General Stanley McChrystal has paid a huge price for his decision to give Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings free access to himself and his staff. But he performed a great service for the rest of us. US President Barack Obama fired McChrystal — his hand-picked choice to command NATO forces in Afghanistan — for the things that he and his aides told Hastings about the problematic nature of the US-led war effort in Afghanistan. But by acting as he did, McChrystal forced the rest of us to contend with the unpleasant truth not only about the US-led campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. He told us the unpleasant truth about the problematic nature of the Western way of war at the outset of the 21st century.
Hastings’ now famous article, “The Runaway General,” told the story of an argument. On the one hand, there are people who want to fight to win in Afghanistan. On the other hand, there are people who are not interested in fighting to win in Afghanistan. Obama – and McChrystal as his general – occupy the untenable middle ground. There they try to split the difference between the two irreconcilable camps. The inevitable end is preordained.
The US and its NATO allies first deployed in Afghanistan in October 2001 with the aim of toppling the Taliban regime and destroying Al Qaida’s infrastructure in the country. They have remained in the country ever since with the goal of preventing the Taliban from returning to power.
After McChrystal took command a year ago, he conducted a review of the allied strategy. His revised strategy was based on counter-insurgency methods developed in Iraq. It called for a surge of 40,000 US forces in Afghanistan. It also recommended that NATO train 400,000 Afghan forces who, in the long term, would replace NATO forces once the Taliban was defeated.
McChrystal’s strategy was greeted with moans by leading members of Obama’s leftist base in the administration and outside it. Led by Vice President Joseph Biden, they offered a counter-strategy. As Biden has explained it, the alternative would involve deploying special forces units and airpower to target the Taliban as it becomes necessary, and otherwise disengage from the country at quickly as possible.
McChrystal and his allies dismissed Biden’s strategy as a recipe for disaster. Without a sufficient number of forces on the ground, the US would lose its ability to gather intelligence and so know what targets to attack. Recent reports that the US drone attacks in Pakistan are killing civilians rather than al Qaida and Taliban members indicate just how difficult it is to gather credible, actionable intelligence from a distance.
Presented with the two opposing strategies, Obama decided to split the difference. He ordered 30 thousand troops to Afghanistan. He refused to increase the target number of Afghan security forces from its previous 230,000. And he announced that US forces would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in July 2011.
Citing administration officials, last December the Washington Post explained Obama’s goal as follows, “The White House’s desired end state in Afghanistan… envisions more informal local security arrangements than in Iraq, a less-capable national government and a greater tolerance of insurgent violence.”
So too, an administration official stated, “The guidance they [the military] have is that we’re not doing everything, and we’re not doing it forever. … The hardest intellectual exercise will be settling on how much is enough.”
As J.E. Dyer noted at the time and reasserted this week at Commentary’s Contentions blog, “this was not executable guidance.” Or more to the point, as the Rolling Stone article illustrated, when executed, this guidance brings not victory nor even stability.
The White House’s guidance, as extrapolated from Obama’s chosen strategy for Afghanistan endangers NATO forces. It empowers the Taliban. It demoralizes Afghans who would potentially stand with NATO against the Taliban. And in the end, it ensures that as NATO forces depart, the Taliban will return to power in a blaze of glory marching hand in hand with al Qaida.
In recent months Obama and his advisors have repeatedly attacked Afghan President Hamid Karzai for his problematic positions on the Taliban. But their criticism is unfair. They cannot expect loyalty from a man America is set to abandon in a year. It is up to Karzai and his fellow Afghans to cut deals with the Taliban while they still have something to bargain with.
By all accounts, until he was fired Wednesday, McChrystal had a better relationship with Karzai than anyone else in the US government. And this is not surprising. As White House and State Department officials signaled their willingness to cut deals with the Taliban, McChrystal and his forces have fought the Taliban.
