Whoopee cushions to the assembled media creatures, before leading a rousing chorus of “I’m so beautiful”.
david mizner
This was likely the deal.
King David: Alright, I’ll take over and give you cover so that you can get rid of Stanley, but no more of this silly withdrawal talk.
Obama: I was only talking about a few troo–
KIng David: Do we have a deal?
Obama. Yes, sir. Deal.
mistermix
Yeah, you’re right, I should have elaborated more.
If you read the first three paragraphs of the story, it’s all about hedging the withdrawal date. We’re 11 months out and he’s already saying that he will need more time.
I thought he should have the common courtesy to wait until 6 months out, at least.
homerhk
It is a General’s job to say what he needs in terms of military resources to complete the mission given by the President and civilian heads of the military. It is the President and other civilian leaders’ jobs to decide the mission and/or to decide whether the resources required justify the particular mission.
I don’t see anything wrong in Petraeus saying that the timeline will be conditions based – according to military analysis. He clearly stated in the MTP that the President is the one who will decide the overall strategy but that the President had asked him to give unvarnished advice. I would be fearful if that wasn’t the case.
Makoto on the wikileaks thing, I know we have gone a few rounds on this but do you have any view on the following:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2010309,00.html
harlana
I don’t know why it is reactionary to want us to get the heck out of Afghanistan. It is heartbreaking to know all this money is being poured into another pointless military adventure, money that could be used here at home to create jobs and improve the economy. I guess I am just a naive fool.
The funny thing is, I don’t even consider myself a liberal, I never have. But I find myself defending liberals on here. I am not anti-Obama at all, although he used to frustrate the hell out of me, I won’t lie. I now just look at him as the “Daddy” whose wisdom I no longer question, I put my life into his hands and am grateful for the unemployment extensions that allow me to live off the streets. After a few years of this kind of demoralization, you start to think in those pathetic terms of helplessness. There is no energy, time or money for activism of any kind. It’s about self-preservation.
But yeah, I’m sorry, I wish we would leave and focus all our resources on turning this country around – a more worthwhile accomplishment.
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: when i was at work still before coming back to school, our research group had contracts (C-RADs) with SOF. those guys absolutely believe that given the right mecha they can do anything. that is what McC and Petraeus remind me of. McC basically quit/got fired because he knew he couldn’t meet the goals that he, Petraeus, Mullen and Gates promised to meet with pop-centric COIN and the mini-surge. McC was SOF, i don’t know about Petraeus.
Keith G
@morzer: Great imagery.
mclaren
As predicted.
Remember my standing bet that America will not have drawn down its military forces (army + mercs) in Iraq or Afghanistan by late 2016?
Still no takers.
Devastating profile of The Smooth Liar With Four Stars by Andrew Bacevich: “Sycophant Savior.” Petraeus’ only loyalty is to the continuation of the endless gravy train on which he and his fellow four-star incompetent cowards ride to riches and a posh retirement over the corpses of American soldiers like Pat Tillman.
Alwhite
@soonergrunt:
By doing it on the pages of the NYT?
But really this guy is soooo much better than the last guy because moveon.org ran that horrible ad about his phony testimony before Congress & said a mean thing about him. This made every Democrat in Congress have to don sackcloth and ashed and beg forgiveness on the House floor.
Therefore he must be the bestest ever.
morzer
@Keith G:
Thanks! I am sorry, but I’ve heard all these objectives before, and I don’t believe Petraeus, or any one else, can achieve them in Afghanistan. Karzai is weak, corrupt and widely despised, the Afghan “army” is a rabble, the country is split between the same ethnic groups that have feuded across it for centuries, most of the so-called provincial governors are warlords with a little extra gold braid, and the Taliban are providing quicker, cheaper, more reliable justice.
I am all for turning Afghanistan into the Asian version of Iowa, I just haven’t seen any reason to believe that we have the capacity to do so.
matoko_chan
@homerhk: i think that is more warpimp spin.
Assanges insurance policy.
there are three important things in the subtext of the military refusing to help excise afghan names in danger of compromise.
