Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

[drone]

You can always count on The Onion, God bless 'em. Here's some news that should be from them, but isn't: A majority of Republicans believe that ACORN stole the election.

Barack had almost 10 million more votes, and had 192 more electoral votes than McCain (a mauling).

Compare that to 2004 ("stolen by Diebold"): 3 million votes more to Bush, 35 more electoral votes (swung by Ohio with 20).

Compare to 2000 ("stolen by the Supreme Court"): 550,000 votes more to Gore, 5 more electoral votes to Bush (swung by Florida).

I'm all for conspiracy theories, but come on. To claim something like this the results needs to be just a little bit closer. Occam's razor applies, the economy tanked, two unpopular/mismanaged wars, and a complete disaster of a campaign by McCain. Assuming this poll was run correctly, there are a lot of people with their heads in the sand.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Barack had almost 10 million more votes, and had 192 more electoral votes than McCain (a mauling).

Compare that to 2004 ("stolen by Diebold"): 3 million votes more to Bush, 35 more electoral votes (swung by Ohio with 20).

Compare to 2000 ("stolen by the Supreme Court"): 550,000 votes more to Gore, 5 more electoral votes to Bush (swung by Florida).

I'm all for conspiracy theories, but come on. To claim something like this the results needs to be just a little bit closer. Occam's razor applies, the economy tanked, two unpopular/mismanaged wars, and a complete disaster of a campaign by McCain. Assuming this poll was run correctly, there are a lot of people with their heads in the sand.

There's really no difference...people just enjoy saying the election was stolen, it's like a trend now. If you hadn't quoted the numbers here I wouldn't know what they were...forgot the specifics a while ago, and I at least follow politics a little.

[ICantSpellDawg]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124484/Ob...s-Down-39.aspx

Look at the trend. This is a nightmare. Talk about instantaneous buyers remorse.

The GOP had better field a candidate with some knowledge of the economy next time. Last time the better man won. How on earth he was the better man is almost as confounding as why on earth we ran an inept candidate with even less economic sense.

Throw these bums out of office and just leave it empty for the remaining 3 years. Couldn't hurt.

Obama Teleprompter was genius.

[Xiahou]

Obama's Afghanistan strategy... a recipe for disaster?

President Barack Obama's effort Tuesday night to reassure Democrats who oppose the deployment of another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and to emphasize a U.S. exit strategy to pressure Afghan President Hamid Karzai to reform his corruption-riddled government could backfire.

The Taliban , al Qaida , their allies and their patrons in Pakistan and the Middle East , as well as America's partners, may think that Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011 signals a lack of U.S. staying power and dilutes any incentives for insurgents to switch sides or negotiate a political accord.

Instead, the extremists may persevere in their fight, thinking they can run out the clock and further erode support for the war in the United States as congressional elections loom in 2010, while pumping up their own ranks. Some members of the U.S.-led international force already have announced their intention to leave.

"It's a big mistake," a U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said of Obama's announcement that a U.S. withdrawal would begin in 19 months. "It just tells the Taliban and everyone else how long they need to last."

Also, from Slate: Obama's Afghanistan speech was confusing.

According to his speech, Obama is escalating while retreating, adding more troops while also setting a date for their departure. Obama said he was putting pressure on the Afghan government, but he didn't suggest how.

To me, it sounds like Obama was once again trying to have it both ways and, as a result, may get neither. If he's going to commit to sending in more troops, commit to victory- not artificial timetables. If he's unwilling to do that, get out now.

[FactionHeir]

Seems unrealistic to send in 30k troops now (i.e. takes a while to deploy) and then take em all out in 18 months again.
Seems like a logistical nightmare at an exorbitant cost.

The quoted figure also seems to be $30bn for this surge, so around a million per soldier sent over 18 months. I imagine that includes pay, expenses, logistics, equipment etc, but seems a bit inflated nonetheless?

[Lemur]

DoD and CBO have wrangled over the exact figure, but the accepted cost of maintaining a U.S. soldier in a distant country such as Afghanistan is somewhere between $500,000 and $1M per year (the latter being more likely than the former). That's a big part of why the DoD doesn't blink when a company such as Blackwater demands $250,000/year for a private military contractor. It's a bargain.

