Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Condensed Version Posted by Michael Cohen

I'm trying to think of the most polite way for me to say that General McCrystal and the military leadership have really screwed over President Obama and dangerously narrowed his choices on what to do about Afghanistan.

Luckily, this McClatchy article tells the story pretty well. First check out the headline:

Pentagon worried about Obama's commitment to Afghanistan

Uh oh. And then look at these off-the-record quotes:

"I think they (the Obama administration) thought this would be more popular and easier," a senior Pentagon official said. "We are not getting a Bush-like commitment to this war."

Monday's assessment initially was to include troop recommendations, but political concerns prompted White House and Pentagon officials to agree that those recommendations would come later, advisers to McChrystal said.

This is pretty unbelievable stuff. But it gets worse:

Obama now feels that McChrystal and his superior, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the Central Command, are pressuring him to commit still more troops to Afghanistan, a senior military official said. The official said that retired Marine Gen. James Jones, Obama's national security adviser, told McChrystal last month not to ask for more troops, but that McChrystal went ahead anyway and indicated in interviews that he may need more.

I don't even know what to make of this story. Maybe it's pro-Obama folks trying to push the notion that the military is narrowing the President's choices. But whatever the case it highlights a concern that I've had for quite a while, but I've seen few people make: the military not the White House is driving U.S Afghan policy - and they're driving it right off a cliff. 

Back in March when President Obama announced his new policy for Afghanistan-Pakistan he made very clear that the mission was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda." He never used the words counter-insurgency and he never mentioned making protecting the population the focal point of US efforts in Afghanistan.

But by June, General McCrystal was already sounding a very different tune:

“A resilient Taliban insurgency, increasing levels of violence, lack of governance capacity … lack of development in key areas” threatens the “future of Afghanistan and regional stability.” Providing the Afghan people “with an opportunity to shape their future” requires a “firm commitment” from the United States. “The challenge is considerable,” and “there is no simple answer.” McChrystal advocates a “holistic counterinsurgency campaign.” Casualties “will increase” but “with the appropriate resources, time, sacrifice and patience, we will prevail.”

In March, Obama said that the US would not be focused on dictating Afghanistan's future. In June McCrystal says the exact opposite and goes far beyond simply describing an operational approach - this is a shift away from counter terrorism to counter-insurgency and nation building. This provided, I think, the first inclination that the mission in Afghanistan was evolving and that it was being defined not by the President, or the Secretary of State, but by the Pentagon and in particular, by General McCrystal. A mission initially focused on al Qaeda was now being broadened to target the Taliban. Still there was reason to believe this was strategic approach shared by the White House.

Yet a mere month later, National Security Advisor Jim Jones threw some very cold water on the notion that the US was getting into a deep counter-insurgency mission or more important that more troops would be on their way. Remember the WTF moment:

Suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel? Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to WTF -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What the [expletive]?" Nicholson and his colonels -- all or nearly all veterans of Iraq -- seemed to blanch at the unambiguous message that this might be all the troops they were going to get.

Yet, a mere 10 days later; a mere 10 days after Jim Jones makes clear no more troops should be requested comes this story from the Washington Post:

"There are not enough Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police for our forces to partner with in operations . . . and that gap will exist into the coming years even with the planned growth already budgeted for," said a U.S. military official in Kabul who is familiar with McChrystal's ongoing review.

Without significant increases, said another U.S. official involved in training Afghan forces, "we will lose the war." Gates would have to agree to any request from McChrystal for additional funding or troops, and recommend it to Obama.

And before you know it, Jones is backtracking from the WTF moment:

Jones said McChrystal is "perfectly within his mandate as a new commander to make the recommendation on the military posture as he sees it. We have to wait until he does that. There was never any intention on my visit [to Afghanistan] to say, 'Don't ever come in with a request or to put a cap on troops.' 

This should have been the wake-up call that something was amiss in U.S-Afghan policy - and more important that the White House and the military were not on the same page. As I wrote at the time:

I believe this is known as the ratf**k. Does anyone else think that if McCrystal and Petraues come to the President in the Summer of 2010 (a few months before a mid-term election) and say we need more troops at the same time you have military officials leaking to the WP that we'll lose war if we don't get more troops . . . that more troops won't be on their way to Afghanistan?