1. We are losing an unwinnable war. That is what wikileaks shows. Its not a yawn. Its the pure-D revelation that COIN is failing.
2. We have lost moral authority on the war. Manning didn’t get paid. He is a true believer. I personally think he was helped, because the first leak Assange put out, the collateral murder video, was shot in Baghdad in 2007. Even in SECRET facilities there is need-to-know. Manning would have never seen that in course of his tasking, he was Afghan theater only.
3. They don’t know what Assange has. They know he has the 15k docs he is working on, and the Garani massacre video…..an order of magnitude worse than the collateral murder video.
Keith G
@harlanaSince the Afghanistan conflict is not existential to us, it is proper that it considered in political term, first and last.
Short of Gen P magically changing hearts and minds of a good deal of the Afghanistan elite, Obama can not get reelected if he is not living up to his original time line. We will be leaving or we definitely will be getting a new President.
mclaren
Am I the only one who read that interview with Petraeus and immediately flashed on the scene from A Clockwork Orange where Malcolm Macdowell (Petraeus) kicks the drunk’s ribs in (Obama) while belting out a chorus of “Singing in the Rain”?
mai naem
I think Petraeus is a hack with political ambitions. I question his motives in any of the war strategy.
Keith G
@mclaren: Pretty much.
harlana
@Keith G: I was only saying “I wish” – I do not speak in terms of the wisest political strategy. It is a mourning, a gnashing of teeth, of what is lost, of the folly and sin of waste, because we should not be there in the first place. Now we are stuck and Obama will do whatever he needs to do to get re-elected, I certainly hope, because he has certainly helped me and people like me. You missed the part about my trust in his wisdom. In truth, I typically do not visit the war issue at all, not anymore. This is just my one moment to lament, and go on about my business.
Draylon Hogg
@soonergrunt
And my best advice to you sir is keep slaughtering those civillians.
But Afghanistan ain’t Panama. The Pashtun have long memories.
morzer
@soonergrunt:
I don’t think anyone objects to Obama taking advice and making his own decisions. What troubles us is the sense that the advice he gets may not be the best for America’s interests, and that the generals are misleading Obama, whether intentionally or not.
Incidentally, Sooner, I believe today is the day for your visit to the medical people. I hope you get good news. My thoughts are with you.
Keith G
@harlana: Oh no. I was not being judgmental. Quite the opposite.
I am hoping that an upcoming election with very small margins will help to clarify and focus the administration’s mind regarding this issue.
PeakVT
That there is agitation for additional Freidman units is disappointing, but Petraeus is just a symptom of the general rot in our political establishment.
homerhk
Makoto – you describing it as warpimpspin certainly has changed my mind. When you make reasonable arguments like that, how can I not re-evaluate?
I notice that you didn’t respond to the fact that even organisations like Amnesty call Assange incredibly irresponsible – I suppose they are war pimps too.
On the main post, I find it interesting that Rajiv Chandrashekan (an excellent journalist who wrote a seminal book on Iraq, which was turned into I think the film The Green Zone) interviewed Petraeus and subtitled his article “Petraeus on board with Obama’s timeline” or some such.
soonergrunt
@matoko_chan: I don’t know any SF that believes that hardware wins wars more than people do. They aren’t very good SF if they believe that, since SF’s whole MO for about 50 years now has been to engage civilian populations on the civilians’ terms.
You still don’t seem to be able to separate actual military doctrine from something you read about in a Tom Clancy novel or saw in a movie.
As far using the mosque for governing functions, you seem to forget or do not know that local mosques and who gets to practice as imam is almost entirely dictated by local power structures like village headmen and tribal sheiks and the imams preach more what they are told to preach than what they want to.
Villages are more important to the social/governing structure that islam. Islam may hold the country together and prevent it from dissolving into a hundred little fiefdoms based on geographical power, but that’s really about it.