Xiahou, if you ever think that anything Obama says or does isn't a disaster/idiocy/betrayal of 'Merica, let us know. That would be newsworthy. In the meantime, you found an editorial that declares that Obama's latest speech is a disaster. Good for you! If you collect twenty, I will send you a box of cookies. (Hint: They'll be thick on the ground at NRO and WND.) And no, re-prints of Krauthammer columns do not count toward your total.

[KukriKhan]

If I didn't know better, I'd think someone at the White House has an account here at the org. My "speech", delivered Monday (LINK), hits all the same points Obama's did on Tuesday, except I sent more troops (80,000), didn't announce an end-date, and gave them a specific mission (get ObL).

Naturally, I think mine was better.

[Major Robert Dump]

Yes, Kukri, someone leaked your speech, and when Obama gets re-elected it will be partially your fault!!! Only Mike Huckabee can stop him now. Oh wait....


Personally, I think Obama should have started off the speech with "Sorry to take up your time cadets, but there weren't any aircraft carriers available tonight."

West Pointers...blah....I could tell you some stories

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Xiahou, if you ever think that anything Obama says or does isn't a disaster/idiocy/betrayal of 'Merica, let us know. That would be newsworthy. In the meantime, you found an editorial that declares that Obama's latest speech is a disaster. Good for you! If you collect twenty, I will send you a box of cookies. (Hint: They'll be thick on the ground at NRO and WND.) And no, re-prints of Krauthammer columns do not count toward your total.

The dastardly deeds of Xiahou exposed once more

[Xiahou]

If I didn't know better, I'd think someone at the White House has an account here at the org. My "speech", delivered Monday (LINK), hits all the same points Obama's did on Tuesday, except I sent more troops (80,000), didn't announce an end-date, and gave them a specific mission (get ObL).

Naturally, I think mine was better.

I like yours better. I think 80k troops is a little unrealistic, but at least you aren't announcing an arbitrary end date. What better way to sabotage their mission before it even starts? It gives our allies reason to question our commitment and waver their support, while encouraging our enemies to tough it out until we leave.

30,000 more troops is about 10,000 less than was asked for, but I imagine that McChyrstal asked for extra, knowing the number would be cut down. Where I take issue with Obama is his pronouncement of a time line. Some administration mouth pieces have since tried to parse Obama's statements, saying the conditions on the ground will dictate the withdrawal. But, if that's really the case, why announce an artificial deadline on national TV?

[KukriKhan]

Yes, Kukri, someone leaked your speech, and when Obama gets re-elected it will be partially your fault!!! Only Mike Huckabee can stop him now. Oh wait....


Personally, I think Obama should have started off the speech with "Sorry to take up your time cadets, but there weren't any aircraft carriers available tonight."

West Pointers...blah....I could tell you some stories

Heh. I guess things have changed since my days. I did OK with pointers and Ohsee-essers. It was the rahtsees I had more work to train. Pointers in my day had the vision thing, and just begged for "real-life" advice. OCSers had already been there. ROTC fellas (the vast majority of officers I served with), with few exceptions, thought they knew all there was to be known about warfare.

My task (as I understood it) was to either educate them, or, failing that, keep them as far away from my troops as possible. I mostly succeeded in that.

------------------------------

Didja see the nodding heads there? Those kids start the day at 0400, and they assembled them there 4 hours before POTUS spoke. Sit in your chair, in wool, for 4 hours, after a 12 hour day of classes, PT, and extracurriculars... I'd sleep too - even if it was christ coming to announce the end of the world.

Those kids; the age of our StrikeForTheSouth, will be our new leaders. We owe it to them, IMO, to fully educate them. The horror of war. The necessity of war. The limits of war. The consequences of war. The absolute ridiculousness of war. The absurdity.

Doing less under-serves our people.

I put the entire burden, as it always has been, on our NCO corps.

[Major Robert Dump]

I don't much care for the timeline either....but didn't GWB do something similar in Iraq that kinda helped whip the governing bodies into shape a little quicker? Different war, I know,

[KukriKhan]

I don't much care for the timeline either....but didn't GWB do something similar in Iraq that kinda helped whip the governing bodies into shape a little quicker? Different war, I know,

Yeah: WaPo 11-2008.

[Lemur]

The dastardly deeds of Xiahou exposed once more

It warms my heart to see people recycling.

