I suggest everybody read the Rolling Stones profile of McChrystal

[WeDidIt]

It was pretty fucking eye opening to me.

Anybody who has followed my position on Afghanistan knows by now that I have been 100% behind the administration in its efforts there.

After reading that article, I am questioning my own position. COIN has failed. It's pretty obvious. The Kandahar offensive has been postponed. IMO, it should never go forward. McChrystal has made a bad situation worse, IMO.

It may be time to pull back our forces, focus specifically on the Pakistan border region, and work towards a full pullout. Leave the rest of the country to Karzai and let him duke it out with the warlords.

[HelenWheels]

1. I agree

We should get out of Afghanistan now.

[msongs]

2. we are bribing taliban so our supplies can get through..... to kill taliban lol nt

[Justitia]

7. Yup, and those bribes are actually funding insurgents....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4437410&mesg_id=4437410

[Justitia]

3. Yes, it is quite an article! -eom

[mdmc]

4. I am 100% the administration

we can't "win" a cold war with a hot war mentality..
Eventually Americans will say, "Victory (a stable, pro-west, secular, unified Afghanistan) is not worth $40k (or whatever it will end up costing each taxpayer)."
We should have never gone in and we will never be able to get out.
Obama knows that it is a loser, but he cannot admit it. All he needs to do is hang in there until re-election, then wait it out as "the next president's problem".

[sandnsea]

5. Strategy is right, he is wrong

I really liked that he was going to take a slower approach in Kandahar. A very congenial neighborhood approach should have been taken from the very beginning. As Biden said, it sounds very similar to his original plan. It's the only thing in the whole article that gave me hope. I also don't think it needs McChrystal to implement. Anybody who chooses Talladega Nights as their favorite movie doesn't need to be a general anywhere. And propping up Karzai? Huge mistake which is the biggest lesson we should have learned from Vietnam, how could he miss that. He may need to go for ineffective leadership, but I think a mellower strategy in the cities along with an agressive approach at the border would work.

And work for what? Eliminating al qaeda cells and helping Afghanistan regain the economy and culture it had in the 60s.

[Jennicut]

6. COIN was never going to work there.

No big surprise. Obama can say that didn't work and get us out.

[Ignis]

8. I agreed with Biden's assessment, and was sad to see the Surge II.

Sure, I understand that it would have been political suicide for Obama to deny McCrybaby's request for a more troops, but I thought the admin could have found a middle ground involving more police action, more international support, and fewer troops.

Even with the shiniest, newest technology, we're not going to win a guerrilla war in Afghanistan.

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. It is all madness

The Al Queda bogeyman is no different than the communist bogeyman was in Vietnam. Look how that turned out! Now our corporations cannot give our jobs to communist countries like China fast enough and Vietnam is a stable trading partner with the US.

The naked truth is that domestic political considerations are the reason we have not left Afghanistan. Obama is in the same spot that LBJ was in the 1980s. The only difference is that LBJ might have believed the communists were a real threat whereas Obama knows that the tribesmen of Afghanistan will not come to America to rape and pillage. In short, men like Rush Limbaugh and the right wing hate machine are perfectly happy with feeding young Americans into the meat grinder as long as their some political advantage. Add to that the gargantuan military industrial complex that is stealing TRILLIONS of dollars in these phony wars.

It is madness on a grand scale.

[rrneck]

10. Armies are designed

to kill people and blow shit up. Armies do not build. They only destroy. While sometimes destruction is unavoidable it is always better to build.

We need to stop trying to use the military for diplomatic missions. Soldiers are not diplomats.

Americans are much too willing to seek simple solutions for complex problems.

[gateley]

11. WeDidIt -- could you answer a sincere question for me?

For those who 'support Afghanistan' - what is it they are hoping to accomplish? What do they consider a 'win'?

My sense of our being there is that initially we went for BinLaden, but we don't hear anything about him being there any longer.

So why are we?

(My basic understanding is that the Government is corrupt, they are at odds with the Taliban, the Taliban is the extremest Islam group - is that correct?)

I've asked these questions before but have only gotten back snarky, mostly anti-Obama responses that didn't enlighten me at all.

Since you are (were?) behind our presence there, you're the perfect one to explain to me what exactly we're trying to do. I'm just trying to understand.

Thanks -- I really appreciate it. :hi:

And I will read the article, I've only scanned it thus far.

[Loki]

12. The only thing I need to know about McCrystal is

the name Pat Tillman. McCrystal should have had his MacArthur moment a long time ago.

[Solly Mack]

13. and Camp Nama

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/who-is-stanley-mcchrystal-051909-2

[DirkGently]

14. I agree.

That is exactly what I got out of the article. Obama, grudgingly, went along with "COIN," which is little more than a recycled Vietnam-era notion of nation-building-by-force-of-arms, and no smarter or more effective than Rummy's own failed doctrines, despite its comparative success (in a limited form) in Iraq. Once again, the Pentagon is high on belief in its own omnipotence. Once again, it is wrong.

And no matter how capable in a general sense, the article strongly suggests that McCrystal cannot achieve any kind of goal the American public will support in Afghanistan, and he and his coterie have projected their growing frustrations on to the military's perennial favorite target: "Wimpy Politicians," and the public's failure to support endless, open-ended war.

With or without this guy, we need to get out of there.

[IcyPeas]

15. where can we read the article? RS doesn't come out till Friday?

[DirkGently]

16. msnbc has a copy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37847841


Here's a full .pdf another DUer posted elsewhere:

http://markhalperin.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/r1109mcchrystal.pdf

[IcyPeas]

17. thanks. DU is always first with stuff

[zipplewrath]

18. I'm glad you saw the light

Part of me is tempted to ask where the hell you were looking before.... but never mind.

I still don't understand how Obama got sucked into this COIN crap. Someone send him a good book on Vietnam. I also don't understand why he didn't listen to Biden. It appears to be another case of not listening to experts skeptically.

[donheld]

19. Without doubt