McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'

[Hammock]

McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'
Top U.S. Commander For Afghan War Calls Next 12 Months Decisive

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 21, 2009

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

He provides extensive new details about the Taliban insurgency, which he calls a muscular and sophisticated enemy that uses modern propaganda and systematically reaches into Afghanistan's prisons to recruit members and even plan operations.

McChrystal's assessment is one of several options the White House is considering. His plan could intensify a national debate in which leading Democratic lawmakers have expressed reluctance about committing more troops to an increasingly unpopular war. Obama said last week that he will not decide whether to send more troops until he has "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be."

The commander has prepared a separate detailed request for additional troops and other resources, but defense officials have said he is awaiting instructions before sending it to the Pentagon.

[...] A declassified version of the document, with some deletions made at the government's request, appears at washingtonpost.com.

McChrystal makes clear that his call for more forces is predicated on the adoption of a strategy in which troops emphasize protecting Afghans rather than killing insurgents or controlling territory. Most starkly, he says: "[I]nadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced."
'Widespread Corruption'

The assessment offers an unsparing critique of the failings of the Afghan government, contending that official corruption is as much of a threat as the insurgency to the mission of the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the U.S.-led NATO coalition is widely known.

"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF's own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," McChrystal says.

The result has been a "crisis of confidence among Afghans," he writes. "Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents."

McChrystal is equally critical of the command he has led since June 15. The key weakness of ISAF, he says, is that it is not aggressively defending the Afghan population. "Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect. . . . The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves."

McChrystal continues: "Afghan social, political, economic, and cultural affairs are complex and poorly understood. ISAF does not sufficiently appreciate the dynamics in local communities, nor how the insurgency, corruption, incompetent officials, power-brokers, and criminality all combine to affect the Afghan population."

Coalition intelligence-gathering has focused on how to attack insurgents, hindering "ISAF's comprehension of the critical aspects of Afghan society."

In a four-page annex on detainee operations, McChrystal warns that the Afghan prison system has become "a sanctuary and base to conduct lethal operations" against the government and coalition forces. He cites as examples an apparent prison connection to the 2008 bombing of the Serena Hotel in Kabul and other attacks. "Unchecked, Taliban/Al Qaeda leaders patiently coordinate and plan, unconcerned with interference from prison personnel or the military."

The assessment says that Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents "represent more than 2,500 of the 14,500 inmates in the increasingly overcrowded Afghan Corrections System," in which "[h]ardened, committed Islamists are indiscriminately mixed with petty criminals and sex offenders, and they are using the opportunity to radicalize and indoctrinate them."

Noting that the United States "came to Afghanistan vowing to deny these same enemies safe haven in 2001," he says they now operate with relative impunity in the prisons. "There are more insurgents per square foot in corrections facilities than anywhere else in Afghanistan," his assessment says.

McChrystal outlines a plan to build up the Afghan government's ability to manage its detention facilities and eventually put all such operations under Afghan control, including the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, which the United States runs.

For now, because of a lack of capacity, "productive interrogations and detainee intelligence collection have been reduced" at Bagram. "As a result, hundreds are held without charge or without a defined way-ahead. This allows the enemy to radicalize them far beyond their pre-capture orientation. The problem can no longer be ignored."

[Hammock]

McChrystal's Plan

The general says his command is "not adequately executing the basics" of counterinsurgency by putting the Afghan people first. "ISAF personnel must be seen as guests of the Afghan people and their government, not an occupying army," he writes. "Key personnel in ISAF must receive training in local languages."

He also says that coalition forces will change their operational culture, in part by spending "as little time as possible in armored vehicles or behind the walls of forward operating bases." Strengthening Afghans' sense of security will require troops to take greater risks, but the coalition "cannot succeed if it is unwilling to share risk, at least equally, with the people."

McChrystal warns that in the short run, it "is realistic to expect that Afghan and coalition casualties will increase."

He proposes speeding the growth of Afghan security forces. The existing goal is to expand the army from 92,000 to 134,000 by December 2011. McChrystal seeks to move that deadline to October 2010.

Overall, McChrystal wants the Afghan army to grow to 240,000 and the police to 160,000 for a total security force of 400,000, but he does not specify when those numbers could be reached.

[...]

McChrystal says the military must play an active role in reconciliation, winning over less committed insurgent fighters. The coalition "requires a credible program to offer eligible insurgents reasonable incentives to stop fighting and return to normalcy, possibly including the provision of employment and protection," he writes.

Coalition forces will have to learn that "there are now three outcomes instead of two" for enemy fighters: not only capture or death, but also "reintegration."