I worked two tours in eastern Afghanistan, and there, people outside of Kabul couldn’t give two shits what somebody from outside their valley thinks whether that person is a crooked bureaucrat in Kabul, a crooked congressman in Washington, or a crooked imam in Peshawar, Pakistan. They want clean water, schools for their children, boy and girl, medical clinics, and a decent price for their crops. Having electricity, cell phones, TV and such would be nice, and are status symbols, but not much more than that.
Their loyalty is to whomever is either pointing a gun at them at that particular moment, or to whomever can protect them effectively from him. It’s the only way they’ve been able to survive for as long as they have in that environment.
“One day you’ll be gone, the Americans will send another one, and we’ll still have needs.” a village headman told me when we were there to check on a micro-hydro plant we’d installed and to see if we could get some useful information. “one day the Taliban (spits on floor) will be gone too.” This was after I asked him why he wasn’t particularly helpful to us after we’d bought materials and paint to fix up the Mosque and dug a well and installed the micro-hydro. “We’ll still be here, insh’allah.”
I’m certain his speech played out the other direction when he was speaking to the Talibs.
Like everything else, sharia law, just like western concepts of law means fuck-all to them if it doesn’t strengthen the tribal structure.
The difference between us and the Taliban is that, at the level I worked at anyway, that we’re not trying to change the people into something they’re not. We don’t have any illusion about what they want and need. Their idea of operating government is one which provides their basic needs and security and they’ll go to whoever shows they can do that. The other difference between us and the Taliban is that we don’t go out of our way to kill children and other people just to show that they can’t provide security.
For everybody else–why do you seem to think that the war will end when we leave? It was going on for over thirty years without us. Start thinking about the Afghan people themselves as rational actors, possessed of agency in their own lives, and stop simply assuming that just because we act or don’t act that the world unfolds accordingly. Afghanistan won’t cease to exist simply because we leave.
Anyway, I have an appointment in an hour so I gotta go. Have at it.
PeakVT
Good luck, soonergrunt.
harlana
@Keith G: Okay, thx :)
Joey Maloney
Too much Kremlinology for me.
Get back to me when when the deadline is missed for some critical-path item for the drawdown. Until then this is just arguing about whether Davey P. or Stan McC. should be the prom king.
Which is beside the point that – what the fuck does “winning” this war consist of? I mean, originally we invaded to get Bin Laden – a stupid tactic, but at least one with a defined goal and defined success and failure conditions.
But no one, I mean no one, from Obama down to the lowliest D-list Pantload wannabe, can describe in a sentence or two how we will know we’ve “won” Afghanistan.
wilfred
The pro-consul D. Petraeus Mesopotamicus has greater ambitions than to supervise the withdrawl of the legions from outer Ilyria, conscript Fathers. His gravitas is demeanded by such a task.
low-tech cyclist
@Paul W.:
someone also please tell me why the left continues to demonize Gates
Maybe I don’t get around enough, but I’ve seen exactly zero instances of demonization of Gates by the left during the past year or so.
Got any for-instances?
Lolis
Ask a military man what do do and he will give military solutions. That is the way it has always been and always will be. However, I imagine Petraeus was approved to give this interview as a way to improve the public outlook on the war. But liberals better do their damndest to end the war. This is the one area where I think shrillness is warranted. The shrill people really are doing Obama a favor if we can get him out of Afghanistan.
Paul W.
@Joey Maloney:
Exactly. This.
Bob Loblaw
@soonergrunt:
And that’s why the war is going so swimmingly! It’s not like the Taliban are at their geographic strongest right now or anything. That’s unpossible. We escalated twice, goldarnnit. So is the reality that 1500+ American troops get to die before 2012 for no discernible security gains.
That’s not observable reality. That’s just damn fool hippy talk. We want to abolish the Pentagon, y’know? Can’t trust the lot of us.
If, however, your argument is that Obama is every bit the incompetent of his predecessors, you’ll brook no argument with me.
low-tech cyclist
@Joey Maloney:
Here’s the short version as best as I can make head or tail of it:
1) We’re not only there to try to get Bin Laden and his henchmen, but are also trying to deny him a place where he can operate freely.