Hastings devoted a great deal of attention to the deleterious impact US rules of engagement are having both on the war effort and on troop morale. Due to the administration’s aversion to civilian casualties, preventing civilian casualties has become a chief fighting aim for the US military. Yet since the Taliban war effort relies on civilian infrastructures and human shields, the strategic significance of preventing civilian casualties is that US forces’ ability to fight the Taliban is dramatically circumscribed.
For instance, Hastings reports on the death of Corporal Michael Ingram. Ingram was killed last month by an explosive device hidden in a house that had been used as a Taliban position.
Ingram’s commanders had repeatedly requested permission to destroy the house and had repeatedly been denied permission. Destroying the house, they were told would have run counter to the aim of not upsetting civilians.
Since Obama is commander in chief, it is reasonable for criticism of this losing strategy to be directed towards him. But the truth is that for the better part of the last several decades, with occasional important exceptions, this sort of “half pregnant” strategy for war fighting has been the template for Western armies.
Today US forces in Afghanistan are fighting in a manner that is depressingly similar to that forced upon IDF forces in Lebanon in the 1990s. Like the US forces in Afghanistan today, during the 1990s, concerns about civilian casualties caused Israel’s political leadership to constrain IDF actions in southern Lebanon in a manner that effectively transformed soldiers into sitting ducks. Israel’s finest were reduced to fighting from fortified positions and Hizbullah was given a free hand to intimidate Lebanese civilians, commandeer private homes and schools to use as firing positions and forward bases, and generally maintain the initiative in the fighting.
As he withdrew IDF forces from south Lebanon ten years ago – like Biden today – then prime minister Ehud Barak claimed that Israel didn’t need boots on the ground to fight Hizbullah. If we needed to go in to fight, we would send in commando squads or fighter jets to do the job. Of course, as US drone operations in Pakistan again demonstrate, without a presence on the ground, you cannot have any certainty that you are attacking real targets.
The important story this week was not about a US general with abysmal judgment about the media. Rather the story is that in Afghanistan, the US is repeating a sorry pattern of Western nations of not understandin
g – or perhaps not caring — that if you are not willing to fight a war to victory, you will lose it.
g – or perhaps not caring — that if you are not willing to fight a war to victory, you will lose it.
The stakes in Afghanistan are clear. NATO forces can defeat the Taliban, or the Taliban can defeat them. To win, all the Taliban needs to do is survive. Once NATO is gone, like Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban will be crowned the victors and from their failed state, they will be able to again attack the US and its allies.
There were only two instances in the last ten years where Western forces fought to victory. Israel defeated the Palestinians when in the wake of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, it retained security control over Judea and Samaria. The US defeated al Qaida and Muqtada el-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 by taking and retaining security control over Iraq.
Both countries’ victories have been eroded in recent years as they have removed their forces from population centers and restricted them to more static positions. In both cases, the erosion of the Israeli and American achievements is due to waning political will to maintain military control.
It is hard to imagine that McChrystal’s decision to open his doors to Rolling Stone was a calculated move to blow the lid off of the mirage of strategic competence surrounding the “good war” in Afghanistan. This is not the first time that the US military has mistakenly given access to hostile Rolling Stone reporters. And of course, the US military – not unlike the IDF and the British military – has a long history of giving undeserved access to its media foes and paying the price for its mistakes.
But still, the truth remains that by effectively committing career suicide, McChrystal has posed a challenge to his country – and to the Western world as a whole. Now that you know the truth, what is it going to be? Are you willing to lose this war? Are you willing to see the Taliban restored to power in Afghanistan?
This week Haaretz reported on a new hit children’s song that is making waves throughout the Arab world. Called, “When we die as martyrs,” the song is sung by a children’s choir called “Birds of Paradise.” In a YouTube video of the song, children between the ages of two and six sing sweetly of their desire to die for Palestine and are shown triumphantly killing kippa-wearing Jews.
The Taliban’s perspective on the value of human life is similarly grotesque.