Again and again, McChrystal makes the case that his command must be bolstered if failure is to be averted. "ISAF requires more forces," he states, citing "previously validated, yet un-sourced, requirements" -- an apparent reference to a request for 10,000 more troops originally made by McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David D. McKiernan.
A Three-Headed Insurgency

McChrystal identifies three main insurgent groups "in order of their threat to the mission" and provides significant details about their command structures and objectives.

The first is the Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) headed by Mullah Omar, who fled Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and operates from the Pakistani city of Quetta.

"At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Omar announces his guidance and intent for the coming year," according to the assessment.

Mullah Omar's insurgency has established an elaborate alternative government known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, McChrystal writes, which is capitalizing on the Afghan government's weaknesses. "They appoint shadow governors for most provinces, review their performance, and replace them periodically. They established a body to receive complaints against their own 'officials' and to act on them. They install 'shari'a' [Islamic law] courts to deliver swift and enforced justice in contested and controlled areas. They levy taxes and conscript fighters and laborers. They claim to provide security against a corrupt government, ISAF forces, criminality, and local power brokers. They also claim to protect Afghan and Muslim identity against foreign encroachment."

"The QST has been working to control Kandahar and its approaches for several years and there are indications that their influence over the city and neighboring districts is significant and growing," McChrystal writes.

The second main insurgency group is the Haqqani network (HQN), which is active in southeastern Afghanistan and draws money and manpower "principally from Pakistan, Gulf Arab networks, and from its close association with al Qaeda and other Pakistan-based insurgent groups." At another point in the assessment, McChrystal says, "Al Qaeda's links with HQN have grown, suggesting that expanded HQN control could create a favorable environment" for associated extremist movements "to re-establish safe-havens in Afghanistan."

The third is the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgency, which maintains bases in three Afghan provinces "as well as Pakistan," the assessment says. This network, led by the former mujaheddin commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "aims to negotiate a major role in a future Taliban government. He does not currently have geographical objectives as is the case with the other groups," though he "seeks control of mineral wealth and smuggling routes in the east."

Overall, McChrystal provides this conclusion about the enemy: "The insurgents control or contest a significant portion of the country, although it is difficult to assess precisely how much due to a lack of ISAF presence. . . . "

The insurgents make money from the production and sale of opium and other narcotics, but the assessment says that "eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits -- even if possible, and while disruptive -- would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact."

While the insurgency is predominantly Afghan, McChrystal writes that it "is clearly supported from Pakistan. Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, are linked with al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI," which is its intelligence service. Al-Qaeda and other extremist movements "based in Pakistan channel foreign fighters, suicide bombers, and technical assistance into Afghanistan, and offer ideological motivation, training, and financial support."

Toward the end of his report, McChrystal revisits his central theme: "Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure."

Josh Boak and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

A redacted version of the assessment can be found here:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...ted_092109.pdf

[hat tip: Mudville Gazette]

[Ret10Echo]

The U.S. keeps "squeezing the balloon". Zero and the Administration (civil) went for what seemed like an easy win in Afghanistan. Relieved pressure on Iraq, increased pressure in A-stan.

Right now there are a bunch of unqualified 20-somethings in the White House, with ipods in their ears trying to play "Jeopardy" with the troop-levels as they currently are and find out what to revise the mission to.

This, of-course will be followed by a multi-city campaign tour selling the "new" vision as the best thing ever.

[LarryW]

Who leaked this report to Woodward? Doubt it came from the General's staff. Probably not something from the 20-somethings iPhone-implanted bong-heads, either. And, why Woodward and not via the House or Senate liberal pickle-heads? Methinks the leak was a decision from the highest levels of the WH and intended to allow our Dear Leader to show his involvement to study the issues, blah, blah, blah.

Material that provides a Commanding Gneeral's opinion about any aspect of the theater is sensitive stuff, and the leaking of it to the media is criminal. Has it happened before/will it happen again? Probably. And it should be prosecuted. Playing politics with the lives of soldiers is the vile practice we should have learned from history to avoid.

Who was it that leaked this stuff to Woodward? Who made the decision?

Just wondering.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

So what is the opinion of the COIN experts that have been there? Will more conventional troops help or hurt the situation?

It will depend on what they are used for.

TR

[Surf n Turf]

McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan

Looks like the blogs have already taken up the issue.
I wonder if we finally have a GO who means what he says, and says what he means.

SnT

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 in direction in Afghanistan

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat...#ixzz0RmbIkePf

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

It will depend on what they are used for.

