“War is based on deception.”
Sun Tzu
In this case we are looking at Obama and his panty waists in the White House, they deceiving their battlefield commander and the American public. In an article last week I mentioned that I believed General McCrystal was a ‘political’ General – I take that back. What seems to be evident as each day passes is that he is trying his best to manage a situation where he has been left off at you know what creek, without a paddle.
General McCrystal it was noted on Military.com, while being interviewed on 60 Minutes, Sunday, September 27, 2009, slammed the DoD bureaucracy of the Pentagon for moving to slowly. The General complained that SECDEF Gates, while pressuring him to move quickly, the Defense Department moved slowly to give him staff officers.
McCrystal was also quoted in that same interview saying, “The SECDEF talks in terms of 12 to 18 months to show a significant change, and then we eat up two or three months just on….getting the tools out of the tool box.” McCrystal when asked how many meetings he had with the (so called) Commander in Chief, said “once,” in the last 70 days. McCrystal also said, (regarding the Defence Department), “….When someone asks if you want something they look at their calendar….But in a good organization they look at their watch.”
The Army’s retention rate may now beginning to wobble despite the flood of new recruits joining to escape the domestic economic calamity. I personally know of two soldiers who are nearly at the end of their enlistments who had planned to re-enlist. One of them said to me, “you have to have rocks in your head to want to serve under this president.”
President Obama seems to be beating down the best of America at every turn, economically bankrupting us, making naive and dangerous assumptions in his foreign policy decisions and showing himself in general as self serving, self aggrandizing and self absorbed – unable to adjust his course or focus on important issues - a sign of personal weakness if ever there was one, or maybe his program chip may be malfunctioning. Just my opinion.
William McCullough
this war is bleeding america dry…theres pressure on obama to fix the economy. caving in to wall st generals trying to beef up their budget and give themselves an exaggerated sense of self importance by their misguided machismo is political suicide for the liberal commander. cheney said in 2005 the taliban had been completely wiped out in iraq. war is deception and america has been lied to for 8 years by the republicans
You are right about this war bleeding us dry – but what is the alternatve? Remember Obama called this the “just war” in his campaign speeches and said there was “no alternative” to defeating the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
If the Taliban re-emerge and take over then Al Qaeda will be part of the government – Pakistan, with their nukes, will most surely fall soon after if that takes place. However what is also bleeding us dry is Obama’s spending trillions of dollars borrowed from the Chinese and Russians and at the rate he’s going you won’t have to worry about the war – we will be too bankrupt to fight it.
In regards to retention in the military, I agree with the “rocks in your head” sentiment. I started my career under Clinton. I didn’t like him. Whenever he came to visit the troops, me and every soldier I knew actively avoided having to go to his visits.
He was devoid of character and I remember the media trying to tell all of us Americans that character didn’t matter in leadership because it was a private issue. This was totally against all of my leadership training and experience. One thing I have found is that character is everything. It is character that causes you to face up to reality, accept a mistake, or better yet, strive so they don’t happen in the first place.
It is character that has led Mccrystal to continue serving with honor despite being set up as a fall guy by this administration. It was the lack of character that led liberal Mayor Ray Nagin to cut and run and leave the people of New Orleans like a little bitch when Katrina was coming in and then blame everyone else after the city was destroyed.
The left in this country has always disliked the military in this country and at best, viewed those who served as having been duped into serving and at worst, with contempt and hatred as being “baby killers”. This is primarily because most in the military possess something these guys don’t have, true confidence, pride and that pesky character thing. It makes them insecure.
To compensate, people like Clinton drip with condescension and arrogance towards military folks and it always shows through no matter how many well staged photo ops they try. Barbara “could you please call me Senator” Boxer was an absolutely glowing example of what I’m talking about.
As a side note, I have found it interesting that those in the military who tend to support liberal leaders tend to be in the non-combat arms side of the house. And it is they, the ones who stay on the FOB’s and are the first ones in line at the PX, Chow Halls, Pizza Huts, and Green Bean coffee houses who are hand selected to sit and grin like idiots in those photo ops, while those in the combat arms are outside the wire humpin’ up the side of a mountain chasing the Taliban. You won’t find too much love for a self serving, narcisistic “Chai Boy” president in a line Infantry Platoon where the atmosphere is more like something out of “300″.
