Rift widens between Obama, U.S. military over strategy to fight Islamic State

[PragmaticLiberal]

Flashes of disagreement over how to fight the Islamic State are mounting between President Obama and U.S. military leaders, the latest sign of strain in what often has been an awkward and uneasy relationship.

Even as the administration has received congressional backing for its strategy, with the Senate voting Thursday to approve a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels, a series of military leaders have criticized the president’s approach against the Islamic State militant group.

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, who served under Obama until last year, became the latest high-profile skeptic on Thursday, telling the House Intelligence Committee that a blanket prohibition on ground combat was tying the military’s hands. “Half-hearted or tentative efforts, or airstrikes alone, can backfire on us and actually strengthen our foes’ credibility,” he said. “We may not wish to reassure our enemies in advance that they will not see American boots on the ground.”

Mattis’s comments came two days after Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the rare step of publicly suggesting that a policy already set by the commander in chief could be reconsidered.

Despite Obama’s promise that he would not deploy ground combat forces, Dempsey made clear that he didn’t want to rule out the possibility, if only to deploy small teams in limited circumstances. He also acknowledged that Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander for the Middle East, had already recommended doing so in the case of at least one battle in Iraq but was overruled.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rift-widens-between-obama-us-military-over-strategy-to-fight-islamic-state/2014/09/18/ebdb422e-3f5c-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html

[CJCRANE]

1. I'm with President Obama on this one.

[logosoco]

5. Glad to see this is the first comment, because those were my exact words.

I see these former military guys as being in one of those "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" places.

[msongs]

2. sounds like some resignations are in order from the corporate military leadership nt

[polichick]

3. Pres. Obama may be the one who must call out the mic for what it is...

So many years after Eisenhower's warning.

[TwilightGardener]

4. Mattis and Gates are not "military leaders". They're retired FORMER military leaders

and can spout opinions, accountable to no one, and aren't in the chain of command, or even necessarily "in the loop" of what the administration or Pentagon are doing. But the neocon WaPo has to create a rift to push a bigger war than Obama wants. Nothing Dempsey said was out of line or insubordinate, or unreasonable. In fact, they were his prepared statements, almost certainly cleared with both the White House and Hagel beforehand. The only issue that seems to be under some extra consideration/debate is how much combat involvement special forces will have on the ground with the Iraqis and Kurds--a little, or a lot. That's it.

[Fred Sanders]

6. These guys are not "military leaders"...WTF is the article talking about?

Slow fucking day in the war mongering, Obama bashing world of American media, gotta make stuff up and post misleading headlines?

Washington Post has gone corporate like all the rest.....making stuff up is much cheaper, higher profit margins that digging for the truth.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Why does the media shout about a rift between President Obama and the "U.S. military" ...

and then trot out as proof, the opinion of a "retired (as in no longer in the U.S. military) Marine General"? Or, a current military guy's indication that there is a "Plan B" ... isn't that a big part of effective planning?

ETA: Oh ... I see I'm not the only one to make that observation.