TR

This is the response to what to do to "Win" the war in A-Stan................

Originally Posted by The Reaper

It will depend on what they are used for.

Showing the civilian populace that it is in their best interest to support us and our policies (us being US and the Afghan government) rather than the Taliban and AQ.

Making our HN leadership look good.

Using Afghan forces when interacting with the populace.

Taking time to drink chai with the local leadership, repeatedly over several months, and work with them on projects to make them look good. Then you start asking them for things, quietly.

Help your friends.

Saying please and thank you when appropriate.

Not busting into every store to find caches, unless every store has one.

Paying when you break something.

The tool for surgery is a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

You look for networks, and attack key personnel only if you cannot co-opt them.

You close the borders.

Not firing in the vicinity of women, children, and non-combatants with area effect weapons.

Keep the rock and roll with everything you have, to include air strikes, when you are in a defensive location, or out in the boonies.

If you have to hit someone, you swoop in under cover of darkness, hit the house you are after, the specific room you need to, with a minimum of fanfare, and grab the guy and get out without his family even knowing you are there.

Consider that we are about the third or fourth occupiers in the last 100 years, and those before us all failed.

Think about it like this. A potentially hostile force has invaded the U.S. under the guise of providing military assistance. A bunch of them drive from the next state to descend on your neighborhood looking for the resistance and their support. They bust into your store, and trash it. They break down the door to your house, and rough you up in front of your wife and kids before groping them and slapping them around. They do not speak your language, and use collaborators as translators. Their U.S. lackeys ransack your house, and take your personal possessions for their own. Then they leave, having seized your cash, crops, gun collection, son, and a few of the prominent citizens from your neighborhood, like your mayor, the teachers, the veterans, etc. They kill a couple of dozen of your neighbors, friends, and family, only a few who were actual Taliban supporters. Does this make you more likely to support the government that they have helped establish? Doesn't matter if the above actually happened as described, or not. Perceptions are everything. did you ever see "Red Dawn"?

That is the point we seem to have lost, unfortunately, especially the Marines.

That is the difference between a quiet, professional special operations force, who do this for years at the time, and guys who just claim the name for a few months.

This isn't just a poster:

SOF Imperatives

Understand the operational environment
Recognize political implications
Facilitate interagency activities
Engage the threat discriminately
Consider long-term effects
Ensure legitimacy and credibility of Special Operations
Anticipate and control psychological effects
Apply capabilities indirectly
Develop multiple options
Ensure long-term sustainment
Provide sufficient intelligence
Balance security and synchronization

TR

Makes sense to me......

Big Teddy

[Richard]

This offers a pretty good summary of the current situation and major issues affecting any COAs.

Richard's $.02

In Afghanistan Assessment, a Catalyst for Obama
NYT, 22 Sep 2009

President Obama could read the grim assessment of the Afghanistan war from his top military commander there in two possible ways.

He could read Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s report as a blunt and impassioned last-chance plea for a revamped counterinsurgency strategy bolstered by thousands more combat troops to rescue the beleaguered, eight-year mission.

Or he could read it as a searing indictment of American-led NATO military operations and a corrupt Afghan civilian government, pitted against a surprisingly adaptive and increasingly dangerous insurgency.

Either way, General McChrystal’s 66-page report with the deceptively bland title “Commander’s Initial Assessment” is serving to catalyze the thinking of a president — who is keenly aware of the historical perils of a protracted, faraway war — about what he can realistically accomplish in this conflict, and whether his vision for the war and a commitment of American troops is the same as his general’s.

Mr. Obama faces a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, growing opposition to the war at home from Democrats and a desire to put off any major troop decision while he still needs much political capital to pass major health care legislation in Congress.

But even as the president expresses skepticism about sending more American troops to Afghanistan until he has settled on the right strategy, he is also grappling with a stark reality: it will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal.

Mr. Obama has called Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” and in the most basic terms he has the same goal as President George W. Bush did after the Sept. 11 attacks, to prevent another major terrorist assault.

“Whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we’ll figure out how to resource it,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“We’re not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we’re automatically going to make Americans safe,” he said.

The White House expects General McChrystal’s request to be not just for American troops but for NATO forces as well. This week, the White House is sending questions about his review back to the general in Kabul, Afghanistan, and expects to get responses by the end of next week.

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview Monday that he wants to know how the uncertainty surrounding the recent Afghan elections and a plan to reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society could affect General McChrystal’s troop request.

Mr. Obama has had only one meeting so far on the McChrystal review, but aides plan to schedule three or four more after he returns from the Group of 20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh at the end of this week.