Guess what. I was off by about a year. Now you have McCrystal leaking his "secret" review to the press and senior officials in the military expressing off-the-record concern that our Democratic President, in the midst of a bruising battle over health care reform, who by the way never served in the military is not "committed" to the mission in Afghanistan.

Does anyone believe that President Obama will politically be able to say no to an almost inevitable military request for more troops?  And unless the President has the guts to stand up to McCrystal and the military we're going to be in Afghanistan for a very long time.

You got to give McCrystal and the military credit - they played this beautifully.

In the end, does anyone believe that once we begin to wade deeper into this conflict that it won't become even more difficult to get out?  Can anyone see a realistic light at the end of this tunnel? Because I sure as hell don't.

We are fighting on behalf of a corrupt, illegitimate "president" in Kabul who probably just stole a presidential election, we have little support from the Afghan military and police for a counter-insurgency mission, no interest from the Pakistani government to go after Afghan Taliban safe havens in their country, a slowly eroding NATO alliance, a resurgent Taliban insurgency and hawks in the Washington Post telling the President unless he sends more troops to Afghanistan he is facing "certain defeat" and the prospects of becoming a "failed war time president."

To quote David Petraeus, "tell me how this ends."

Comments

[Zathras]

What did we really expect here? We have a military aware that Afghanistan has been underresourced since sometime in early 2002, facing a growing guerilla conflict, meeting a new President who talked for years on the campaign trail about how the last administration took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan. Of course it is politically awkward now for President Obama that the commanders he appointed to run the Afghanistan war are asking for more resources. They, however, are bound to ask themselves whether Obama meant what he was saying for the last two years or not.

Context is not conclusion. The Obama administration -- starting with the President himself -- still needs to decide what its goals in Afghanistan are. It is faced both by military commanders asking for more resources to make up ground lost in the backwater years since 2002 and critics offering explanations of what won't work and no alternatives that will. This is an unenviable situation, but perhaps Gen. McChrystal's call for a new strategy can provide a way for Obama and his team to make the best of it. It cannot, after all, be a requirement that any new strategy have the same objectives as the old strategy. Just as Obama must confront the question of whether we have enough resources in Afghanistan, Petraeus and McChrystal must deal with the issue of whether all the damage done during the years when Afghanistan was put on hold while the Bush administration pursued the Iraq adventure can really be repaired now.

[cChalfonte]

Just wanted to say thank you to Michael Cohen for presenting all of the arguments for an against our continued presence in Afghanistan.

The best commentary on the web, imo.

[Michael S. Levinson]

Realistic Light At The end Of The Tunnel:

Amongst others, George Will is wrong. We need to occupy all the opium poppy fields. We need to dig extensive livable foxholes in every field. We need to negotiate with every farmer we are purchasing the total crop from the farmers. We are willing to pay the distilled heroin price but we want the opium in its original black milk form. In the event there are users in the house we will allow the farmers enough for their home use.



The key to solving the terrorist issue is the poppy! The poppy funds a dope running religious fanatic organization going under the name Taliban. The poppy harvest funds all of the operations conducted by al Qaeda.

Government officials throughout the country siphon the proceeds from the poppy. 



Monopoly! 93% of the world's opium, the base for heroin, morphine, and codeine is grown in Afghanistan. The most powerful marijuana, best for neutering the side effects from chemotherapy grows in Afghanistan.



After the harvest, most of the opium poppy milk, the raw opium is distilled into white powder heroin. The heroin is smuggled throughout Russia, the eastern Bloc, some to Iran where they grow their own opium for home use, a different strain of poppy that when milked has a reddish look instead of black; plenty through out Western Europe, tons by boat and plane to South America where the heroin is repackaged to appear South American grown.

The Columbian Cartels then ship the heroin to the Mexican Cartels for export sale and distribution in USA.



The heroin manufactured from Afghanistan opium poppy cannot be replaced overnight! The Afghani's have a monopoly! Were we to simply purchase their opium crop, year in and year out, and their marijuana crop, for medicinal purposes, the country would thrive.

There would be enough money in Afghanistan, in each of the provinces to create jobs building roads and schools and to live in peace and harmony! This would be a lot more cost effective then engaging in senseless war.



Al Qaeda would be out of business, unable to pay their operatives who would slip away without a guarantee of pay. Al qaeda would not have the money to pay the families of the suicide bombers. The idea of planning a mass murderous attack on USA would be a hashish pipe dream. Dick Cheney would be out of business.