As for the rather cockeyed notion that the Taliban will somehow wait us out, now that they have a date when we will begin winding down (with no end-date articulated or speculated):

And as for the argument, made passionately by some in the military, that a specific date for starting the withdrawal is an invitation for the Taliban to lie low until we leave: "They simply won't do that," says Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you stand down, you allow the enemy — even this inept Afghan government — to create a bow-wave effect, to create the impression of authority and security. The Taliban aren't stupid."

[Crazed Rabbit]

It warms my heart to see people recycling.

As for the rather cockeyed notion that the Taliban will somehow wait us out, now that they have a date when we will begin winding down (with no end-date articulated or speculated):

And as for the argument, made passionately by some in the military, that a specific date for starting the withdrawal is an invitation for the Taliban to lie low until we leave: "They simply won't do that," says Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you stand down, you allow the enemy — even this inept Afghan government — to create a bow-wave effect, to create the impression of authority and security. The Taliban aren't stupid."

I've seen that "cockeyed notion" repeated by a variety of people, including those in the Afghan government. That Taliban won't have to stand down completely, just remind people that in less than two years the US will be gone.

CR

[Xiahou]

It warms my heart to see people recycling.

As for the rather cockeyed notion that the Taliban will somehow wait us out, now that they have a date when we will begin winding down (with no end-date articulated or speculated):

And as for the argument, made passionately by some in the military, that a specific date for starting the withdrawal is an invitation for the Taliban to lie low until we leave: "They simply won't do that," says Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you stand down, you allow the enemy — even this inept Afghan government — to create a bow-wave effect, to create the impression of authority and security. The Taliban aren't stupid."

20 of those editorials will get you a box of cookies.

[Lemur]

20 of those editorials will get you a box of cookies.

Now now, when recycling it's best to make sure you get your plastics with your plastics, and your reflexive condemnations with your reflexive condemnations. No cookies for you, sir.

Meanwhile, although I fear this is close to becoming The Afghanistan Thread, looks like our allies are in a sanguine mood (in both senses of the word): Nato allies to send 7k more troops to 'Stan. This is a good thing, and would have been unlikely under the previous admin, which had done so much to make itself unpopular in Yurup.

[cegorach]

Now now, when recycling it's best to make sure you get your plastics with your plastics, and your reflexive condemnations with your reflexive condemnations. No cookies for you, sir.

Meanwhile, although I fear this is close to becoming The Afghanistan Thread, looks like our allies are in a sanguine mood (in both senses of the word): Nato allies to send 7k more troops to 'Stan. This is a good thing, and would have been unlikely under the previous admin, which had done so much to make itself unpopular in Yurup.

It is not like I am defending Bush, but notice from what countries those soldiers are coming:

c. 1000 Italians,

900 Georgians (who are not even in the NATO),

600 Poles,

500 Koreans,

500 British

- that is 3500 already i.e. 50 %.

Add to those other EE countries ( c. 1000), Turkey etc and you are left with less than 2000. I doubt that any of those countries belongs to the group which despised W.Bush so much.

Let's face it some Europeans aren't too much interested in anything what involves fighting - or perhaps as I sometimes wonder - in anything involving activity.

Sweden sent more soldiers than Nato member Greece (or worse - less than their disliked neighbour Macedonia), Poland will have only 500 soldiers less than France and 200 % more than Spain and the list goes on...

Shameful.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Lemur, I am afraid the new NATO troops are mostly coming from the same countries who joined Bush. France and Germany have yet to decide their position. Alas, the time to decide will come soon.

Obama has put France and Germany in a difficult position. We can't let him down. We also don't want to jump on a lost mission.

Please let there be another disaster area requiring urgent military NATO intervention, before the decision has to be made between wasting soldiers and resources on an impossible and unpopular campaign, or painfully letting Obama down.

Let's face it some Europeans aren't too much interested in anything what involves fighting - or perhaps as I sometimes wonder - in anything involving activity.

Shameful.

The Germans are still struglling with militarism and their national identity and are hence very reluctant at sending troops abroad period.

There are 4.500 Polish troops engaged in multinational missions abroad. And 35.000 French troops. Of a total armed forces of 100k and 250k. Which puts the odds of being engaged in anything possibly involving fighting at 4,5% and 14% respectively.

[Lemur]

Let's face it some Europeans aren't too much interested in anything what involves fighting - or perhaps as I sometimes wonder - in anything involving activity.

Lemur, I am afraid the new NATO troops are mostly coming from the same countries who joined Bush. France and Germany have yet to decide their position. Alas, the time to decide will come soon.