2) To do this, we’ve got to establish a government unfriendly to Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
3) All the COIN is about establishing Karzai’s government and getting rid of the Taliban.
Needless to say, none of this makes any sense. In particular:
1) The way the world is now, we’ve got places where someone like Bin Laden could operate freely coming out the Waziristan, from right next door to Afghanistan, to places like Somalia where pirates operate with impunity. We can’t do an Afghanistan with all of these places, and doing it with just Afghanistan really won’t help us that much.
3a) All the COIN in the world won’t win hearts and minds for a corrupt government. And we’re kinda stuck with Karzai, so this just isn’t gonna work.
3b) There’s also a problem in that, in a good deal of Afghanistan, people strongly support the Taliban. There’s really no COIN answer to this. But our strategy pretends that there is.
There’s plenty more, obviously.
At any rate, we’ve ‘won’ Afghanistan when the Karzai government actually more or less governs Afghanistan. But when has anyone governed Afghanistan?
General Stuck
Obama is only trying to rescue some shred of American credibility from a war lost long ago by his predecessor. An increasingly unpopular war deemed now unwinnable amongst a wide swath of the US public, left and right, especially left, his base. He gets no pol advantage by this surge effort before his announced withdrawal date, which was in contravention of any military CW on war. It was an act of some bravery, no doubt, from now realizing a ground war with the Taliban is a real loser, but also wanting the best situation possible to hand over to the Afghan government when we cease full combat operations.
You can diss him for what may be a wasted effort, and wasted lives, but just get the motives right. It is not incompetence, but something else, and it hurts him with the base and independents he needs for winning elections for his party this fall, and himself in 2012.
And likewise, fudging much on the 2011 combat cessation date, would be politically a disaster for his upcoming reelection. So, after making such an announcement, he will likely stick largely to it, with some flex given to his generals, but not a lot.
mclaren
@homerhk:
No, it is a General’s job to STFU and when asked what he needs in terms of military resources to complete the mission by a reporter, he responds “I am not cleared to discuss ongoing military operations in public.” If the reporter asks him about our withdrawal date in Afghanistan, he responds “That’s above my pay grade. You will have to discuss that with my commander in chief.”
And now General Crackpot Fake Name gives us a line about America’s “credibility.” Whoa yeah. That was the horseshit the hawks gave everyone in Vietnam. If we left Vietnam, America’s “credibility” would be fatally damaged. Yeah? Well, we did leave Vietnam. Didn’t seem to damage America’s fvcking credibility, did it?
But staying in Afghanistan, well, that will definitely enhance America’s credibility. Because America’s credibility is so greatly enhanced when we prove that the Taliban can whip our asses no matter how many hundreds of billions we pour into Afghanistan, no many how many troops we surge, no matter how many gunships and artillery pieces and clusterbombs and F-22s we dump into that lost quagmire.
“Look at how credible we are, gentlemen! Dead American soldiers…wrecked U.S. army equipment…truck routes controlled by our enemy…why, Americans even to have pay bribes to the Taliban just to move our supplies through Afghanistan! Doesn’t that impress you with America’s awesome power and might?”
Some credibility.
You know, if I were some Third World tribesman, I wouldn’t have a bit of fear of the American military. I’d look at Afghanistan and say to myself, “These lard-ass X-box-playing spoiled Americans can’t even win against a bunch of barefoot kids who are armed with bolt-action rifles. They’re paper tigers, the lot of them. If we go up against the Americans we’ll bleed them a little and they’ll fall apart. The Americans are a bunch of cowards who hide behind miniguns and F-22s and reaper drones, but they’re scared spitless of their own soldiers getting shot. So I have no fear of the Americans.”
The longer we stay in third world hellholes like Afghanistan, the more of an education we give people in the third world how to defeat our vaunted super-hi-tech (but ultimately impotent) American military. We’re giving these tribesmen a graduate course in how to wire together homebrew IEDs to disable 50-million-dollar U.S. tanks and blow up armored humvees. The longer we stay in Afghanistan, the more of an education the third world insurgents get in how to defeat us. And if we stay long enough, eventually those techniques will make their way back home to America, courtesy of gangs like MS13.