Aides said it should take weeks, not months, to make a decision. “The president’s been very clear in our discussion that he’s open-minded and he’s not going to be swayed by political correctness one way or the other,” Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, said in an interview. “Different people are going to have different opinions, and he wants to hear them, but at the end of the day, he’s going to do what he thinks is the right thing for the United States and most especially for the men and women who have to respond to his orders.”

Senior officers who work with General McChrystal say he was surprised by the dire condition of the Afghan mission when he assumed command in June.

His concerns went beyond the strength and resilience of the insurgency. General McChrystal was surprised by the lack of efficient military organization at the NATO headquarters and that a significant percentage of the troops were not positioned to carry out effective counterinsurgency operations.

There was a sense among General McChrystal’s staff that the military effort in Afghanistan was disjointed and had not learned from the lessons of the past years of the war.

“We haven’t been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years,” said one officer. “We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for one year, eight times in a row.”

In his assessment, General McChrystal also portrayed a more sophisticated Taliban foe that uses propaganda effectively and taps into the Afghan prison system as a training ground.

Taliban leaders based in Pakistan appoint shadow governors for most provinces, install their own courts, levy taxes, conscript fighters and wield savvy propagandists. They stand in sharp contrast to a corrupt and inept government.

And Taliban fighters exert control not only through bombs and bullets. “The insurgents wage a ‘silent war’ of fear, intimidation and persuasion throughout the year — not just during the warmer weather ‘fighting season’ — to gain control over the population,” the general said in his report.

Administration officials said that the general’s assessment, while very important, was just one component in the president’s thinking.

Asked on CNN on Sunday why after eight months in office he was still searching for a strategy, Mr. Obama took issue. “We put a strategy in place, clarified our goals, but what the election has shown, as well as changing circumstances in Pakistan, is that this is going to be a very difficult operation,” he said, referring to the Afghan election. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re constantly refining it to keep our focus on what our primary goals are.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/wo...er=rss&emc=rss

[Utah Bob]

I think the Presidential Seal should have a waffle instead of an eagle in it.

[Richard]

And under the political big top - if you'll direct your attention to this ring...

Richard's $.02

A D.C. Whodunit: Who Leaked And Why?
Ben Smith, Politico, 22 Sep 2009

Bob Woodward’s Monday-morning exclusive on a 66-page report from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to President Barack Obama about Afghanistan policy was a rite of passage for the new administration: the first major national security leak and a sure sign that the celebrated Washington Post reporter has penetrated yet another administration.

White House officials greeted the leak with a grimace, but none suggested they’d begin a witch hunt for the leaker. Woodward is famous for his access to the principals themselves — he recently traveled to Afghanistan with National Security Adviser James Jones — and leak hunters couldn’t expect with confidence that they’d find themselves disciplining just an undisciplined junior staffer.

But inside the White House and out, the leak touched off another familiar Washington ritual: speculation about the leaker’s identity and motives.

This is a capital parlor game that, for the Obama administration, has some dire implications. Unless the West Wing somehow orchestrated an elaborate head fake — authorizing what looks at first blush like an intolerable breach of Obama’s internal deliberations — the Woodward story suggests deeper problems for a new president than a bad news cycle.

Woodward — like other reporters, only more so — tends to shake loose information when he can exploit policy conflicts within an administration. There is now a big one over a critical national security decision, along with evidence that some people who ostensibly work for Obama feel they can pressure him with impunity. It took several years within former President George W. Bush’s administration before deep personal and policy fissures became visible.

So who did it?

The simplest theory — and one most administration officials Monday were endorsing — is that a military or civilian Pentagon official who supports McChrystal’s policy put it out in an attempt to pressure Obama to follow McChrystal’s suggestion and increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

But not everyone in Washington is a believer in Occam’s razor, so all manner of other theories flourished.

There are believers in the reverse leak, in which the leak itself is meant to damage McChrystal’s position by inducing White House anger at the general. There’s the fake leak, in which the White House may have been trying to back itself into a corner. A former government official with ties to the Pentagon said the talk in the building was that a senior military official had given it to the reporter for his book on the Obama White House — not realizing it could end up in print sooner.

“That places the ball clearly in the president’s court,” former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen said, noting that Obama had already publicly placed his trust in McChrystal’s judgment.

“It’s an effort — whether by [McChrystal] or by somebody in the Pentagon or maybe the White House — to say, ‘You’ve asked the military to give you not what you want to hear but what you have to know. Now it’s up to you as commander in chief to decide if you think you have a better idea.’”