Our current CinC resembles something more like Xerxes who is better pleased by a slave army bowing in front of him as he steps off his platform than an army of proud, driven professionals.
Soldiers have real reason to fear serving under presidents like Obama and Clinton. It is more than political, these guys have a real threat of being thrown under the bus for political expediency. But, it’s not just the top leaders; the ground pounders, are now being threatened by the UN for “war crimes” under very dubious definitions. This has been the holy grail for lefties wanting to subvert US sovereignty to the world, remember the UN Blue Helmets?
I do, and I remember the UN trying to tell our Airborne Battalion in Haiti what was what. We were not under UN command there, so, in true American fashion, we told them to go take a long walk on a short pier. Of course the stellar UN troops on the ground there watched carelessly as the Haitians kidnapped and killed each other in broad daylight. Funny, whenever we drove around Port au Prince, no one messed with us. Things seemed to happen before or after we left an area. Hmmmm.
What better way to force America to bow than to put her troops under foreign commands? Or better yet, prosecute US Troops for doing their jobs in a world court? And then jail them in foreign prisons? Do you think troops are going to give their best if they think that effort could land them the rest of their lives in some filthy foreign prison? Given his inability to stop his own attorney general from going after honorable CIA agents for doing their jobs, I don’t have much faith Obama would stand up for the troops against UN Lawyers.
Like him or hate him, Bush would not allow that sort of thing on his watch. And I remember the atmosphere of morale rising when he came into office after 8 long years of Clinton. Unlike the one who preceded him and the one that followed, he actually served. And he actually volunteered for Vietnam, unlike his predecessor who avoided all military service. Of course, if you watch Dan Rather and CBS news, you may not be aware of that fact. Bush genuinely cared for the troops and LISTENED to his battlefield commanders.
You can say what you want about the carrier landing, but the troops did in fact, accomplish the mission. Monday morning quarter backs and armchair generals now debate the hard times that would lie ahead with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. No one talks about the 500 tons of Yellow Cake Uranium that was hauled out of Iraq the year before last, or all of the satellite photos of trucks and aircraft flying to Syria just before we invaded, or the Iraqi Mig 29′s that were found, buried in the desert, well preserved.
But, hey it’s all khoob, because according to the NIE report in 2004, Iran gave up its Nuclear program, like, a hundred years ago or something.
All I can say, from the perspective of a troop, is that it is going to be a long 3 more years of dealing with another commander in chief who has no clue and, in my observation, really doesn’t give a rat’s ass. But most importantly, he is doing his best to destroy the America so many have fought and died for, and the only America worth fighting and dying for.
God watch over and bless the troops who continue to serve, who are fighting for the same America I believe in.
Le Patriot
PS “Khoob” is Farsi for good.
While Obama is running around promoting the city of Chicago for the Olympics, he finds 25 minutes of time in his “busy” schedule to talk to Gen McCrystal about the war in Afghanistan:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33136780/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia
Now Obama looks like an ass that his city lost the bid for the 2012:
http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/story/10154098/Chicago-loses-in-bid-to-host-2016-Olympics
The last thing on the President’s mind should have been the Olympics, with all the turmoil we have in the US. He needs to stop “Farving” (www.Urbandictionary.com) and make a decision.
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” – Shakespeare
Dog of War – Semper Fi
What is absolutely a clamoring tell of this entire affair is how readily, passionately and insistently they are forcing socilaized, nationalized health care and its mind bending cost onto Americans right away. This has to be done because it is the scourge, the challenge of our time, and the purported reason to be against it is the typical racist desire to harm, exclude the poor and minorities and of course illegal aliens.
Conversely we have a President who has done everything possible to obstruct aggressive military engagement in global war a modern day crusade that was allowed to foment and attain global, bloody reach in genocide not known for decades and a pattern and practice of human rights and geneva convention violations too numerous to count.
This dangerous war that has strategic implications for the demise of this nation.
This is the issue he takes slow, contemplative, deliberational steps to ensure we are correct in every way, one in which he completely disregarded his military leaders and told them to review everything they complied for him.
A demonstrated, blood thirsty enemy that caused scores of American lives over the Clinton Presidency when little was done, much was concealed and the national security arm was underfunded, legally restricted and dogs wagged tails.
I think he just gave himself away again.