Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I've heard bits & pieces of this on the Afghanistan situation,

but when you really think about it? It gets worse:
The Washington Post has leaked an unclassified version of General Stanley McChrystal's long-awaited report on Afghanistan. The full report, all 66 pages, can be found here.

The Washington Post provides a good roundup of the report. In short, and it should come as no surprise, McChrystal calls for a change in strategy by ISAF, which has failed to properly implement a counterinsurgency program to defeat the Taliban and allied groups. ISAF must focus on securing the population, aiding in providing good governance, building and mentoring the Afghan security forces, and shifting itself away from an excessively defensive posture to enable the troops to engage with the Afghan people.

While McChrystal doesn't say so in this report, he wants more troops. He repeatedly describes the Afghan effort as "under-resourced." We won't know the numbers of troops requested until the next report is released. And it should be soon, as McChrystal is clear that the Taliban have the initiative and time is of the essence.

Which is followed by this:
Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal's team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn't given sufficient resources (read "troops") to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan:
Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.

In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion "premature." Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "time is not on our side"; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public "to take a deep breath."

'Take a deep breath', huh? Troops in the field fighting bad guys, the man in command says "We need more troops if you want to win" and The Obama doesn't want to hear it because "I'm not ready to deal with that yet." From a clown who said how many times that 'Afghanistan is the real, the important war"? Looks more and more that Obama didn't want us to deal with Afghanistan either(surprise!) and is looking for a way to run away.

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