The leak is a shot across the bows, he said, of Vice President Joe Biden and of leading congressional Democrats who oppose a buildup in Afghanistan.

Another Clinton veteran with experience in national security matters was not so sure, however, that Obama wasn’t helped by a piece that lays the public ground for an inevitable troop escalation. “This thing has to have some airing and consideration by the public — so in the tactical sense, there’s a benefit to considering it,” the official said.

But some said all this speculation may be overthinking the matter. Many people in Washington, after all, are motivated by personal vanities as much as by policy convictions.

“It’s most likely someone who has or is cultivating a personal relationship with Bob Woodward and positioning himself to look good in Woodward’s next book,” said Matt Bennett, vice president at the Democratic-leaning think tank Third Way, echoing the views of many inside government and out.


The history of Woodward sources portrayed as heroes is long, including the likes of Colin Powell and, for a time, George W. Bush. But Woodward’s take on the Bush administration also changed dramatically with time, and some portrayed positively in his early books were savaged in the later ones.

Whatever the motive, the appearance of McChrystal’s report makes it more difficult for Obama to defer, through an extensive series of consultations, a decision over which side he will take in a debate over the recommendation of adding more soldiers and civilians to a more robust mission with the goal of giving Afghanistan — perhaps for the first time — a strong, functioning central government. The release follows a letter from a range of Obama’s usual critics — from neoconservative foreign policy thinkers to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Bush adviser Karl Rove — pressing Obama to follow just that policy.

“The Pentagon hasn’t changed and there are a lot of people within the Pentagon who understand the strategic use of the leak,” said Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the Democratic-leaning National Security Network. One possibility you have to look at is this being leaked by someone who is in league with the neocon assault on Obama, where anything short of ‘all in’ is framed as weak and a defeat.”

In the larger sense, the document’s contents are completely unsurprising — McChrystal’s views were widely known, and the assessment just spells them out. But giving the document to a brand name like Bob Woodward, who has a flair for the dramatic, ensures big play in The Washington Post and broad pickup by other media.

“This leak would, by all appearances, be the act of someone who supports an increase in troop strength and resources,” said Kevin Kellems, a communications director for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who noted that “the power of Woodward going on page A1 is exceptional” in its ability to dictate to wire services and cable outlets, a vanishing power of the newspapers. “This is the act most likely of a civilian who is an advocate of this position and believes they were right to do this because lives were at stake.”

Third Way’s Bennett, whose group backs a bigger commitment in Afghanistan, said he thought the document would do McChrystal’s position more harm than good.

“It’s not going to pressure the president to go the way they want him to go,” he said. “It’s going to annoy people in the White House, and that’s never a good idea.”

Others argued that the White House itself benefits from the leak.

“It’s a helpful thing to have out in the ether for the White House,” said Dan Senor, a former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, who said the report would help beat back criticism on the left. “I think the White House wants to convey how much pressure they’re under from the military,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t speculate on the source of the leak.

Others simply welcomed the fact that the leak might force a quicker decision on an urgent question.

“It at least, for the first time, gives people a tangible picture of what the recommended options are, and it to some extent forces the issue,” said Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has been critical of an Afghan buildup. “The tendency in the White House is to try and slip this until health care and possibly the economy are taken care of, but nobody has that kind of time.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27414.html

[nmap]

“This leak would, by all appearances, be the act of someone who supports an increase in troop strength and resources,” said Kevin Kellems

I can't help thinking it's someone who wants to force a withdrawal.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by nmap

I can't help thinking it's someone who wants to force a withdrawal.

Or simply put Gen McChrystal want the former ACORN "Community Organizer" to shit or get off the pot.

Give them what they need or fold.

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by nmap

I can't help thinking it's someone who wants to force a withdrawal.

nmap,
I disagree.
I think that the “leak(s)” was/were orchestrated to force Øbama to make a decision to supply the necessary tools that HIS hand picked General, on the ground, needs to win the war.
If Øbama blinks, he catches the wrath of the public, and maybe a withdrawal.
If Øbama supports General McChrystal, then we have a situation where we are finally providing our military with the equipment and manpower to fight and to win a conflict.
In either case, we don’t, once again, put the Military in a NO-WIN situation.
SnT

[nmap]

When I hear the voice(s) of wisdom, I pay attention.

Thank you both, Team Sergeant and Surf n Turf. I can see your point.

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Or simply put Gen McChrystal want the former ACORN "Community Organizer" to shit or get off the pot.

Give them what they need or fold.

I think Team Sergeant and I said the same thing, only he said it more succinctly.
SnT