For years, citizens of free nations have willfully ignored or dismissed the significance their enemies’ gruesome goals and ideology. They have claimed that what these people stand for is insignificant. At the end of the day, they say, the only reason there are wars is because the nations of the West provoke them by being strong. And so, when they have fought wars, they have fought them with strategies that can bring them nothing but defeat.
McChrystal’s final act as US commander in Afghanistan was to show us where this leads. But it also reminds us that there is another choice that can be made. The Western way of war needn’t remain the path of defeat. That still is for the people of the West to decide.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
It is good to hear some more information about what exactly is going on with the McChrystal firing. It was very hard to see what was going on in the dominant media.
But, I think Glick misunderstands a great deal about what is going in Afghanistan, and the parallel conclusions she derives on Israeli national defense and security are similarly misdirected.
Remember that the reason we are in Afghanistan in the first place is because of the terrorist attack in New York that knocked over the WTC towers and killed over 3,000 people. And our first reaction was the only response necessary. We bombed Tora Bora and wiped out the base of operations for the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and drove Bin Laden out into Pakistan, where he remains to this day. That should have been the end of the job in Afghanistan.
But NATO decided it needed to have hand in all this in order to justify its rather unmotivated and squalid existence and so operations began in Afghanistan in order to wipe out the native support for Al Qaeda, which was the Taliban. But of course the US at one time applied the Taliban against the Soviet Union who was fighting in Afghanistan. Does anyone remember why the Soviet Union was fighting in Afghanistan?
The problem is not a lack of military will. The problem is the unwillingness to confront the basic problem, which is the beliefs of the populations that host terrorism. The civilians are the problem and not an obstacle to confronting the problem. Both the US and Israel is better off confronting the countries as hostile entities from the outside rather than confronting some subset of the population on the inside and trying to sort them out. In the latter approach, we just wind up baby-sitting the very people who want to kill us.
As US forces withdraw from Afghanistan next summer, the Taliban will eventually regain control of the country. The Afghan War was not prosecuted effectively from the beginning. After America was attacked on September 11, 2001, a nuclear retaliation on Tora Bora was warranted. The current low-risk Western way of warfare has sealed the fate of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the lessons of history don’t seem to resonate with the Obama Administration. America lost in Vietnam and will probably lose in Afghanistan because politics got in the way of decisive victory.
Perhaps General McChrystal did commit career suicide, but it seems to me he did the US a big service. By bringing to light the ineptitude of the war being fought in Afghanistan, it is hopefully forcing the US to a realization that this is a war that will be best fought on the ground. Unlike the Iraqis the afghans have a weak government with the Taliban waiting safely in the wings to take over as soon as the US forces depart. As for the impact on Israel. We need only look at the US to see the costly mistakes that have been made to date. Threats mean nothing to Hamas and the rest of our enemies. They just wait for us to concede so they can continue their evil schemes. Is this what we want for our people. I highly doubt it. The Israeli government must get their act together and weed out the incompetents. It’s past time. Shabbat shalom.
Excellent! — I could not have said it better, if I may say so myself.
P.S. Greetings and best wishes from New London, Connecticut. I have admired your work, as I have come across it via RealClearPolitics and others, for a couple of years now. Wish I could have been there to dance with the Flotilla Choir.
Keep up the good work. http://bit.ly/Num6_24-26
There used to be a different “Western Way of War” that was much more prudent, and in the end, far more merciful than the endless war format we have been using lately. In the US it worked this way:
1) Declare war according to the Constitution.
2) Make total war and defeat the enemy.
3) Demand unconditional surrender.
4) Behave mercifully toward the defeated enemy.
This method worked quite well to turn former enemies into trading partners and allies. The first criterion meant that the people had to be firmly behind the fighting of any war, and committed to seeing it through. The second is the only moral way to commit blood and treasure to destruction. The third requires the enemy to acknowlege the total defeat of the hostile ideas that brought on the war. And the last is the way free men engender freedom for others.