The troops who follow the Afghani warlords would go home. They follow the warlords for food and money. The Taliban would dissolve. They are dope smugglers only pretending to be religious fanatics.



To bring this about, making the world a safer place for the innocent everywhere, we need only occupy the opium fields with the understanding we are paying top dollar - the distilled heroin price for the raw opium and then Taliban, the war lords, and al Qaeda won't have any choice but come out from behind the boulders where they hide by the roadsides, and attack our dug in troops in the poppy fields.



On the move, with drones we will pick off half before they get that far.

The night before the plant milking harvest is to begin, we cut down our poppy! We know from the farmers how many ounces each plant produces. We multiply the opium volume X the number of plants to determine the farmer's cut.



Then we cut down the poppy two inches above ground, chop up all the plants into mulch, enriching the soil for the next harvest. Liken this to spilling a fat line of coke, tipping a mirror off your knee and dumping the line of powder onto a shag rug.



All the terrorist operations in that part of the world will collapse!



Recently the Chairman of the joint chiefs was questioned in a televised interview. He was asked what the army was doing about the opium / heroin trade. He said words to the effect they were "targeting" the people "distributing the product." The "product?!" 

This is the language of a bureaucrat, not a military leader.



The president should ORDER the military to do exactly what 'eye say.' Then we win. Without paying homage to conspiracy theorists, the military does not want to defeat these terrorists. Without the terrorist threat, their own power and influence, their bureaucracy is diminished. President Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. The words, "peace," and 'harmony" do not appear in their lexicons. The words, "peace", and "harmony" are absent from their military manuals.



Anyone using these words is considered by the military a domestic enemy, and each branch has a counter intelligence domestic program operating in USA. They investigate!



The last time i sent a sharply worded letter to noose paper editors all around the country, the f be eye knocked on my back door, waving the email and wanted to come into my house to talk to me. How long before the Fascist Bureaucracy Ink comes knocking on your door? 



michaelslevinson dot commie is a decent place to visit. Just don't visit from your home computer unless you want to invite an echo in your telephone, indicating you are on j. edgarina's party line for a couple three-day trials.



j. edgarina, the fascist cross dressing pervert of dirt established policies that are active to this day. Hoover's domestic counter intelligence minions, the newspaper editors and writers ef be eye sponsored into grad schools and from there, local TV newsrooms and noose papers need to be weeded out. 



The writers sponsored by the ef be eye shill professor jay rosen need to be uncovered. 



An examination of all the noose paper people who got emotional in the noose rooms when discussing weapons of mass destruction need to be looked at - where these editors and writers have close family members who work in the D.C. bureaucracy, like the Pentagon and Sea Eye Yay, which stands for cash In Advance, they need to be relieved of their positions! 

We are better served with policies reflecting the above. Try you tube dot commie forward slash poet prophet.

michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf gets you a free copy of "New World Hors D'oeuvres."

[Michael S. Levinson]

Realistic Light At The end Of The Tunnel:

Amongst others, George Will is wrong. We need to occupy all the opium poppy fields. We need to dig extensive livable foxholes in every field. We need to negotiate with every farmer we are purchasing the total crop from the farmers. We are willing to pay the distilled heroin price but we want the opium in its original black milk form. In the event there are users in the house we will allow the farmers enough for their home use.



The key to solving the terrorist issue is the poppy! The poppy funds a dope running religious fanatic organization going under the name Taliban. The poppy harvest funds all of the operations conducted by al Qaeda.

Government officials throughout the country siphon the proceeds from the poppy. 



Monopoly! 93% of the world's opium, the base for heroin, morphine, and codeine is grown in Afghanistan. The most powerful marijuana, best for neutering the side effects from chemotherapy grows in Afghanistan.



After the harvest, most of the opium poppy milk, the raw opium is distilled into white powder heroin. The heroin is smuggled throughout Russia, the eastern Bloc, some to Iran where they grow their own opium for home use, a different strain of poppy that when milked has a reddish look instead of black; plenty through out Western Europe, tons by boat and plane to South America where the heroin is repackaged to appear South American grown.

The Columbian Cartels then ship the heroin to the Mexican Cartels for export sale and distribution in USA.



