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Why? Because it was made by Dick Cheney? Who care what he thinks? He and Rummie damn near took Iraq into a civil war. His opinion is worthless IMHO. Who else is making these charges? Republicans? The party so out of favor that Americans gave the Dems 60 seats in the Senate.
This is nothing but white noise made by irrelevant people.
Facts can be such inconvenient things...
Also, don't forget the MacArthur debacle, with wanting to use nukes, cause nuking the border between korea and china would have been such a great idea.
Now we are supposed to NOT listen to the Generals when they tell us what they need? Man, I must be in Alice's Looking Glass, because I could have sworn when Bush was in office it was Listen , to , the , Generals !
Yep, only Republican presidents are supposed to listen to the generals, even if the closest contact a Democrat president had with the military was playing GI Joe and Major Matt Mason.
But seriously, people are misunderstanding the role of the military. The civilian government sets policy and goals, the generals tell the government what it will take to accomplish the goal and the likelihood of it's success. If McChrystal (as an example) tells Obama it will take 100,000 soldiers to accomplish a goal it is foolish for Obama to respond "No, it should only take 50,000". In that case Obama is placing himself in the role of general, one in which he has no expertise. If Obama doesn't want to commit the 100,000 troops he needs to abandon or modify the goal.
Obama is trying to fight a war but limit the military's resources, the same strategy used by Rumsfeld and LBJ. That is a strategy likely to fail at a cost of American lives.
The Neocons left Obama quite a mess to clean up. Rather than go away and accept the depths of their COLOSSAL FAILURE, they sit on the sidelines sniping at the guy who is charged with figuring out what to do to extracate ourselves from their FAILED policies.
*shakes head* People are crazy.
I was referring to this interview with Gates.
Cheney though, well I don’t think he listens to anybody but Cheney.
But the real point is that, to appear not to be 'dithering', Mr. Obama should address the charge. He should rebut the notion that he is dithering not by describing the meetings that he is holding or the consultations that he is getting, but rather by explaining the current strategy, explaining what effects, if any, delaying the implementation of the recommendations will have and what his overall goal is for Afghanistan. He has the rhetorical skills, especially compared to Cheney, he should use them.
... bashes Bush or Cheney again. [rolling eyes]
"the real point is that, to appear not to be 'dithering', Mr. Obama should address the charge"
Exactly. Without revealing critical information, he should be assuring us that he may not be rushing, but is trying to go about this the right way, with forethought. I doubt the number of people wanting him to do a rapid "surge" right away is that large. Afghanistan vs. Pakistan needs addressing, as well as getting health care back under control and managing other domestic issues that are also facing him at this time.
Bashing Bush-Cheney? Well of course, simply because they deserve it. They got us into this crap to begin with and destroyed the economy in the process. Their heads are so far up their rears they actually think we can continue this crap forever. Waving the flag up people's rear only goes so far. Speaking of rears, where the heck is Dubya these days? What, nobody cares what he thinks? Guess not.
My personal feeling is this is essentially an unwinnable war, and we should be looking for an exit. The alternative is to adopt the strategy of General McChrystal. Obama has chosen a third strategy, which is to continue a policy his own generals are telling him is not working while troops continue to die.
He is considering McChrystal's military recommendations, and placing them in the larger context of political considerations, regional stability (or lack thereof), and American capabilities. I'm sure McChrystal himself is aware that any strategy taken is taken within this larger context; his job was simply to provide the military piece of it. He did that well. Now he waits, as do we all.
Oops...what was this, then?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/27/a-new-s...
Cheney needs to shut his pie hole. He had his chance. He failed. Now someone else in is charge. The End.
I think Cheney likes war. Probably because he likes guns and shooting things....and people.....
McChrystal wants to increase troop levels and continue the war. President Obama is looking for a way to leave the war. You want to leave the war yet you are against the President and are for McChrystal's ideas...?
Increasing troop levels will not decrease U.S. Military deaths.
Sorry if I was unclear. My first preference is to get out of Afghanistan. My second preference would be to listen to McChrystal and follow a strategy he thinks will work. Obama has chosen to continue a third strategy he has already been told by McChrystal is not working, while Americans continue to die.
