Dithering Before Sending Americans to Die
“I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary,” the President said this week at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. “And if it’s necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.”
He was talking to men and women in uniform but answering an American who never wore one, Dick Cheney, who has accused him of “dithering” about sending more troops to Afghanistan during a speech at the Center for Security Policy last week to accept a “Keeper of the Flame Award.”
It’s not clear what flame the awarders had in mind, but the former Vice President, who has grown more overtly bellicose in his time out of office, was too busy with “other priorities in the 60′s than military service” getting five deferments to avoid it during the Vietnam war but has been more than willing to risk others’ lives as a bureaucrat ever since.
Sarah Palin has preempted the title, “Going Rogue,” but Cheney is walking the walk as he offends everyone from John McCain to Orrin Hatch with those attacks on President Obama for “dithering” on Afghanistan.
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You know that a whole truckload of BS is about to be dumped when an author refers to military deferments in order to make a point about a critique of current events. You can be sure, too, that past military deferments is the entire scope of the authors argument. By the author's logic, I am unfit to comment on the situation in Afghanistan, as is he, from what I can read in his biography.
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.
To be fair, President Obama never served in the military either. Not that it matters that much to me except that one cannot draw upon their own experiences regarding military associated decisions. Plenty of pentagon advisors no doubt ready and willing to assist the President as needed.
Cheney though, well I don’t think he listens to anybody but Cheney.
In defense of “dithering”, we can clearly see what Republican “Knee Jerking” has gotten us into.
Good points. It's interesting how someone who went to such great lengths to avoid putting himself in harms way has no compuctions – in fact seems to still have much enthusiasm for sending others into the meatgrinder. If the man had a shred of conscience he'd be hiding under a rock somewhere.
“You know that a whole truckload of BS is about to be dumped when an author “
… 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.
Why bother to “address a charge” from an over wrought jackass? I wouldn't.
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.
For what it's worth I served four more years in the military than either Obama or Cheney. Obama is already sending Americans to die, and he is dithering. For years we were admonished to “listen to the Generals”. That advice has now been discarded while Obama tries to decide what to do, using the excuse of the shaky Afghan government as cover.
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 McQuistion. 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.
“Mr. Obama should address the charge”
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.
You make no sense.
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.
What the heck is Obama supposed to do? All the choices he has in front of him are crummy. War sucks–it's always easier to get into one, than out. I don't envy anyone who has to make this decision. But there's no doubt he's putting a lot of time and effort into understanding what's going on, on the ground.
Cheney needs to shut his pie hole. He had his chance. He failed. Now someone else in is charge. The End.
Too right mate.
I think Cheney likes war. Probably because he likes guns and shooting things….and people…..
It is dithering when the on-scene commanders are requesting reinforcements, and no decision is being made. It is dithering as time goes on and on with no decision. It is dithering and causing more soldiers to die by not providing them the force they need to prevail. It is dithering to ignore the recent lesson in Iraq of the success of the surge.
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.
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…?
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.
No one asked Obama to address Cheney, and he looks petty and defensive for doing so.
Don't worry, they are not being over run.
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.
Ah yes.
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.
He needs to make a decision, or at the very least tell us all what it is we are trying to do there. Call it dithering, thinking, or whatever else you want to call it, but this is what is happening while we wait for a decision:
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.
anti-war protests start up or have a daily tally of the casualties Against the One? By our not-Left-leaning, completely unbiased (except for Fox, which isn't a news organization anyway) media?
HA HA HA HA.
My vote for the funniest post of the month.
“make NO DECISION [...] act paralyzed, continue dithering, and come across as a weak politician afraid to perform his duties as Commander-in-Chief.”
He can't merely vote “Present” this time.
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“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.
The problem is Afganistan is political, not military. Given this whole run off election business, it would be irresponsible to not take the time to find out what the political situation will be and whether we actually are going to have a credible partner in that country before committing more troops. Considering ALL the facts on the ground, before acting, isn't dithering.
Zzzz…but Gates and the generals have said that it will be too late if he waits until after the election- so the question is whether he'll support his current strategic goals up until the time of the run off election or not. If he doesn't, then he's disingenuous in asserting to the troops that he will 'back them up to the hilt' because he's leaving the currently deployed troops in a situation where they've been deployed, on his orders, to accomplish a particular mission, without the manpower to support that mission.
The bravado of those chanting “make a decision” is macho bs. Sometimes the best decision is to take your time making a decision, something the previous administration never seemed to understand. If they had, we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place.
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.