In Afganistan, we have not followed even one of these precepts. Rather, we have ignored the Constitutional requirement for war, creating a situation in which the people are not engaged or interested in the outcome and allowed politicians to micromanage strategy and tactics. We have committed our precious children to endless fighting without hope of victory, because there is no clear goal or endpoint. And by not totally defeating the enemy, we have allowed him to believe that his ideas of domination and destruction are valid and right. And because any mercy we show in such a situation will be interpreted as weakness (and it rightly is–a weakness of vision), we will never be trading partners or allies with the enemy.
Foolish, foolish is the West!
Caroline – thank you for an insightful article. It helped illuminate the meaning of the event for me.
Elisheva – I agree with your strategy in the abstract, but am not sure how it would apply when the ideology we are fighting is a pure ideology, unattached to any specific country. Nazism was German. The Japanese nationalism applied only to Japan. Even Communism, which was supposed to be a worldwide ideology, really had its root in the USSR. But Islam actually is what Marxism tried to be and failed: a global ideology unrooted in any one country. How does the strategy which was successful in Japan and Germany, which is to go in, make total war, and then be merciful to your defeated enemy, actually work when that enemy is unconnected to any one nation state?
The British in Malasyia in the 1950s showed how to fight an insurrectionary war. They transported the population of the provinces in insurrection to a safe area and killed off the insurrectionaries who were left. It also worked for them in the Boer War.
The Romans also showed how to win an insurrectionary war namely herd the population into the capital city, destroy said capital and sell off most of the population that you didn’t kill into slavery and settle foreigners into the land. Of course they had to do it all over again 65 years later but that time they left no spot of insurrection left and were more thorough in selling off the population into slavery. It really worked permanently or at least until 1800 years had passed by which time the Roman Empire had long since collapsed. The Assyrians were good at this also.
If you happen to be the government in control Stalin showed how one can suppress and even prevent an insurrection. Just terrorise your population more ruthlessly than any insurrectionary (including the Viet Cong, Kmer Rouge, and the Taliban) is able. Kill off anybody who even is thinking about rebelling against your regime. Be willing to kill off lots of “innocents”. It also worked for Fidel Castro, Kim Yong Il and it’s really doing great for Hamas.
Iraq seems to have done well without quite such extreme measures but the Sunni terrorism continues unabated and the al-Maliki/Alawi regime still doesn’t have a handle on things.
So it’s really too soon to tell whether Petraeus’ strategy will work. It really comes down to delegitimising the insurrectionaries and treating them like some sort of Israelis but somehow a corrupt politician is much less persuasive in establishing his legitimacy than an honest, good old fashioned terrorist.
I seriously think McCrystal saw the handwriting on the wall and was praying for an eject button.
It seems we are following in the footsteps of the Soviets and the British with our overstreched and grandeoise agenda to tame the seventh century throwback Islamic hordes who are being helped by the Pakistani’s,the Iranians and God knows who else.
After almost nine years and wasted billions anyone with any sense can see it is another devouring,quicksand war.
Another succint title would be ‘The Collapsing Empire’s Far Away War’
By Imperial decree it is forbidden to define the enemy we are fighting.
Its no wonder one of those assets was able to blow himself up in the middle of the CIA base taking down our most seasoned operatives.
No,I think MCrystal could see how empires in downfall mode fight their wars and wanted no part in it.
Answered prayer !
I don’t think the Roman Empire had sunk this low before it faded into the dust bin of history.
The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that none has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”
McChrystal was and is a very brave man. He walked through the valley of knives, and received the death cut for following the road less travelled. I wish I could add a deep red rose medal to the others he is wearing on his jacket, just to say, ‘Thank-you for telling the truth.’
With prayers today, and every day, for Galid Shalit.
