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October 29, 2009
Obama Concludes U.S. Can't Beat Taliban
Obama Concludes U.S. Can't Beat Taliban; May Wait Until Late November for Afghan Decision
Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers say will guide his decision on how many additional U.S. troops to send to the battle.
Obama made the request in a meeting Monday with Vice President Biden and a small group of senior advisers helping him decide whether to expand the war. The detail he is now seeking also reflects the administration's turn toward Afghanistan's provincial governors, tribal leaders and local militias as potentially more effective partners in the effort than a historically weak central government that is confronting questions of legitimacy after the flawed Aug. 20 presidential election.
"This is obviously a complicated security environment in Afghanistan, and the president wants the clearest possible understanding of what the challenges are to our forces and what is required to meet that challenge," said a senior administration official who has participated in the Afghanistan policy review and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it. "Any successful and sustainable strategy must clearly align the resources we provide with the goals we are trying to achieve."
As U.S. forces in Afghanistan endure the deadliest month of the eight-year-old conflict, Obama is weighing a request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for a quick jump in forces to blunt the Taliban's momentum against concerns that too many new troops could help the insurgency's recruiting efforts.
Administration officials say that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser James L. Jones, a retired four-star general, support Obama's request for a more detailed status report on each province that could identify potential U.S. allies among Afghanistan's local leaders, some with less-than-sterling human rights records.
Gates and Jones have pushed McChrystal to justify as specifically as possible his request for 44,000 additional troops, the figure now at the center of White House deliberations. The review group once included intelligence officials, generals and ambassadors, but it has recently narrowed to a far smaller number of senior civilian advisers, including Biden, Gates, Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Administration officials said the province-by-province analysis will be ready for Obama before his scheduled Friday meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the White House.
"There are a lot of questions about why McChrystal has identified the areas that he has identified as needing more forces," said a senior military official familiar with the review, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations candidly. "Some see it as an attempt by the White House to do due diligence on the commander's troop request. A less charitable view is that it is a 5,000-mile screwdriver tinkering from Washington."
~ snipet ~
About half the 44,000 troops McChrystal requested would be sent to take back Taliban sanctuaries in southern Afghanistan. The others would push into western Afghanistan, where the U.S. military has only a slight presence, and reinforce operations in the mountainous east. One brigade would train Afghan army and police forces.
Even after weeks of review, administration officials say a range of options is still under consideration, including whether additional U.S. forces could be deployed in phases. Although Obama had been expected to announce his decision before leaving Nov. 11 on a 10-day trip to Asia, administration officials say he may wait until he returns.
"I think it's important to hear and to get this right," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday.
In reviewing McChrystal's bracing assessment of the war, the president and his senior advisers have concluded that the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a military and political force, regardless of how many more troops are deployed.
~snipet~
Some White House officials, including Biden, have advocated a strategy that would focus primarily on counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaeda. The vice president has argued for preserving the current U.S. troop level of 68,000, expediting the training of Afghan forces, intensifying Predator drone strikes against al-Qaeda operatives and supporting the Pakistani government against the Taliban within its borders.
But the deepening conflict is complicating those plans. For example, administration officials say that sending additional U.S. training brigades to accelerate preparation of the Afghan security forces may not accomplish as much as hoped because recruitment -- and retention -- has gone poorly as the war intensifies.
"It's all part of the endemic problems of illiteracy and security that plague many countries, but particularly this one," said a senior administration official familiar with the review process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it. "You want to increase the number of people engaged in training, but at some point bringing in more and more Americans won't produce quicker results. There's a ceiling."
McChrystal has advocated something far closer to a nation-building project. Some Republican supporters of the general's plan in Congress have compared his strategy to the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq, a shorter-term effort that helped pull the country back from sectarian civil war.
But administration officials reject the comparison, pointing out that McChrystal's troop request would require a far longer deployment of U.S. forces and that Afghanistan is in a less dire position than Iraq was at the time of the surge.
Wild Thing's comment......