Actually although yours is a convenient narrative, Vera, the previous administration took way too long before realizing that they needed to revise their strategy. Once that decision was forced on Bush, he did end up making the right decision about the surge (with imperfect results, but better than most people could have anticipated and quite possibly if his administration hadn't 'dithered' or clung to Rumsfeld's poor decisions for so long, a lot more could have been accomplished.)
Obama has not chosen a strategy yet. Hence, the “dithering” charge…However, taking time to examine all the assumptions underlying our Afghanistan policy and to assess our capabilities there is hardly dithering – it is good war decision making, as taught at our own War Colleges.
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.
Making a decent policy decision requires time, unfortunately. It may be true that lives are currently being lost as a result. But it is also true that a well-made decision will reduce the number of casualties and fatalities in the long run. Obama isn't sitting in the Oval Office chewing his nails and flipping a coin. He's interviewing people with a broad spectrum of opinions and expertise on the current situation. That is how one makes a well-informed decision. It's too bad the Bush White House didn't know that.
Macho BS. Exactly. Thank you.
Obama has not chosen a strategy yet.
Oops…what was this, then?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/27/a-new-s…
“The Neocons left Obama quite a mess to clean up.” ~ VTG
Facts can be such inconvenient things…
Pres. Obama should have sent in additional troops months ago—right after he went into office. I hate saying that as my wife is USAF and has been deployed four times already. Obama would have been harshly criticized, of course, but we’ve been down the path of incremental build-ups several times before (Vietnam, Iraq, etc…) and it never works. The only way to win militarily is by overwhelming the enemy a la Normandy and Desert Strom.
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: ???
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. - Abraham Lincoln
He did send additional troops months ago. This would be an additional troop increase.
The supporters of the current CiC are correct………he has lost only 20 points in the last 6 months on handling Afghanistan. Therefore, he should likely have another 6 months to “carefully consider” before he is down to his core TMV support base.
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.
Funny I do not remember much in the way of protest or death tallies in Afgh. only Iraq for Bush and Obama. So are you saying he is being treated like Bush or are you speaking of protests so obscure that 90% of America missed them since 90% was the figure I remember supporting the Afgh. adventure when it began. Also how effective is it to protest a war where we have a signed agreement of when to draw down and remove our troops? IF they want to march fine but once that agreement was signed it no longer mattered. Maybe things are not as tilted as you thought?
They are EVEN more tilted than I think, I am sure.
Yes, but obviously not enough—and that’s the problem. If he tries to finesse this too much, it will likely evolve into that pattern we know all too well. Send in overwhelming force, and that problem is resolved. It’s the one thing Bush did militarily that I completely agreed with, i.e., the “surge”.
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.
What is your information source for that? McChrystal had a 12 month time frame that he identified as critical, but that is the only credible source I've seen for urgency.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. – Abraham Lincoln”
“Yes, we can!” — Barack Obama and his inner circle
Just because the generals say they need something, doesn't mean they are correct. I don't know why so many people believe that because a general says it makes it true. If that were so, we would have a military dictatorship because, hey, generals are right, so let them occupy the highest rank in our government and make our decisions for us.
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.
First things have happened like a rather shady looking election which complicates matters. Second Afgh. is not the problem, Pakistan is and maybe the Admin is finally becoming aware of this though the last one did not. Fix Afgh. all you want but a brand new Cambodia is starting just across the border and that country has nukes. This is not as easy as it was 8 years ago and it was not easy then, we just left it undone and now we are in hail mary pass time.
As Tyler Durden said, 'WHOA!'
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 !
“Cheney needs to shut his pie hole”~ Verathegun
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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.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. – Abraham Lincoln
You can escape the responsibility of tomorrow by invading it today. – Most Neocons
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.
We have should elected Dennis Kucinich. The troops would be home by now and Cheney would be in prison.
What is your information source for that? McChrystal had a 12 month time frame that he identified as critical, but that is the only credible source I've seen for urgency.
I was referring to this interview with Gates.
We're not the only players over there. If we don't have an Afghan partner seen as legit by the majority of the population, then troop levels are irrelevant. And I believe Karzai's legitimacy is under question these days, is it not?. Until that issue is resolved in some way, pouring more men into Afghanistan would be useless. The Soviets, with far shorter supply lines, and far greater ruthlessness, failed there. And so would we.
dgfunk- read the interview with Gates I just linked to. Unless you are willing to concede defeat right now, we really don't have a choice but to fight on while the legitimacy question gets sorted out. We don't have the luxury of waiting.
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 see this as a process, not something that's going to happen all of the sudden,” Gates said.
“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.
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.