Point taken, gentlemen. Point taken.

[cegorach]

There are 4.500 Polish troops engaged in multinational missions abroad. And 35.000 French troops. Of a total armed forces of 100k and 250k. Which puts the odds of being engaged in anything possibly involving fighting at 4,5% and 14% respectively.

Yes, I know, this was too emotional, but it really makes me angry.

I understand that the French are more interested in missions where they can decide something. That is understandable, but looking from this side of Europe it is not a pretty sight.
Let's not even think what the Estonians and such could think about that...

Some people will question reliability of French military forces, same with German ones using the Afghanistan war as an example, especially the Baltic States and taking their point of view just after the latest Russian military exercises I am not suprised.



Power-projection capabilities have something to do with the percentage of forces possible to send abroad as well.
For Poland involvement in Iraq was critical, extremely useful milestone in modernising the ground forces. Sending these soldiers to Iraq (there were only UN peace missions before) was stretching resources of the military to maximum.
Much has changed, but the budget of the army isn't growing quickly enough - especially considering the closest demands (Navy, air defence, anti-missile systems) which have little to do with Afghanistan.

[ICantSpellDawg]

This is the first speech since his campaign that I've agreed with.

"A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms,"

"To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history."

"The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it,"

The Horetores in the audience probably evacuated their bowels in anger.

Maybe he did deserve the Nobel if it gets those sissy whale bangers to stuff it.

[rory_20_uk]

I don't think he's earnt the prize yet - I thought that you have to do something, although for the Peace Prize often stopping being a Terrorist is enough...

The troops will help project force. Of this there is no doubt.
Unless the mission take a lot longer than the timeline given the enemy will bide its strength, use as many roadside bombs as possible and await the withdrawl as all get sick at the loss of money with few gains.

Germany was defeated as it was a Good Old Fashioned Industrial Power, and WW2 was a heavyweight boxing match with the protagonists smashing lumps out of each other. The looser is the one who is wrecked. This modern threat isn't so easy and as much as America might like to have a proper old fashioned fight in Afghanistan, the enemy isn't going to oblige. Unless the West is viewing Afghanistan in the way Japan viewed Manchuko it is not a fight that iven if it can be won will make a strategic difference.

I think that there is a significant issue regarding what Europe as a whole is doing regarding its military. They all appear piecemeal and often so thinly spread in terms of aims that when push comes to shove they're unlikely to be able to achieve any of them (and the budgets as a rule are too small). If Germany has such problems with arming, then it should effectively pay France's Foreign Legion and the British Army to do its dirty work peacekeeping for example.

[Furunculus]

Obama has put France and Germany in a difficult position. We can't let him down. We also don't want to jump on a lost mission.

Please let there be another disaster area requiring urgent military NATO intervention, before the decision has to be made between wasting soldiers and resources on an impossible and unpopular campaign, or painfully letting Obama down.

i think that is called being a fair-weather friend................. no?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

i think that is called being a fair-weather friend................. no?

What do you think the European nations always have been to America? I find it insulting to my personal dignity for my government to treat the United States in that manner.

[Louis VI the Fat]

i think that is called being a fair-weather friend................. no?

I am very unhappy about the impossible position we're now in. Both options are :

A -Increase troops. But what for? They'll arrive in 210, and will have to be withdrawn in 2012. What's the point in wasting a billion euros and getting a few dozen deaths to make a political point?

As Blackadder would put it: it would be easier to just take a few dozen French recruits and shoot them at the Champs-Élysées.

B -Keep them at current level. Then you let Obama down. If not personally, then at least it will be a blow to multilateralism and transatlantic co-operation. Of which so many complained that there was so little of under Bush.


One argument that argues for choosing B, is that policy should not be decided by whomever might happen to occupy the White House. It is not up to Europeans to interfere with American politics in this manner. We ought to decide on our course of action based on rational policy, not on which party may happen to be in power in Washington.


(On the upside, I myself have never espoused the opinion that under Obama everything would change. Neither has Sarkozy, who covertly prefered Bush)

I find it insulting to my personal dignity for my government to treat the United States in that manner.

Maybe Bush should've focused on Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a lost cause owing to no small degree to the overwhelming amount of resources being diverted to Iraq, instead of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan.
I do not consider it against my dignity to pass up on the opportunity to clean up after Bush.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And why did the American staff repeatedly fail to target OBL when there was a chance of getting him?