The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama and top administration officials have concluded the Taliban cannot be beaten and that they are looking for ways to cede parts of Afghanistan to the Taliban without those regions becoming safe havens for al Qaeda.
The article also reports that Obama may wait until after he returns from a 10 day visit to Asia that begins November 11 to decide his policy for Afghanistan.
The article describes Obama's defeatist attitude about the invincibility of the Taliban.
Sooooooo Obama thinks our military can’t beat a bunch of mountain huggers in sandals.Obama is doing all he can to show our troops how little respect he has for all of them, every branch of service, every one of them.
They need to tell Obama screw you and stop trying to avoid civilian casualties and go back to using a Rolling Thunder strategy. Instead Obama wants to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We can win, but Obama does not want to. With him as POTUS, America can never win a war. Somehow they have to over-ride what he wants, he is not qualified to be CIC not even close. He has NO clue at all about our military.
When, I ask, will we see the day when this country has had it with this TRAITOR! He isn’t fit to shine the shoes of our brave fighting men and women.
It's clear that the Kenyan Clown is heavily invested in the U.S. failing — Barack Hussein Obama hates and despises this country, and he will relish victory for the Taliban.
Can you even imagine what this will do to Troop morale? This isn't their fault, they HAVE the will to win. It isn't their fault they were stuck with CIC Obama.
Obama is weighing a request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for a quick jump in forces to blunt the Taliban's momentum against concerns that too many new troops could help the insurgency's recruiting efforts.
But apparently NO concern that perceptions of American weakness and irresolve, "could help the insurgency's recruiting efforts." Obama is a traitor to our troops and all he is doing shows us he wants the Islamic radicals to win.
Obama is intentionally permitting the blood of America's fighting men to be splattered across the front pages in order to distract from his domestic failures and depredations. And quite possibly for other reasons even more contemptible.
Posted by Wild Thing at October 29, 2009 05:50 AM
Comments
Hey, now that's a morale booster, tell the troops via the media, "you can't beat the Taliban". If I read that in Stars and Stripes my first question would be then WTF are we doing here.
This is ths same mentality Phil Donahue conveyed on his TV show before the Gulf war. Our troops are not used to the heat, the sand would destroy all there Mechanized Equipment and on and on... The ground war lasted what 2 1/2 days. This is Bullshit from the git-go.
Afghanistan has been a planned defeat from January 20th. This gutless bastard will do anything to embarrass. This will destroy the fighting spirit faster than anything else. Tell them you can't win. A real vote of no confidence from your government.
Posted by: Mark at October 29, 2009 07:13 AM
Now he's going to wait until his trip to Asia is finished. How many more of our troops are going to die because this SOB can't make a decision. "The review group once included intelligence officials, generals and ambassadors" but he has narrowed down his review group to "Biden, Gates, Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel". Now there's a bunch "supporters of the troops". What a total asshat this POTUS is. I liked the way he's scheduled his Asia trip to begin on Veterans Day. This way he doesn't have to be in America and waste his time speaking to or having to actually meet with the Veterans he hates so much. Nice going shithead !!!
Posted by: Rac at October 29, 2009 07:40 AM
So it isn't even worth fighting for? How does he know we can't beat the Taliban? Give our kids a break and let them fight without rules! What a horrible, horrendous thing for the so-called CIC to say. He obviously has no idea what it's like to be over there, away from your loved ones, fighting for not only our freedom, but the locals as well from tyranny and injustice.
Posted by: Lynn at October 29, 2009 08:19 AM
With the rules of engagement that he has put on our Military I guess that he may be right. it is simply untie our troops hands so that they can get on with the mission at hand
ALL TOGETHER BUT NOT TO Softly SOME S***
Thoughts from an old Seabee
Posted by: Ben Ray Atkinson at October 29, 2009 08:29 AM
I'm reminded of how Arthur Godfrey fired Julius LaRosa , he did it on the air during a live CBS TV broadcast. This is the same slap in the face Obama just handed all our troops. So his plan is the same as LBJ, abandon them and let attrition take them off the battlefield. Don't forget that it's not just Obama, it's Congress, both houses that are supporting this asshole's decision. Dammit people go to the frigging Vietnam Memorial Wall and take a long look at what Lyndon Johnson's decision did to American Troops, this half breed imposter has just told his muzzie brethren to kill our troops with impunity.
