Report Discredits Obama Afghan Mission
Dec 30th, 2009 | 8 responses
I must admit I was not shocked to hear a secret report for Pentagon brass that efforts to train the Afghan National Army (ANA) are beset with deep-rooted problems which could take years to overcome.
NBC-TV foreign correspondent Richard Engel said the privately-commissioned report:
1) — Contends nepotism, corruption and absenteeism among ANA officers makes success impossible. ANA troops on the ground, however, are doing some fighting.
2) — Quotes a finding: “If Afghan political leaders do not place competent people in charge, no amount of coalition support will suffice in the long term.”
3) — Charges Afghan leaders inflate the numbers of army and police as much as 50%.
The 25-page report, said to still be in draft form, will be presented to Gen. David Patraeus, head of Central Command, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, senior commander of troops in Afghanistan.
Engel, appearing on the NBC nightly news show and later on MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow Show, said the military brass already knows the problems and findings in the report. As a result, it shows that President Obama’s timetable to begin returning troops home by August 2011 is impossible.
The correspondent said all the military commanders he talked to said the number one priority in Obama’s mission is to train the ANA and they estimate it will take a minimum of four years and as long as 10 years. The surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops is to provide stability on the ground to enable the training efforts.
What is troubling is that if the military knew this, then the president knew. It cements the charges Obama set a deadline to consider troop withdrawal simply to appease the left wing of his party. That’s a damn sinister act when he knew full well the deadline was arbitrary, capricious and impossible to achieve.
I never could satisfactorily connect the dots of Obama’s Afghan mission as it relates to a more stable Pakistan. The price in treasure and lives outweighs any hope of victory in a country with such a corrupt and unstable government.
Why does the U.S. strategy to fight al quada in the Afghan provinces require 100,000 U.S. forces and 50,000 NATO personnel when it is equally effective fighting the extremists with special ops and drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or any other Islamic-ruled state bedeviled with terrorists.
I’m disappointed in the president. It reminds me of Tonto telling the Lone Ranger, “He speaks with forked tongue.”
8 Responses to “Report Discredits Obama Afghan Mission”
It is all Bush's fault of course. Everything is.
so the whole mission is discredited? just because the date was overly ambitious?
boy that's sound reasoning. sounds to me like your mind was made up before you found this.
overly ambitious dates are par for the course. it's like when you tell your lady that you're supposed to be there by 7 even though it's 8. because you know she'll be late and maybe you'll be on time.
bfd. find something important.
“so the whole mission is discredited? just because the date was overly ambitious?”
Well, Keith Olberman thought it was important…..he made a nightly living off of measuring how far off “the date” was.
However, Obama should be so lucky to only miss the date………..I've got ten grand that says he doesn't achieve the objective either……..no matter how many years we stay there.
By the way, dmf, your Afghan war policy has just claimed 8 American lives today…….yeah, I know…it's not important
In short, it will take centuries to Westernise these 7th century peasants who hate us.
According to the report, the whole mission's number one priority is training the Afghan army and police. Makes sense since less than 100 al qaida are in Afghanistan. The rest is nation building. You can spin this sucker any which way and it still comes out a loser. — Jer
Sounds like we are jumping the gun here, just like the liberals used to do with Bush, This is one “secret report”. Who knows if it biased, accurate or what. I think O deserves more credit- at least for a while.
Pakistan is not a White Whale, but like Iran a major problem; there is no jumping ship.
The current goal of the Afghan Ministry of Defense is to expand the Afghan National Army to about 134,000 troops. However, American President Barack Obama has called for an expansion of almost 260,000 Afghan troops in the next five years at a cost of $20 billion. All costs of expansion of the army, including pay and new modern equipment, would be paid for by the American government
The deployment does not change the maximum number of service members expected to soon be in Afghanistan: 68,000, more than double the number there when Bush left office.
So, let's assume the increase from 134,000 to 260,000……….68,000 US troops………student to teacher ratio of less than 2 to 1…………$159,000 per new student warrior.
Something tells me the NEA had a hand in designing this training program.