If Obama’s concerned about America’s mythical “credibility,” he’s stupid. And he’s not stupid. So something else is going on.
General Stuck
Yea, it’s time for your yearly rabies booster. And can the General Crackpot Fakename. It’s getting old, and so is your nihilistic personal death spiral.
We are down to 50,000 troops in Iraq in a non combat role, just like Obama promised, despite his generals wishes, you deranged fuckwad.
Felonious Wench
I see nothing wrong with this article or the fact it was released in The New York Times. Read between the lines. Petraeus doesn’t do insubordination. This is a PR move to prepare the country for the fact we’re not drawing down according to the timetable. The fault will be laid at Petraeus’ feet by the administration “I listened to my generals.” A politically unpopular move will be deflected elsewhere; damage control. We overestimated our ability to stabilize Afghanistan, the timetable failed, and now we have to admit it.
Oh, and Draylon Hogg? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I respect soonergrunt more than anyone on this blog. If you read his posts, he’s been there WORKING with the civilian population, on the ground. And I don’t see you getting off your ass and heading over there in any capacity, including as a relief worker. Takes a big man to lob accusations at a soldier on a blog who you haven’t ever read what he writes or understood his point of view, which is the polar opposite of what you think it is.
Direct your ire at the civilians who took us to war, and STFU about the good people on the ground there…of which soonergrunt is one.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
That is a false statement and should not be propagated. Lethal combat operations are ongoing and will remain so until the full drawdown in 2011. The 50,000 number is a method of obfuscation and military semantics. It’s optics. When they all come out in time (and they will), then you make that statement but not until then. Only US led air force operations will be ongoing past the 2011 removal date.
LarsThorwald
The criticisms about the President from liberals seems to me to be of a part: he is not proactive enough, bold enough to initiate the implementation of progressive solutions. That is a debate worthy of having, but the complaints do not appear to be that Obama makes ill-advised choices that inexorably lead to bad things. Put another way, the complaint seems to be that while Obama is afraid to make a giant step forward, I hear very little in the way that he is taking steps back.
From that perspective, I do not see Obama as Bush or LBJ. Unlike either, he came into office on the promise of re-focusing efforts, but within 16 months identified a date that serves, if not as an exit ramp in and of itself, at least as a signal that he understands the fuel gauge on this war is near to E, and he wants an exit soon.
I think Obama recognizes there is no political benefit to continuing a war that achieves no success, or limited success. There has been every indication in the world that he is too intelligent not to understand that. And I also think that he has given some evidence that he is not fazed by the idea of a drawdown. Iraq shows that and the Iraq drawdown may, given the dearth of fearmongering over an Iraq drawdown — a small surprise during these Mosques Need Not Apply stint of anti-islam xenophobia we are living through — provide some assurance that the ending of a war is not political suicide.
Obama never indicated he was of the Out of Afghanistan Now! mrentality, and actively campaigned in the opposite direction. But the fact that he laid down the marker at July 2011 gives me some hope that the campaign in Afghanistan will wind down sooner rather than later.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw: Well, of course they can defend themselves, and may become involved in combat if the Iraqi’s request their assistance. But there is a detailed status of forces agreement in effect just like we have in other countries, and we won’t be doing primary combat missions by our own device. This is what I meant by “non combat role” . I should have been more precise, so your point is taken.
mclaren
@Bob Loblaw:
Of course. General Crackpot Fake Name made it.
If it comes out of General Crackpot Fake Name’s mouth, it’s a lie. Q.E.D. The guy’s a sociopathic compulsive pathological liar…what do you expect?
Lars Thorwald:
BZZZT! WRONG!
There has been no “drawdown” in Iraq. There are now more U.S. military personnel in Iraq today than there were when Obama and company promised to draw down forces. (Also see NEWSWEEK article “Mercenaries in Iraq to take over soldiers’ jobs.”)
All that happened was that army troops got pulled out, and even more mercs got dumped in. Total number of U.S. military personnel increased.