Remember when Democrats didn't like Americans to die? It was last year I think.
Well I would say that your preferences are probably the President's also. I think total win is out of the question now. Which IMO leaves us only with leaving this mess behind.
In short, it is dithering to make NO DECISION.
Decide no, and say so. Decide yes, and send the requested re-enforcements. Or act paralyzed, continue dithering, and come across as a weak politician afraid to perform his duties as Commander-in-Chief.
There is plenty of time to consider decisions that will drastically impact our nation.
WHY we are there is the President's decision, not the military's. That is what is being decided. Escalation was obviously never a goal of the last administration either. So it looks like the DITHERING goes back about nine years.
Can’t really take conservatives opinions seriously on these issues anyway. They are still seeing commies coming over the hill, but they have been carrying brief cases for decades now.
You can escape the responsibility of tomorrow by invading it today. - Most Neocons
And while decisions shouldn't be made in haste, what Obama is currently doing is second guessing the strategy decision he announced last Spring (his own decision, not Bush/Cheney's.) If there are legitimate reasons for the second guessing or for putting a hold on that to come up with a revised strategy (or plan to begin withdrawal) he should say so. But he also has to answer to his commanders and his Secretary of Defense, who have indicated that if he is going to continue the current strategy then there is no time to waste before authorizing additional troop deployments. The plan he put in place isn't going to succeed based on the current troop levels, so he either needs to decide very quickly to reinforce them according to his general's recommendations, or alternatively decide on a new plan.
Eight American troops were killed in two separate insurgent attacks Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.
So that means that four of the past five months have each been the deadliest months of this war since it was started. I guess I'm a bit surprised we haven't seen any anti-war protests start up or have a daily tally of the casualties.
HA HA HA HA.
My vote for the funniest post of the month.
He can't merely vote "Present" this time.
* * *
"what Obama is currently doing is second guessing the strategy decision he announced last Spring (his own decision, not Bush/Cheney's.)"
I wonder to what extent that is a general, not specific, practice, as the kids running things find it's not as easy as they thought it would be to "play government" and "play nation." Not just with military policy, but with the stimulus, health care, energy policy, all kinds of domestic issues.
On the other hand, it is refreshing to see our president deliberating and not trying to reverse engineer a conclusion.
C; Iraq must be attacked. --->
P: ???
I’m just getting sick and tired of the bloodletting by attrition. It ultimately ends up costing us more in American lives and tax dollars. And that’s the direction I feel we are heading. I pray I’m wrong.
And, if the lefties are sick and tired of hearing Cheney's views on things, then why don't the lefties post up an article from a comparable knowledge lefty to explain why the strategy....as of October 2009... is the best handling of the situation.
"Yes, we can!" -- Barack Obama and his inner circle
*********
Well you know I was going to come up with some lengthy, wordy response but yours just works so much better.
The best military strategy and indeed the best overall strategy for our nation to recover and become strong again is for Cheney to shut his pie hole and keep it shut.
Now, I realize some people do feel defeat and withdrawal are inevitable, and I don't think that's an irrational view at all. But if that's the case, we should start pulling out right now- not keep the troops that are already there hanging out on a limb. We either commit the necessary force level or get out now.
"I believe that the president will have to make his decisions in the context of that evolutionary process."
Yikes. Pouring more men and money into Afghanistan in the hope that everything will turn out right. I certainly hope that Obama is working to "modify the goal." Hopefully, the definition of victory will be something like denying the use of Afghan territory to those who would attack us, and not some ill-defined evolutionary process that has us propping up an unpopular government in Kabul indefinitely.
I don't understand how you do the former without some of the latter though. What Gates is pointing out is that the legitimacy of the Afghan govt is not going to be settled in a matter of weeks, and if we're going to continue this process at all its essential to provide security for the Afghan people during the process.
For more nuance though, there's a possibility that the waiting game is partly to put pressure on other NATO allies to provide more troops before we make our commitment. The trouble with that theory though is that 1) Most of the European countries don't have much reserve capability to send large numbers of troops, even if the political will could be bent that way and 2) their reaction so far seems to be to echo the line about waiting until after the elections too.