The heroin manufactured from Afghanistan opium poppy cannot be replaced overnight! The Afghani's have a monopoly! Were we to simply purchase their opium crop, year in and year out, and their marijuana crop, for medicinal purposes, the country would thrive.

There would be enough money in Afghanistan, in each of the provinces to create jobs building roads and schools and to live in peace and harmony! This would be a lot more cost effective then engaging in senseless war.



Al Qaeda would be out of business, unable to pay their operatives who would slip away without a guarantee of pay. Al qaeda would not have the money to pay the families of the suicide bombers. The idea of planning a mass murderous attack on USA would be a hashish pipe dream. Dick Cheney would be out of business.



The troops who follow the Afghani warlords would go home. They follow the warlords for food and money. The Taliban would dissolve. They are dope smugglers only pretending to be religious fanatics.



To bring this about, making the world a safer place for the innocent everywhere, we need only occupy the opium fields with the understanding we are paying top dollar - the distilled heroin price for the raw opium and then Taliban, the war lords, and al Qaeda won't have any choice but come out from behind the boulders where they hide by the roadsides, and attack our dug in troops in the poppy fields.



On the move, with drones we will pick off half before they get that far.

The night before the plant milking harvest is to begin, we cut down our poppy! We know from the farmers how many ounces each plant produces. We multiply the opium volume X the number of plants to determine the farmer's cut.



Then we cut down the poppy two inches above ground, chop up all the plants into mulch, enriching the soil for the next harvest. Liken this to spilling a fat line of coke, tipping a mirror off your knee and dumping the line of powder onto a shag rug.



All the terrorist operations in that part of the world will collapse!



Recently the Chairman of the joint chiefs was questioned in a televised interview. He was asked what the army was doing about the opium / heroin trade. He said words to the effect they were "targeting" the people "distributing the product." The "product?!" 

This is the language of a bureaucrat, not a military leader.



The president should ORDER the military to do exactly what 'eye say.' Then we win. Without paying homage to conspiracy theorists, the military does not want to defeat these terrorists. Without the terrorist threat, their own power and influence, their bureaucracy is diminished. President Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. The words, "peace," and 'harmony" do not appear in their lexicons. The words, "peace", and "harmony" are absent from their military manuals.



Anyone using these words is considered by the military a domestic enemy, and each branch has a counter intelligence domestic program operating in USA. They investigate!



The last time i sent a sharply worded letter to noose paper editors all around the country, the f be eye knocked on my back door, waving the email and wanted to come into my house to talk to me. How long before the Fascist Bureaucracy Ink comes knocking on your door? 



michaelslevinson dot commie is a decent place to visit. Just don't visit from your home computer unless you want to invite an echo in your telephone, indicating you are on j. edgarina's party line for a couple three-day trials.



j. edgarina, the fascist cross dressing pervert of dirt established policies that are active to this day. Hoover's domestic counter intelligence minions, the newspaper editors and writers ef be eye sponsored into grad schools and from there, local TV newsrooms and noose papers need to be weeded out. 



The writers sponsored by the ef be eye shill professor jay rosen need to be uncovered. 



An examination of all the noose paper people who got emotional in the noose rooms when discussing weapons of mass destruction need to be looked at - where these editors and writers have close family members who work in the D.C. bureaucracy, like the Pentagon and Sea Eye Yay, which stands for cash In Advance, they need to be relieved of their positions! 

We are better served with policies reflecting the above. Try you tube dot commie forward slash poet prophet.

michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf gets you a free copy of "New World Hors D'oeuvres."

[Michael S. Levinson]

Realistic Light At The end Of The Tunnel:

Amongst others, George Will is wrong. We need to occupy all the opium poppy fields. We need to dig extensive livable foxholes in every field. We need to negotiate with every farmer we are purchasing the total crop from the farmers. We are willing to pay the distilled heroin price but we want the opium in its original black milk form. In the event there are users in the house we will allow the farmers enough for their home use.



The key to solving the terrorist issue is the poppy! The poppy funds a dope running religious fanatic organization going under the name Taliban. The poppy harvest funds all of the operations conducted by al Qaeda.

Government officials throughout the country siphon the proceeds from the poppy. 



Monopoly! 93% of the world's opium, the base for heroin, morphine, and codeine is grown in Afghanistan. The most powerful marijuana, best for neutering the side effects from chemotherapy grows in Afghanistan.