Vietnam's Bloodiest years, we can thank the media and Democrat control for most of these deaths, combined with restrictive ROE's and no intention of winning!!!
1966 6,143
1967 11,153
1968 16,592
1969 11,616
1970 6,081
Look at just this past week in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, Obama has given the enemy the green light to advance. Some 55 dead Americans in October, no where near the weekly or daily tolls of Vietnam but still escalating due to inaction. ROE's are putting them all in ever increasing danger, even encouraging those anarchist terrorists in Dearbornistan to act against the nation.
We as a nation have paid the price for Obama's ineptitude, I hope NATO sees this for what it is and we pull all our troops out.
Posted by: Jack at October 29, 2009 10:30 AM
At the same time all of this is going on this A-Hole President is making a Photo Op out of a trip to Dover AFB, to "pay respect to the fallen troops."
My heart goes out to all these brave troops and their families at home. I cannot imagine the feeling of abandonment that they are experiencing.
Posted by: SEAN. at October 29, 2009 11:26 AM
Ditto everything Rac said.
obama is going to spend 10 days in Asia showing them how incompetent he is. Michelle will probably be flying over on a separate plane to do some shopping and joining obama dining at a 5 star restaurant while they snub some state dinner with an ally.
Posted by: TomR at October 29, 2009 12:03 PM
I see Obama went to Dover AFB to honor our fallen troops as they returned. I applaud him for this as it's the right then for him to do. Maybe now he'll realize the sacrifice our men and women in uniform are making and will "unleash the dogs" to get the job done...I know, I'm dreaming.
Posted by: BobF at October 29, 2009 12:32 PM
Y'all:
This may get long, but I will attempt to keep it pithy:
I spent yesterday evening in the presence of Heroes. My granddaughter,(achiever/patriot type that she is), and I were at the Swamp School portion of RANGER training yesterday as they jumped in on their FTX,(field training exercise), here in the boonies of Eglin AFB. After the students were out of their parachute harnesses and off and running to their objective, we Swamp Rangers, and Ranger cadre moved to the Gator Lounge, (RANGER bar at Camp James E. Rudder), where we took up the politics of the wars.
To a man, both NCO and Officer- they all said that if standard wartime Rules of Engagement were in place, that this would not last long at all. However, having to fight in a way satisfactory to the lawyers and politicians, (redundant?), will kill more people, both US Military as well as innocent civilians. On innocent civilians- they agree that all of the Afghans they see would side with the insurgency rather than fight them in any serious manner.
The Battalion commander had once re-enlisted in Iraq with a Specialist that was re-enlisting yesterday, on the Drop Zone, and would most likely be sent to do his 3rd tour with this enlistment. His wife and children are supportive of him, but expressed fear that the treasonous talk of those in the Washington crowd would erode their safety factor.
Rather than pay the "moderate" taliban, put the bucks on the winner, and raise the pay of our warriors, (the best on the planet), and give them an additional ration of ammo. Let them weed out those who are a problem and the job would be handled. Then barack HIMSELF obummer could claim a true military victory.
"99.999% of all Terrorists are Muslims"
Posted by: Frankly Opinionated at October 29, 2009 01:22 PM
Obambo is dangerous, not to our enemies but to our troops and citizens. After reading this time to grab a beer. Yes TomR, Oscumbo and his pig in lipstick will be flitting around on dates.
Posted by: Bob A at October 29, 2009 03:00 PM
On Nov. 11, Veteran's Day, when Zero leaves for Asia, the Tea Party Express will be in Jacksonville, FL and finish up in Orlando the next day. To me, they are the Resistance and I ought to be there.
Posted by: horace at October 29, 2009 03:34 PM
Thank you everyone so much, for your sharing
and your input about this.
I really appreciate it.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 29, 2009 11:00 PM
