It's On To Plan "E"

Per the AP Obama has rejected all four alternative Afghanistan strategies devised by his National Security team, which is deeply divided - Eikenberry, the current ambassador and retired three star general doesn't want to see any more troops until Karzai makes progress on corruption:

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said.

...In addition to placing the Karzai problem prominently on the table, the cables from Eikenberry, a retired three-star general who in 2006-2007 commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan, have rankled his former colleagues in the Pentagon -- as well as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, defense officials said. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has stated that without the deployment of an additional tens of thousands of troops within the next year, the mission there "will likely result in failure."

I am begging Team Obama, please - not in front of the kids.  Eventually Obama will have to announce some damn strategy or other, the Administration will have to pretend to be united behind it and committed to its success, and they willattempt to rally the country's support.

That was never going to be easy since this is a brutally difficult decision being tackled by a guy utterly unqualified to make it.  But having this visibly divided and undisciplined Administration playing their war of leaks and staging their arguments in public is only going to make it harder.

Oh, well - since I support the public's right to know I suppose I should support the public's right to know that the Administration is divided and confused on this issue.  None dare call it dithering.

Comments

[Andrew X]

I absoulutely love this anonymous email sent to Glen Reynolds at Instapundit. It is so dead-on cogent and should be spread far and wide. How many volumes are spoken in these two simple lines....

The towers fell in New York on 9/11/01, Kabul fell to American led forces on 11/14/01. That’s 65 days.

President Obama’s hand-picked replacement commander in Afghanistan, GEN McChrystal, delivered his Afghanistan war plans to President Obama on 8/30/09, and President Obama hasn’t acted on his General’s recommendations as of today, 11/11/09. That’s 73 days, and waiting.

No further elaboration necessary.

[bgates]

the Administration is divided and confused

Team of Rivals! How Lincolnesque! I like how the President takes the time to consider every possible scenario, rather than rushing in to do something that might be less than perfect.

[MarkO]

Cables? They are sending cables? Pigeons?

[sbw]

I forget. Who was it that advised Bush to listen to the generals?

[Ranger]

I like how the President takes the time to consider every possible scenario, rather than rushing in to do something that might be less than perfect.

Posted by: bgates | November 12, 2009 at 01:29 PM

Have faith in the process. If you can just keep the process going long enough, the problem will resolve itself.

[bgates]

Who was it that advised Bush to listen to the generals?

The same cabal of warmongers who spent the late 90s whipping up hysteria over Saddam's so-called "weapons programs"

-Clinton, Albright, Pelosi, Reid....

[The Taliban is alien and criminal.]

We should saunter down that dark defile, cops on the beat.
==============================

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

None dare call it dithering.

I dare. He is the Ditherer-in-Chief because he dithers over everything and his dithering is going to get Americans killed. In fact, he is such a ditherer, we have 14 dead at Ft. Hood, and he dithers around before even acknowledging the terror act.

Dithering ditherer.

There I dared.

[Present anyway.]

Alright, dither down that dark defile.
=====================

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Cables? They are sending cables? Pigeons?

Mark, a "diplomatic cable" is a term of art. The actual transmission is more like a telex or TWX, over very highly encrypted channels.

It's important to keep these things totally secret, so they only get leaked when it's politically convenient.

[vsatt]

He's waiting for options E and F ... Epic Fail!

[srp]

Given the management team, the George Will cut-and-run strategy is looking marginally better than it used to. You go to war with the Commander-in-Chief you have. But I guess whether he gets his act together is a known unknown.

I miss Rummy sometimes.

[bgates]

More evidence of how Obama cares:

His quiet, unscheduled, totally ad-libbed visit to Arlington, which we wouldn't even know about except a reporter for the Daily News just happened to be there at the same time and wrote a column about it.

[Frau Disco-Fieber]

Then there are the unknowns that Pres.Goofy doesn't know that he doesn't know.

[Appalled]

You know, I managed to erase my well thought out complaint about Obama's approach in this matter. I don't feel like retyping it. The LUN expresses it well- enough. (PS -- If you try to dance to this, you might break your leg)

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Ewwwww. He is fouling Alaska and speaking with a backdrop of military.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

The military looks bored or dazed.

[freemansfarm]

I'm not in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan. In fact, I'm in favor of pulling out all together. And, no, I don't wish to argue about it here...

But, that being said, I don't understand how anyone (and that includes Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic) could possibly think that Obama is showing "leadership" on this issue. Leadership, one would think, would involve taking a position, making a decision, and sticking with it until the objective was reached. That might involve convincing the skepical, defending the unpopular, challenging the conventional wisdom, rallying those who agree, communicating the reasons for the decision, etc., etc.

Sullivan, et al, seem to think that doing nothing, dithering, waiting to see which way the wind blows, letting everyone and his brother "have his say," allowing it to fester as (in this case, at least) people are dying, and so on, shows how "confident" and "effective" a "leader" Obama is.

Obama said, while campaigning, that winning the war in Afghanistan was vital to the US. I don't believe that, and would be the first to welcome a change of heart, and a change of plans. But I don't see how allowing a whole year, a quarter of his term, to go by without making up his mind one way or the other can be construed as a positive.

And all of the above applies equally to health care (except, perhaps, the part about people dying). Sullivan explicitly compares Obama's "leadership" on Afghanistan with his "leadership" on the public option. And pronounces both to be just peachy keen.

Yeah, they are comparable all right!
But, aain, whatever one thinks of the various health care proposals in general, or the public option in particular, I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that Obama has been a leader on the issue. As with Afghanistan, he has no plan of his own on health care. He is like a Delphic oracle, making statements that can be, and are, subject to wildly different interpretations. Then, his advisors put their contradictory "spins" on his comments. And his emphasis changes from day to day. Meanwhile, the process rolls along, with "input" from everybody but nobody in charge, with separate bills on separate tracks in both Houses and within each House. No one has a clue what will emerge in the end in general, or on the issue of public option. Nor is it even clear what Obama wants to have emerge on these issues.

How is any of that leadership? Is this some kind of "post modenern" thing? I just don't get it.

[Ignatz]

--He is the Ditherer-in-Chief because he dithers over everything and his dithering is going to get Americans killed.--

Let's be fair.
He only dithers over things like war and national security.
When it comes to bankrupting us and distributing the spoils of that bankruptcy to his cronies he's greased lightning.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Uh, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I, I, Me, My, uh, uh, uh ...

Point taken Ignatz.

[DebinNC]

You nailed it, freemansfarm.

[clarice]

I have two friends whose sons are scheduled to go to Afghanistan probably later this year. Were I in their place I'd be livid.

[MarkO]

Charlie, thanks. At least Duke basketball is about to begin. Carolina sucks, as we all know.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Vanderleun:

Afghanistan: The Failure to Plan Is "The Plan"

He paints a frightening picture.

[I Won]

I have saved or created ONE MILLION JOBS! Give me a break on this Afghan thingie. Ya'll are startin' to sound like Beltwoman.

[max bernat]

To Andrew X...

Yes, Kabul fell 65 days after the WTC...

AND EIGHT YEARS LATER, WE ARE STILL THERE!! How moronic, facile, utterly wrongheaded, and yet typical, is that comparison. What a dope.

Your kind of certainty, Cheney's kind of decisiveness, is idiotic and dangerous. Please...too dumb.