Until Leftists, the sympathetic brothers of the Jihadists goals, are removed from power, this foolishness will continue.
Leftists and Jihadists both despise Capitalism, Democracy, Christians and Jews, Judeo-Christian law,and freedom of speech amongst other things.
They are defacto partners in contributing to, and hastening, the demise of the West.
Rooting out the internal, domestic, enemy will free us up to fully engage the external, foreign, enemy.
First of all, until Western leaders (and this includes Israel) acknowledge that the enemy is ISLAM, there will never be any effective strategies. There is only one conflict & that is the war Islam is waging against the non-Muslim world. The fact that we are fighting a war against an ideology that is deeply held to by entire populations, to one degree or another, complicates all attempts at effective strategies.
The fact that the West is infected with a liberal/leftist ideology of political correctness & multicultural lunacy blocks all attempts to develop effective strategies or to conduct effective military operations.
Even worse, there is an alliance between the far-left & Islamists whose goal is to destroy the Western capitalist model of society.
The first premise of any effective strategy is that Islam must be defeated. They cannot be permitted ANY victory, neither military nor political. We must recognize that we have no allies in the Islamic world.
The sad fact of the matter is that we are engaged in a conflict with whole populations & we will not prevail if we continue to be squeemish re: the use of overwhelming military force.
Say what you will, what I’m saying is not extreme in the least. The consequences of losing this conflict far outweigh any other considerations.
pkskymt,
No offense, but it’s not Glick whose understanding is lacking, its yours. You demonstrate that in several of your statements;
“That should have been the end of the job in Afghanistan.”
So, go home and problem solved? Once Al Qaeda retreated to Pakistan, which they did before we attacked Tora Bora, our ability to do significant damage was greatly reduced, yet the threat remained and had we declared the ‘job done’ and left, the Taliban would have returned and welcomed Al Qaeda back. We would have been right back where we started, which is where we’re going to end-up under Obama.
NATO didn’t decide that “it needed to have a hand in all this in order to justify its rather unmotivated and squalid existence” actually, they wanted nothing to do with Afghanistan. Only severe pressure by the Bush administration led to their involvement, which has always been strictly for show.
Bush tried to confront the hostile countries; the axis of evil, from the outside and got nothing but grief for it.
However, you are correct when you say, “The problem is the unwillingness to confront the basic problem, which is the beliefs of the populations that host terrorism.” the ‘beliefs’ to which you refer are the foundational tenets of Islam.
Here’s some recommended reading to gain a deeper understanding of the problem;
Just War Theory this directly addresses the source of the mind-set of the West, which Ms Glick describes.
Iraq, Invasion, NeoCons and the War on Terror this article describes the geo-political infrastructure of Islamic terrorism, critical to understanding the totality of the threat we face.
Finally, to understand why Islam is the problem rather than ‘Islamic radicalism’, see: The Theological Nature of Islam
Marc,
Yes, I give it no more than one year after we leave for the Taliban to take back Afghanistan. The Afghan War wasn’t prosecuted properly because neither the American public nor George Bush understood the source of Islamic radicalism, Islam’s theological tenets.
When the public rejected Bush’s view that “you’re either with us or against us”, it meant that when Al Qaeda and then the Taliban used Pakistan as a safe haven from American retaliation, Pakistan could rely upon the defense that they didn’t attack us, so we couldn’t invade their territory in pursuit of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Nuclear retaliation on Tora Bora or anywhere else was never a political option. The great majority of the American public would not have supported it and Bush would have been impeached and brought up on war crimes. Again see; Just War Theory to understand what has shaped our modern mind-set and thus why, in the public’s opinion, nuclear retaliation is only acceptable in response to a nuclear attack upon us.
The lessons of history don’t resonate with the West’s public sentiments, so naturally their leaders reflect that circumstance.
naomir,
Unfortunately, the American public wants to put Afghanistan behind them.