After the harvest, most of the opium poppy milk, the raw opium is distilled into white powder heroin. The heroin is smuggled throughout Russia, the eastern Bloc, some to Iran where they grow their own opium for home use, a different strain of poppy that when milked has a reddish look instead of black; plenty through out Western Europe, tons by boat and plane to South America where the heroin is repackaged to appear South American grown.

The Columbian Cartels then ship the heroin to the Mexican Cartels for export sale and distribution in USA.



The heroin manufactured from Afghanistan opium poppy cannot be replaced overnight! The Afghani's have a monopoly! Were we to simply purchase their opium crop, year in and year out, and their marijuana crop, for medicinal purposes, the country would thrive.

There would be enough money in Afghanistan, in each of the provinces to create jobs building roads and schools and to live in peace and harmony! This would be a lot more cost effective then engaging in senseless war.



Al Qaeda would be out of business, unable to pay their operatives who would slip away without a guarantee of pay. Al qaeda would not have the money to pay the families of the suicide bombers. The idea of planning a mass murderous attack on USA would be a hashish pipe dream. Dick Cheney would be out of business.



The troops who follow the Afghani warlords would go home. They follow the warlords for food and money. The Taliban would dissolve. They are dope smugglers only pretending to be religious fanatics.



To bring this about, making the world a safer place for the innocent everywhere, we need only occupy the opium fields with the understanding we are paying top dollar - the distilled heroin price for the raw opium and then Taliban, the war lords, and al Qaeda won't have any choice but come out from behind the boulders where they hide by the roadsides, and attack our dug in troops in the poppy fields.



On the move, with drones we will pick off half before they get that far.

The night before the plant milking harvest is to begin, we cut down our poppy! We know from the farmers how many ounces each plant produces. We multiply the opium volume X the number of plants to determine the farmer's cut.



Then we cut down the poppy two inches above ground, chop up all the plants into mulch, enriching the soil for the next harvest. Liken this to spilling a fat line of coke, tipping a mirror off your knee and dumping the line of powder onto a shag rug.



All the terrorist operations in that part of the world will collapse!



Recently the Chairman of the joint chiefs was questioned in a televised interview. He was asked what the army was doing about the opium / heroin trade. He said words to the effect they were "targeting" the people "distributing the product." The "product?!" 

This is the language of a bureaucrat, not a military leader.



The president should ORDER the military to do exactly what 'eye say.' Then we win. Without paying homage to conspiracy theorists, the military does not want to defeat these terrorists. Without the terrorist threat, their own power and influence, their bureaucracy is diminished. President Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. The words, "peace," and 'harmony" do not appear in their lexicons. The words, "peace", and "harmony" are absent from their military manuals.



Anyone using these words is considered by the military a domestic enemy, and each branch has a counter intelligence domestic program operating in USA. They investigate!



The last time i sent a sharply worded letter to noose paper editors all around the country, the f be eye knocked on my back door, waving the email and wanted to come into my house to talk to me. How long before the Fascist Bureaucracy Ink comes knocking on your door? 



michaelslevinson dot commie is a decent place to visit. Just don't visit from your home computer unless you want to invite an echo in your telephone, indicating you are on j. edgarina's party line for a couple three-day trials.



j. edgarina, the fascist cross dressing pervert of dirt established policies that are active to this day. Hoover's domestic counter intelligence minions, the newspaper editors and writers ef be eye sponsored into grad schools and from there, local TV newsrooms and noose papers need to be weeded out. 



The writers sponsored by the ef be eye shill professor jay rosen need to be uncovered. 



An examination of all the noose paper people who got emotional in the noose rooms when discussing weapons of mass destruction need to be looked at - where these editors and writers have close family members who work in the D.C. bureaucracy, like the Pentagon and Sea Eye Yay, which stands for cash In Advance, they need to be relieved of their positions! 

We are better served with policies reflecting the above. Try you tube dot commie forward slash poet prophet.

michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf gets you a free copy of "New World Hors D'oeuvres."

[jacklegs jumping up]

Please forgive me! I DID NOT intend on posting the piece three times. Golly! It was an accident. Thank you.

[jacob jones]

I love Obama he's the best and I don't think no one should talk any more smack about him or else surfer the consequences of being sent to hell for eternity.

[netlog]

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[kabin]

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