Military leadership disagrees with A’stan withdrawal plan
Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus went on the Congressional Record as admitting that President Obama made his withdrawal plan against the advice of his top military advisers. According to the New York Times, Mullen said;
“The president’s decisions are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept,” Admiral Mullen said.
“More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course,” he added. “But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so.”
Petraeus added;
“There are broader considerations beyond those just of a military commander,” General Petraeus told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The commander in chief has decided, and it is then the responsibility, needless to say, of those in uniform to salute smartly and to do everything humanly possible to execute it.”
In the Washington Post, Robert Kagan writes;
It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth.
This may prove a disastrous political calculation, too, however. If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week.
However, it’s not the president who has much at risk – he’ll only lose an election at worst. The troops are the ones who are going to pay the ultimate price with their lives and limbs as the chance that they’ll be injured increases as the number of troops draws down and the Taliban keep one collective eye on the calender.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues, Politics, Terror War
I’ll say what these men can’t: once again, at a critical moment in our history, we have idiots making decisions for our fine military. If anything good comes from this, it’ll be because our military is better than its civilian leadership.
“The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” – Thucydides
Sorry, hit the submit button too quickly. The problem in our society is not that the civilians run the military–quite the contrary, that is as it should be, but when the civilians have no concept of reality within the military or its purpose, and even go so far as to openly disdain the warrior class, that’s when the decisions of the civilians regarding the security of the nation become flawed.
Maybe I’m being overly paranoid, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is part of a plan to discredit Petraeus as well as build political points for Obama. Put the hero of Iraq in charge of Afghanistan (when his popularity is at a all time high) then undercut him on what he needs to make him look like a failure.
PN is spot on.
As far as political calculations go: why would the POTUS want 30,000 eligible voters back – if he leaves them OCONUS, their votes can be thrown out – just like every previous election since at least 1996?