A French documentary claims French soldiers had two opportunities to shoot and kill Osama bin Laden, but they were not given the go-ahead by their American superiors.
According to media reports, the documentary says French special forces had the leader of al-Qaeda in their sights twice in Afghanistan, in 2003 and 2004.
The soldiers would have fired on him, the film says, but the order to kill simply never came from the U.S. commanders in charge.


The newspaper Le Figaro said Thursday that the documentary is based on interviews of four soldiers by filmmakers Éric de Lavarène and Emmanuel Razavi, who call their documentary Ben Laden, les ratés d'une traque (Bin Laden, the Failures of a Manhunt ).


The documentary has created a stir among government officials. The French cable network LCI says the Defence Ministry is calling the film's claims "pure fabrication."
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/1...ma-france.html

Completely crazy? I am not sure anymore. Rumours have abounded for years. Certainly, the American military staff did not go out of its way to smoke OBL out at the beginning of the war.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) on Monday accused former President George W. Bush of “intentionally” letting Osama bin Laden escape during the American invasion of Afghanistan.

“Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away,” Hinchey said during an interview on MSNBC.




“That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq,” the Democratic congressman continued. “There’s no question that the leader of the military operations of the U.S. called back our military, called them back from going after the head of al Qaeda.”




When host David Shuster followed up to ask if Hinchey really thought Bush “deliberately let Osama bin Laden get away,” the congressman responded: “Yes, I do.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/30020.html

[Brenus]

“What better way to sabotage their mission before it even starts?”
I’ve got one:
The former administration started this to catch a criminal, no idea how to do it then missed him. Then we bombed with B 52 rocks and mountains and started few things we really didn’t know where it would lead.
As the Army will tell you, we don’t know where we are, we don’t know where we go, but we go, lost but grouped (from the French Mechanised Units Motto, Paumés mais groupés).

We’ve got a mess to clean up. When I say “We” I think “You”.

So, boys I sent you in a far far away country to fight for, er, I don’t really know now, for an certain amount of time and to achieve something for er, I don’t know for whom and what.
And be good boys…
I hope you understand the Mission because I don’t.

But don’t worry Mission will be Accomplished. And it is not because we have nothing to say that we have to shut-up…

God bless G. W. Bush and America etc etc.

[KukriKhan]

I do not consider it against my dignity to pass up on the opportunity to clean up after Bush.

The mess to be cleaned up was made by alQueda. Bush was assigned the cleanup, and got bored halfway through and went elsewhere. The new guy now has to finish the original job, and clean up the smeared floors left by Bush's lackluster cleanup effort. Sux, but he did volunteer for the job.

NATO allies invoked Article 5 (an attack on one, is an attack on all) to provide assistance. I'm sure everyone hoped, back when it was crafted, that that article would be used when Iceland (for example) was attacked by the USSR, and everyone else, especially the US, would rush to aid. But it worked out the other way around: the US got attacked, so the others are obliged.

Any and all assistance provided so far is appreciated, and the US is grateful for any further help, however substantial or symbolic.

Get binLaden
dismantle his network
deny his assets of manpower, money, and materiel
come home

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I am very unhappy about the impossible position we're now in. Both options are :

A -Increase troops. But what for? They'll arrive in 210, and will have to be withdrawn in 2012. What's the point in wasting a billion euros and getting a few dozen deaths to make a political point?

As Blackadder would put it: it would be easier to just take a few dozen French recruits and shoot them at the Champs-Élysées.

B -Keep them at current level. Then you let Obama down. If not personally, then at least it will be a blow to multilateralism and transatlantic co-operation. Of which so many complained that there was so little of under Bush.

I'm inclined to simply say "lack of backbone", but the issue here is that NATO has insufficient forces on the ground, French and German troops engaged in the fighting directly alongside, British, American, and Canadian ones would remedy the problem and increase the chances of success. In the end Obama is less likely to withdraw if he recieves meaningful French and German support, because this will bolster his position at home considerably.

If the Frenmcha and Germans matched the British contribution, that would be an extra 13,000 troops aproximately, or a whole Division's worth of men.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Maybe the jingoist Poles and Brits ought to obsess less about the backbone of France, and instead raise their amount of foreign troops to the level of France.

The UK has less troops deployed in the world's hellholes than France. Poland even has less troops (yes, per capita) in Afghanistan itself than France.