General Conway versus the Commander-in-Chief

xenophon

Granted that on the face of it seems an obvious military mistake, does the terminology of the 'beginning of withdrawal' allow Obama to please the voters while at the same time maintaining a substantial military presence?

yank

Don't know if Obama is muslim, but he's definitely acting stupid, unsurprising since he's purely an academic lawyer with no work experience of consequence. As Forrest tells us, stupid is as stupid does.

The problem for Obama in Conway's comments is that they're being made not by some tippling, arrogant, ladder-climbing peacock in Mchrystal, clumsily made in front of a sandal-clad pinko scribbler, but rather in plain sight and matter of factly, by a US Marine, trained and interested in nothing other than killing the enemy, and well aware of all the simple things that prevent or facilitate that work.

All of us understand the difference. However regretful, we understood the need for Mchrystal's firing, but would have great reservations about this Marine's.

The good news is that Obama and his cast of simpletons seem to be letting this one pass, as they should. And if they were REALLY clever, they'd use it to their and our advantage, as it surely could be. We'll see.

victor jara 67

It just seems that our colonial mindset is so entrenched.
As with Iraq no matter how much we dress it up we are a foreign occupying army support a corrupt regime in a civil war and we wonder why its doomed to failure. Lets get the hell out as soon as possible and put an end to the fiction that it makes our streets safer

adrian drummond

Talk about stating the bleedin obvious....

Rhoda Klapp

..and the next word after your selected quote was 'but' and the second half of the sentence is essential to get the context. But never mind, if it creates some sort of false controversy, you all go ahead, most of your audience will not know.

strapworld

As Mark Mardell noted!!!! That great lump of strategic thinking indeed! The BBC's gift to the American people.

Yank. Please do not think that the great fat bespecatacled one is typical of the rest of us here in good old Blighty!

ndm

James Forsyth writes:

-- As Mark Mardell noted on the Today programme, after having relieved General McChrystal of the Afghan command for his criticism of the civilian leadership Obama is keen to avoid another clash with a member of the senior brass.

I don't know about that. Secretary Gates who has made it pretty clear, with several firings in the last few years, that he will not tolerate this type of insubordination which has caused immense damage to the US war effort.

Senior US officers should not be questioning and criticizing the civilian leadership in this way. Period. I suspect General Conway will be reminded of that, in private, by Secretary Gates - and that is more than he deserves.

There is a way for military officers to criticize the behavior of their civilian leadership - through resignation. Not one of them chose to do in the runup to the disastrous campaign in Iraq. And that is the eternal shame of any senior officer who served there at the start of the war.

yank

ndm: "Secretary Gates who has made it pretty clear, with several firings in the last few years, that he will not tolerate this type of insubordination which has caused immense damage to the US war effort."

Really? I'm curious, when and who were all these many Gates-driven firings you speak of? I must have missed them all. Maybe my Army buddies have been letting me down on all these email chains. But what luck! I've got you to fill the gaps here.

And just for the record, please describe all this "immense damage" that this alleged preponderance of "insubordination" has inflicted on the "US war effort" (an effort that you don't support, apparently).

After you respond to those questions, we can move on to reviewing the validity of your boisterous proclamation re military officers' "eternal shame".

And, just a hunch here, but I suspect few US military officers will be quick to embrace your proclamation.

TGF UKIP

There seems to be an underlying and curious assumption in all this that Obama is actually on the side of the US and the West.

Would certainly be a sea change if he was.

ndm

Here, for example, is a post describing senior officers who have been fired for talking out of turn in the last few years:

-- Of course, the attacking force on the right flank, who were silent when the Bush–Cheney administration choked the First Amendment rights of civilians, put both their brain cells together and claimed Obama was stifling free speech. Here’s some constitutional law that will enlighten even the dimmest bulb. Freedom of speech, by law, does not extend to the military. That applies to privates as well as generals. The extreme right, which has proven embarrassing to true conservatives and the Republican party itself, apparently overlooked the fact that George W. Bush, while President, fired or marginalized senior officers for disagreeing with civilian policy. Gen. Peter Pace, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not get a usual second term after he not only challenged the Bush–Cheney Administration on its stand about torture and on Administration claims, later proven to be false, that Iran was supplying munitions to Iraqi insurgents. Sealing his fate, however, was his public belief that gays were immoral. Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army’s Chief of Staff, had bluntly told the Senate Armed Forces committee in a mandated appearance that there were significant problems with the Bush–Cheney–Rumsfeld plan for the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. He retired without the customary recognition by civilian leadership. Adm. William Fallon, commander of the U.S. Central Command, was terminated for challenging the Bush–Cheney strategy that might have led to war with Iran. The reality that Shinseki and Fallon were eventually proven to be right was of little consequence. The President, in his role as Commander-in-Chief, has authority to discipline his senior officers for disagreeing with him, even privately.
http://pubrecord.org/commentary/7914/civilian-general-reality-behind/

It is obvious that senior officers marketing their ideas to the public undermines the ability of the civilian leadership to select the best course of action. That is why senior officers are supposed to prosecute their case in private.

ndm

yank writes:

-- After you respond to those questions, we can move on to reviewing the validity of your boisterous proclamation re military officers' "eternal shame".

-- And, just a hunch here, but I suspect few US military officers will be quick to embrace your proclamation.

I would be much more interested in the first point had there been any senior officers willing to resign over war plans that were obviously flawed in both Afghanistan and Iraq given that these supposedly easy romps are now in their ninth and seventh year. This is particularly true of the Iraq war with its notoriosly missing 4th phase of planning (i.e. post war? We don't do post war.).

I don't really care whether a bunch of shameless one and two and three and four star generals embrace the shame that is rightly theirs. You don't rise to that level in the military by having a sense of shame. Neverltheless, theirs is an eternal shame for not standing up to a war that cost their men (and women) so much but cost the people of Iraq (and Afghanistan) so much more.

For the record, I supported the Afghanistan war but was extremely disappointed in the malicious incompetence with which it was prosecuted. It has left the US in an untenable situation where the war is no longer winnable - or at least no longer winnable with the resources the American people is willing to expend on it.

yank

ndm: "Here, for example, is a post describing senior officers who have been fired for talking out of turn in the last few years:"

None of those officers was fired by Gates for insubordination, or "talking out of turn" as you strangely put it.

- Pace retired on good terms with Mr. Gates, after his JCS term ran out. In fact, contrary to your version of events, Gates wanted to renominate him for another 2 year term, but the Congress asked him not to do so. So your statement is false.

- Shinseki left while Rumsfeld was SecDef, not Gates, so the calendar proves your statement false. Further, Shinseki served 2 full terms as JCS Chief, and left on schedule, and not as a result of "insubordination" or even policy disagreement. See:

Claim: Kerry said that former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki was forced out for comments on Iraq troop levels.

CNN Fact Check: Kerry implies that Shinseki was forced to retire as a result of his comments about troop levels in Iraq, which is inaccurate. Shinseki served a full four-year term as Army chief of staff, and did not retire early. Since World War II, no Army chief of staff has served longer than four years.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided in April 2002 on who he would tap to succeed Shinseki, according to a Pentagon official, long before Shinseki's troop level comments in 2003. So by the time Shinseki made his comments on troop levels, it was already known that he would not remain in his post beyond his full four-year term. The Bush administration may not have been fond of Shinseki, who was appointed to his post by President Clinton, but it is inaccurate to say that he was forced to retire because of his comments on troop levels in Iraq.

Not to mention, Shinseki's preliminary estimate that 300,000+ US troops were required in Iraq has by now been proven in error, as historically we know that we've never reached that point, even during the so-called "surge", and troop levels seem to be continually falling since.

Fallon was forced into resignation from CENTCOM because he conflicted with Patraeus, the guy who was strategizing Iraq, and who was openly complaining about his superior officer's methods, and who then proceeded to take over his job. The final straw came when Fallon said we wouldn't be going to war with Iran, when that's clearly not his job to broadcast, particularly when he's neglecting the war that he's supposed to be fighting. Bush made the proper choice here, as Obama did with McChrystal.

Fallon was a poor choice from the jump, and the Army guys all around me OPENLY carped about his selection. He was certainly doomed, and rightly so as it turns out.

So you've supported your wild claim with 3 cases, 2 of which are clearly incorrect, and the other hardly representing this alleged flood of insubordinate officers, fired by Gates for hampering US war efforts.

