"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war." Gen. McChrystal

As reported by various media outlets this morning, President Obama is apparently suffering an executive snit over “some people’s” obsession with his promised 2011 deadline for starting troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.  His bad mood is somewhat justified, I suppose, having spent the week canning The Runaway General and the weekend with the panic-stricken international victims of the New World Order’s fiscal misadventures. Not only was there the indoor commotion and clamor about the relatively miniscule (compared to the US, of course) national debts and deficits keeping the rest of the Free World awake at night, but outside, at the gates, were the vocal hordes of anti-capitalists turning the usually decorous streets of downtown Toronto into a three-ring ugly pageant.  Not a great week by any standard . . .

Nevertheless, as one of the aforementioned “obsessives,” I must take issue with the President’s short temper over the withdrawal date.  I did not, as some did at the time, take the President to task for taking his own sweet time to come up with this formula.  While some were depicting Obama as weak on terror (whatever- TF that means?), or indecisive, or dithering, I remained steadfastly supportive in the camp that characterized Obama’s excruciatingly meticulous assessment as the reasoned, rational and conscientious deliberations of a judicious Commander-in-Chief.  Until, of course, I heard the disappointing outcome which could have been just as easily arrived at if the President had, instead, put his head together with the Martial Arts Triumvirate (John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham) over a six-pack in the Rose Garden.

Evidently, the President likes to “control the message” but he also needs to understand that controlling the message in the Internet Age is less like actual “control” and more like herding cats.  A perfect example is the McChrystal Affair: Obama had to know, when he went along with DoD’s McChrystal nomination to lead in Afghanistan, that pulling a SpecOps guy off of his assassination detail might result in some slightly unconventional doings coming out of ISAF HQ for a while. 

As a matter of fact, McChrystal’s reputation preceded him, and had a few folks scratching their heads, at the time.  First of all, Special Operations soldiers are used to operating on the fringe with minimal to no oversight and they know, going in, that whatever happens during a “special operation,” the record will be sealed and marked with a big “Classified” stamp forever after.  Such people inhabit a parallel universe and most, I’d guess, consider themselves pretty much above the law because they are. 

Clearly, that sense of “untouchability” prevailed during Michael Hastings’ month long sojourn in Team America locker-room.  Media types who “broke the news” that McChrystal’s problem was that he acted as a “Lone Wolf” were missing the point – that’s why he was chosen in the first-place; and the journos that insisted that McChrystal was “hand-picked” by Obama to lead in Afghanistan are so “on message” that they might as well be stateside embeds.

My point in all of that is that when you are truly curious about the truth you have little choice but to consult the foreign press where being “on message” is of far less consequence.  For example, so far no one outside of the British have made any mention of the trainwreck of a briefing that McChrystal delivered to the NATO Defence Ministers a few days before the Rolling Stone trainwreck – and probably had just as much, if not more, impact on Obama’s decision than a boys-will-be-boys expose in a Pop Culture mag.  The NATO briefing was, in my opinion (and the opinions of a handful of furriners and “old school” DoD types) far more damaging to the Afghan War PR campaign than the Rolling Stone article, and came at the worst possible moment in time vis-à-vis an impending Congressional vote to approve additional defense funding for the already bad-news surge in Afghanistan.

* * *

I urge all those interested in such “outside opinions” to read all of the gory details of McChrystal’s Last Post as reported by Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady for this Sunday’s edition of The Independent.  Despite the US media’s skepticism over the newsworthiness of reporting on McChrystal’s pessimistic confessional to the NATO Defence Ministers, I found it quite interesting; in fact, some might read it as McChrystal’s desperate plea to outside forces to prevail upon his own government to cut their losses and get out of Afghanistan.  Pretty ham-handed politics, in retrospect, but probably the only way left that McChrystal could see to put pressure on Obama to give him more time; or, maybe, he simply wanted out without dishonor – something along the lines of “if the allies crap out on you, it’s not your fault that the war was lost.”

At any rate, here are a few snippets from The Independent article, to pique your interest:

“Sacked US General Stanley McChrystal issued a devastatingly critical assessment of the war against a ‘resilient and growing insurgency’ just days before being forced out.”