The Iraq war isn’t ending, it’s ramping up. U.S. force levels in Iraq are increasing. They’re just private contractors. American force levels in Iraq will continue to increase throughout 2012, 2013, 2014, 2014, 2015, into 2016. You think America is leaving Iraq anytime soon?
Silly lad. Get real.
Shorter Felonious Wench:
Didn’t work for the Nuremberg defendants.
Mnemosyne
It cracks me up every single time that mclaren thinks that Common Dreams is a reliable source and never bothers to follow the links they provide that actually contradict their claims.
Of course, mclaren apparently also believes that 100,000 and 11,000 are numbers that are so similar that she can claim we now have more mercenaries in Iraq than we ever did troops because there are 11,000 mercenaries there now where there used to be 100,000 troops.
You may need to brush up on your math there, honey.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
thank you for pointing this out, as I am just not in the mood to deal with Mclaren coconut. And glad your back. I guess for the paranoid, Hillary Clinton is raising a guerrilla army of mercs out of the State department. She used to be, (and likely still is a ChiCom double agent). I read it on a blog once.
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: fiamanullah soonergrunt.
but…the afghan people have been living shariah for a very long time.
and this is what they want……if you poll them, they want islamic government, they want shariah law.
you are the people with guns too soonergrunt.
they tell you what they think you want to hear because its better for their families. we are there PROSELYTIZING western democracy.
and Islam is immunized to proselytization. if we succeed in standing up westernstyle government they will just vote for shariah.
is that our mission? don’t we have poor hungry people here that need schools and food too for their families?
matoko_chan
yes. and it is not our war. not anymore than the shi’ia and the sunni.
matoko_chan
soonergrunt is a noble man. like all our soldiers who are there trying to help amke a governement in Afghanistan. our soldiers are almost all good.
but they have beens scammed into an immoral unwinnable war. the Taliban are going to be a part of whatever government we stand up, just like Hizb’allah is part of lebanese government. that is an incontrovertable fact. Karzai is already negotiating with them.
right now 30k taliban are pwning 430k coalition and afghan forces. (LGT Barno in the FT) that means the taliban have support in the population.
that villagers want to get rid of the talibs is mythology. they want to get rid of all the men with guns, including the americans.
no, the mosque is the center of village governance. village governance is islamic governance, the clergy ARE the lawyers and politicians. there is no substrate to support separation of church and state. the universities are islamic. the social welfare and social networks are islamic.
you cant get rid of it, its everywhere.
you are building schools. fine……but the muslim kids that go to those schools will matriculate to an islamic university in say, 10 years.
there are no secular universities. none.
im sure your intentions are good.
like the ones that ones that pave the road to hell.
i just want out. why are we there? to builds schools and enforce womans suffrage? what is our mission?
Can we go home NAOW?
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: one more thing.
i said mecha. that doesnt mean hardware.
that is strategy, hardware, software, equip, technology, communications. its a research and development term. its modelled on a gundam suit that amplifies the wearers abilities. the SOF absolutely believe that they are supermen, and with the right ….umm……gear….package? is that better? they can suss any mission.
matoko_chan
@homerhk:
well that is what it is. i called Exum a RL tabletop wargamer to his face, too. i think stuff like this is disgusting.
you can call them neocons if you like, but they are warpimps. war benefits republicans, economically and electorally.
that is the simple truth.
i think the whole BUT ASSANGE EXPOSED AFGHAN NAMES is radar chaff to distract us from the real message of Wikileaks.
the war is immoral, unwinnable and meaningless.
and we are losing badly.
when do you think Assange will drop the Garani Massacre video?
if i was the brass, id get the jump on him and run it with explanation.
they prolly aren’t that smart though.
What do you think is in the encrypted “Insurance” file?
its huge.
Peter
@mclaren: Dang, 10000 mercenaries! That sure does count as a ramp-up of the war!
Wait.
matoko_chan
soonergrunt, it isnt about american soldiers trying to do good.
im sure they are.
its about the consent of the governed.
we built the reavers.
and no matter what we do, muslims will remain muslims.
we should go.