Your hyperbolic claims seem as fantasy and mischaracterization.

yank

ndm: "I would be much more interested in the first point had there been any senior officers willing to resign over war plans that were obviously flawed in both Afghanistan and Iraq given that these supposedly easy romps are now in their ninth and seventh year. This is particularly true of the Iraq war with its notoriosly missing 4th phase of planning (i.e. post war? We don't do post war.).

I don't really care whether a bunch of shameless one and two and three and four star generals embrace the shame that is rightly theirs. You don't rise to that level in the military by having a sense of shame. Neverltheless, theirs is an eternal shame for not standing up to a war that cost their men (and women) so much but cost the people of Iraq (and Afghanistan) so much more."

For the record, I supported the Afghanistan war but was extremely disappointed in the malicious incompetence with which it was prosecuted. It has left the US in an untenable situation where the war is no longer winnable - or at least no longer winnable with the resources the American people is willing to expend on it.

.

.

Actually, as we've still got troops stationed in the UK, Germany, Japan and Korea, perhaps your worry time might be better spent on the post war issues associated with those nations. Those occupation durations seem a fair bit longer than 9 years.

As for the first phase of the Iraq war that you seem certain required dedicated military officers to resign over, those officers went to Baghdad in 9 days, with only 22,000 men. I doubt you'll get much resignation and shame over a historical military achievement such as that, quite the contrary, in fact.

As the Iraqi body count has dropped so drastically since Sadaam's overthrow, what calculus are you using to quantify this alleged additional suffering brought on by that invasion? And as the people of Iraq appear quite anxious to have us stay, why is it you seem so anxious for us to leave?

And again, I don't think you should hold your breath waiting for any US military officers to feel shame over what you think about them. Ain't happenin', I suspect.

As for what you think the American people are willing to expend, or what they think possible, don't hold your breath here either. A certain lefty academic in the WH seems to disagree with you, and if you've lost even him, I suspect you've lost most everybody. Fantasy and mischaracterization will do that.

Rhoda Klapp

Yes, but the marine generl's remarks were originally carefully nuanced, then taken out of context. I've just watched the clip on Fox. And yes, it is cut off just before the 'but'.

And to put the clipped remark in historical context, various commentators have been saying from the day the stupid date was announced that the Taliban would use it for their own ends. The Commander in Chief is the one who made the error here. Will he ever learn that speaking for one audience does not mean that other sudiences will not hear?

Baron Pippin II

dm: ‘…. that Shinseki and Fallon were eventually proven to be right was of little consequence’.

McCrystal and Conway will be proven right, too, and true to form it will also be of no consequence. I rather agree with the military, and would welcome their taking over for a while until the minions of the political class come to their senses.

we should have stayed in Iraq, the chances of success there run much higher than in the hole of Afghanistan where we should have called it quits years ago. And to tell the Taleban when we are to leave? Madness.

Baron

yank @ 12.34: ‘For the record, I supported the Afghanistan war but was extremely disappointed in the malicious incompetence with which it was prosecuted. It has left the US in an untenable situation where the war is no longer winnable - or at least no longer winnable with the resources the American people is willing to expend on it’.

your kicking out the al-Queda training camps from Afghanistan was doable, and you did it; winning the ‘war on Taleban’? Not in a thousand years with the whole might of your Armed Forces.

could any transient invading force into the US defeat the Democrats (or the Republicans for that matter)? Nope. Neither could we defeat the Taliban. These guys represent a sort of Afghan equivalent of a political take on how the country should be governed. They live there, have time, can wait after we’re gone, and gone we will be.

a chance there was to follow the trusted British approach of ‘divide and rule’, but you fugged it up (Northern Alliance). It looks now Petraeus may cobble up a deal with the Pashtoons, the largest ethnic group there (Karzai’s brother in charge, a disaster for the country.

the cloning of the successful surge that produced results in Iraq is unlikely to work in Afghanistan either. The insurgents shooting at us are moving in the hills and the countryside, you need more than a couple of platoons to chase them, surround them, roads are poor, in Iraq the resistance was concentrated in urban areas much easier to deal with, a single platoon could have isolated a building or two effectively and fast.