“Using confidential military documents, copies of which have been seen by the IoS, the ‘runaway general’ briefed defence ministers from NATO and the International security Assistance Force (ISAF) earlier this month, and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months. During his presentation, he raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration.”

“But the ‘campaign overview’ left behind by General McChrystal after he was sacked by President Barack Obama last week warned that only a fraction of the areas key to long-term success are ‘secure’, governed with ‘full authority’, or enjoying ‘sustainable growth’. He warned of a critical shortage of ‘essential’ military trainers needed to build up Afghan forces – of which only a fraction is classed as ‘effective.’”

“He pinpointed an ‘ineffective or discredited’ Afghan government and a failure by Pakistan ‘to curb insurgent support’ as ‘critical risks’ to success. ‘Waning’ political support and a ‘divergence of coalition expectations and campaign timelines’ are among the key challenges faced, according to the general.”

“General McChrystal’s presentation to NATO defence ministers and ISAF representatives provided an uncompromising obstacle to Mr. Obama’s plan to bring troops home in time to give him a shot at a second term, according to senior military sources. The general was judged to be ‘off message’ in his warning to ministers not to expect quick results and that they were facing a ‘resilient and growing insurgency.’”

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, while various players are distracted by accounting exercises (i.e., Defense Budgets, political capital, etc) the maverick-y President Karzai is doing his damnedest to incite civil war via his backroom machinations with Pakistan’s ISI and the Haqqani Network:

“Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Shuja Pasha, are due to arrive in Kabul tomorrow for their third meeting with Karzai in recent months. Frosty relations between the two sides have thawed in recent months; about 10 days ago reports emerged from Pakistan that the ISI was offering to “deliver” the Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan in the tribal belt.”

“But the very notion of Pakistani-sponsored talks has sparked consternation among Afghanistan’s ethnically fractured opposition, who fear the rapprochement with Islamabad will see them excluded from any future political settlement.”

“’None of the players believe in the current strategy,” opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah told the Guardian. “Karzai is going down the drain and taking the international community with him.’”

“If he thinks he can give [the Taliban] a few ministries and a few provinces, they will simply take those provinces and then force him out.”

“Abdullah said he was appalled that the Afghan president had recently referred to the Taliban with the affectionate “jan” suffix. ‘Talib-jan is how you would refer to your dearest young son – it would be considered too soft to use on a teenager.’”

“Three weeks ago Karzai’s intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and his interior minister, Hanif Atmar, quit in protest at the new Pakistan policy. Both men are Tajiks; Saleh was previously a leading member of the Northern Alliance that helped topple the Taliban in 2001.”

I’m no strategic genius but I think that for the reasonably intelligent observer the writing is pretty much on the wall. 

Obama wants something (anything) good to happen in Afghanistan before the 2012 election so that he can bring a token number of troops home, all the while being careful that the militarized Circle (around Iran) Be Unbroken.

Hamid Karzai wants to take advantage of the deep-pockets Western invaders for as long as he can, without ticking off his homeys too much, so that he and his tribe live through these tricky times long enough to be reunited with their war-swag and live like royalty in a more developed, more hospitable environment.  According to the Wall Street Journal, approximately $3 billion a year (25% of Afghan GDP), some of it undoubtedly your tax dollars, are leaving Afghanistan.  In pockets, boxes, suitcases and shrink-wrapped pallets cash flies out (literally) of Kabul on a daily basis – and that’s only the declared cash flow!   Somebody’s going to have quite the retirement plan and I’m not talking about Social Security.  Wonder how the Tea Party will react to that brand of socialism . . . ?

General Petraeus?  I’d guess he’s desperately seeking Scotty to “beam him up” before he has to lie in that lumpy, flea-infested bed he made.

Last but not least, the American Public – the old Tea Party slogan about “wanting our country back” is sounding less flaky, every day.  We’re not looking for much; just some jobs, some truth, some justice and maybe getting our boys and girls home safe from these godforsaken, ill-advised, expensive and abysmally mismanaged wars.

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