I’m not as confident as you of either Iraq’s government being strong or able to last once the US pulls out. I expect Iran to facilitate a Shia theocracy in Iraq within a year of the removal of US troops.
“The Israeli government must get their act together and weed out the incompetents.”
Until a consensus for change among the Israeli public emerges, the government will reflect the public’s confusion.
General McChrystal may very well have done this deliberately. The incident looks like a special forces operation. It is unlikely that he will suffer personally or professionally as he is no longer responsible for a war he can not win. Best of all, President Obama has again stated clearly our intended goals in Afghanistan, goals which he had allowed to become “fuzzy” with his silence. Once again President Obama is on the hook and “owns” a war he’s rather not fight, delicious irony which often results from earlier ill-considered words.
Sadly, we will have to fight a bloodier war later on, one we may not win as we disappear into the mists of history.
Foolish, foolish, are we indeed.
Frankly, I am not that concerned that McChrystal has been replaced with Petraeus. Obama selected him. Petraeus was Bush’s general in Iraq. And if Petraeus had any thought of running for president in 2012 this might prevent such idiocy the anointed one would think.
McChrystal emphatically stated that peace had to be made between Israel and Palestine etc. What has that got to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban?
Even if they settled on something the Islamists and wannabe Caliphs would continue with the infidel. Like Yasser Arafat once said in his forked-tongue way: Spread out and procreate! We will outlast them!
The West thinks in days, months, years; whereas the jihadis think in centuries and the afterlife.
Daniel Pipes once said thet Militant Islam is the the problem and Moderate Islam is the solution. I say Islam is the problem and reform may not be enough.
We defeat them, as long as it takes, then…
Hastings wrote his story before he ever met McChrystal. The 30 “fact check” questions are worded in such a way that it obvious they are derived from rumors about McChrystal, not from personal observation by Hastings. Hastings article “Hack: Confessions of a Political Reporter” shows that he uses interviews not for fact finding but rather to give speculative fiction the appearance of authenticity.
The McChrystal Affair is an elegantly conceived, planned and executed operation designed to replace Petraeus in Centcom with some one who was anti-Israel and who accepted the notion of the Soviet Sphere of Influence.
Notice that Obama read the article, fired McChrystal and transferred Petraeus so quickly that opposition never had a chance to form. The article was read and the reaction taken before the magazine issue even reached the RS website, let alone the newsstands. This is the mark of a chess grandmaster.
Watch for changes. The US will no longer store weapons in Israel. Stalin’s statue will reappear in Georgia. Russia and Iraq will sign a pipeline deal. Predator flights will no longer be newsworthy.
In a few years we will read about how Obama regained control of his foreign policy.
‘McChrystal emphatically stated that peace had to be made between Israel and Palestine etc. What has that got to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban?’
This is the sign of a desperate General looking for a scapegoat when no victory in Afghanistan is possible because of failed and incompetent U.S. leadership and it’s juvenile policy.
DOnt’ forget Eisenhower’s farewell speech and these never ending wars.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address January17. 1961
‘This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.’
And lets never forget that it is the left and right wing of the fetid US bird who have told us time and again that Islam is a religion of peace.
McCrystal bringing Israel and the Palestinians into the Afghan picture was a way of pre-positioning blame on the Jews for the ongoing failure in Afghanistan.
This has always worked well in the past,especially in the decadent West.
After McCrystal’s first meeting with the boss he realized Obama and the Titanic had something in common.
That sinking feeling stayed with him and he took the life preserve as they threw him off the sinking ship.
Just mention Chingis (Genghis) Khan to the Islamists, or any Muslim who secretly cheers for a new Caliphate, and watch the look on their faces.
The great Khan desired to connect the silk routes and make peace with adjoing nations therefore he sent a caravan to the Shah of Khwarizm which included Persia. Alas, a governore thought they were spies and beheaded the emessaries, took the treasures gladly, and sent back a head.
The elders had a meeting and submitted Muslim ambassadors — surrounding nations that subjugated and where left to their religions as long as they submitted raoyalties and were called upon for duties — directly to the Shah, thinking there must have been a mistake. The same thing occured.
Subsequently, a Mongol army of 90,000, which included women warriors annihilated 500,000 or more Muslims. Then went onward to conquer.
After that there was peace for the Mongols the next 100 hundred years or longer.
Yep, the US hasn’t fought to win a war since WW2. N. Korea for example; General MacArthur whooped ‘em in less than six months and it was over. But this was politically unacceptable so the US dismissed General MacArthur and gave everything back to the N. Korean’s and we are still officially at war with them today.
Now it’s all a sick joke. Soldiers can’t do their job anymore and are hung out to dry if they even seemingly make a mistake. The lives of the enemy seem to be more important to the politicians then their own countrymen. This same standard is being applied to Israel but not her soldiers only, the whole country. Sadly, it’s only getting worse.
I think Karzai and his Northern Alliance faction can hold northern Afghanistan but the Pashtun areas would fall to the Taliban after the US pulls out. Of course we can all hope that the Taliban would commit genocide on their own people and would be too weak to withstand a foreign invasion as happened in Cambodia.
Day one as I have been reading the military news and listening to the troops, and saw how the war is going. I knew most would figure out that McChrystal is a HERO to me, the troops and to America. He saw the fact that Obama was tying up his hands and our troops were dying or killing themselves etc and I believe he just decided that he, himself was not important no matter what anyone thot. His job, title, and the only thing that mattered was his troops and country. knowing he is no fool, he figured he would let this fool liber ride with him to Afghan and speak out :)…and boy did he..and he was telling the troops and America that this war is not being fought right. that we would never win with our troops hands tied behind their backs. I know that despite all that Obama the muslim did not want Petraeus in there. but I also believe that he still wanted McChrystal in there. fire? na….McChystal would not have stayed unless the war was fought right. He also knew that if Obama got him to stay it would make obama more weak looking. so what Obama did was BOX HIMSELF IN..ha. and now Petraeous has the say on the war and is already speaking out. He also is wanting a long war , where McChrytal did not. but at the same time, both wanted to fight the good fight, meaning FORCE and no appeasement. and McChrystal who voted for Obama, no big deal, millions were conned by him and his commies and the fact Obama said he would stand with Islam in the times like now. I think most of Americans know he was born in kenya, raised in Indionesa, a Muslim as anyone born into a muslim family is auto one..and saying the sounds like coming from the mosques such a sweetest sound. and NOW, not a word against one being built on ground zero. I hope our military goes into Wash DC and handcuffs all of them and throws them in prison..and that America and Israel stands against Islam. and that we close our borders and the visa’s bring in Islam, it is America’s only chance and that we stand firm with ISRAEL..there is only two sides, Islam and hell…….G-d and Israel, more need to wake up to which side they are on. along with knowing this Halburtion fiddling with the oil rig, that this oil spill could have been avoided and stopped by now. as one oil man put it. I pray for the peace of Jerusalem daily and for America to wake up and realize it was the Saudi who hit our towers. and act accordanily..My favorite song right now is WE CON THE WORLD, I love it..thank you for that and G-d bless all of you who stand with Israel and the G-d of Israel and HIS chosen..and the US gets back to being a Constitutional nation.
Terry:
You are so very correct
The enemy is Islam as a whole. It cannot survive alongside other world views. It must be dominant or not exist at all. We must totally eliminate it or be eliminated.
There is no other way.
Terry – “We must recognize that we have no allies in the Islamic world.”
The problem is that today’s rulers in Washington have their most cherished partners in the Muslim/Arab world, valued much more than their little pawn target country, Israel.
The USA/CIA has enourmous trade with the Arab Colonized World, not to mention the Muslim World, and the rulers in Washington will go a long way in order to protect that trade.