18 Comments

1. Nick:

My understanding of the situation when the attack occurred last week, was that it was announced to the locals BEFORE the attack that they were planning to withdraw from it. That was given as a possible reason for the attack… that the Taliban wanted to score a propaganda victory by making it seem like they were withdrawing due to the attack, and not because of a predetermined schedule. But good job in helping the Taliban with their goal.

Oct 11, 2009 - 8:24 am 2. Stephen Green:

Nick –

That’s better. Much better.

Oct 11, 2009 - 9:00 am 3. Sean:

What Nick said is correct.

Also, let’s not get in the habit of second-guessing battlefield-based strategic or tactical redeployments, or out-and-out individual retreats or losses. Sometimes they are necessary and unavoidable, as we can’t always be moving forward. We don’t want to try to score points against political foes on the backs of our military’s temporary setbacks.

The last thing we want is to have politics factor into military decisions even more. It was wrong when the left exerted that pressure on Bush, and it’d be wrong for us to do it now. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Oct 11, 2009 - 9:10 pm 4. Heartless Libertarian:

Closing down the COP and OP involved, plus a few others, was in the planning stages as far back as December.

Also, those two extra brigades were sent to the south – Kandahar and Helmand. Nuristan is in the northeast. That’s roughly the equivalent of having more troops in El Paso, and having a nasty fight in Austin.

Oct 11, 2009 - 9:26 pm 5. Matt:

Nick, first of all take the taliban, turn those sobs sidewise and shove em straight up your candy ass.

Also, Sean, Obama has spoken to his general in afghanistan twice. TWICE. Do you know how many times Bush talked with his generals ?

Oct 11, 2009 - 9:56 pm 6. Candide:

As much as Obama deserves to be crucified, pilloried, quartered and dragged over hot coals for all his reckless rhetoric about Afghanistan during the election campaign, we always have to keep in mind that no whiff of the internal US politics or ideology should be allowed to enter into his conduct of the troops in Afghanistan. We must be very, very, very pragmatic and down to business over there. Any desire to score political or ideological points will be paid back by unnecessarily dead US soldiers, one way or another.

If he wants to revert to Bush/Rumsfeld strategy without admitting it, so be it.

Oct 11, 2009 - 10:02 pm 7. punditius:

So long as we have soldiers in Afghanistan, we should support Obama in whatever he does.

Once he gets them out, he’s fair game.

Oct 11, 2009 - 10:38 pm 8. Mike H.:

Nice telegraphing punditius, now he’ll keep the hostages in Afghanistan forever.

Oct 11, 2009 - 10:55 pm 9. M. Simon:

Code Pink and I support the President and The Afghan People. No really. It is true.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/10/epiphany-on-left.html

Oct 11, 2009 - 11:00 pm 10. Mike:

Okay, So do y’all want to have a fair, reasonably uncorrupt govt. or not?

Either answer is okay – just tell me what ya want.

Regards,

Oct 11, 2009 - 11:23 pm 11. Max Regor:

There is the real and there is what people say about it. It was a retreat. We gave up territory. It may have been planned. It was planned. It was not a retreat under fire. It was a strategic retreat. Giving up what you hold is always a retreat. Do not misunderstand, I want us to succeed. Leaving an empty space in Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan may be okay. It bothers me.

Oct 11, 2009 - 11:42 pm 12. Peter:

I know they were planning on moving out of that base before. Thing is, the Taleban and alQ aren’t trying to recruit me.

among the Taleban and alQ potential recruits, they won that fight, they now hold the ground, they now get to torture and kill anyone who cooperated with us that stuck around. The folks that did cooperate, and had the sense to bug out, are now homeless.

It doesn’t matter how we try to spin it, it was a victory for the bad guys.

Oct 12, 2009 - 4:05 am 13. lgv:

Matt:

“Also, Sean, Obama has spoken to his general in afghanistan twice. TWICE. Do you know how many times Bush talked with his generals ?”

Which generals? The problem with the criticism not speaking the McChrystal is that it is not a big deal. Bush didn’t speak very often with generals at McChrystal’s level during his term. The chain of command would have Obama speaking often with people above McChrystal’s level, including Petraeus, the JCS and Gates.

This is how Bush handled it. He did covertly used his NSC staff to get feelers from lower ranking generals who were in the sphere of operations.

I would be more interested in how many conversations Obama has had with Petraeus and how often Petraes speaks with Gates.

The problem with listening to generals is that there are lots of generals. The ones on the JSC during Bush’s 2nd term would have led us to defeat in Iraq and made sure Petraeus was in charge of supplies at Ft. Drum.

Oct 12, 2009 - 4:25 am 14. Pat Patterson:

Or handing out tourist brochures at Ft MacArthur in San Pedro.

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Oct 12, 2009 - 7:44 am 16. Banjo:

I don’t think people should be offering Dubya as the example of a sage commander-in-chief. He stuck with Rummy and his wooden-headed Pentagon crew far too long. It was only in the last year or so that he got his head out of the cavity where it was lodged most of his administration.

Oct 12, 2009 - 8:05 am 17. matt h:

amazing, my first blog posting after 10 days of censorship in China. I guess Vodkapundit is not on the banned list yet.

In “The March Up”, by Bing West, he writes of Day 10 of the Iraq War(March 30, 2003), when the regional command authority called a pause for the logistics chain to catch up:

” In the course of a few days, CFLCC’s operational decision to pause had become a major policy matter in Washington. Many Muslims, Arabs, and even many Europeans had opposed the violent removal of Saddam’s regime from the outset and were strident in their objections. Any signs of weakness or hesitation on the part of the American military would be met with glee and would undercut international respect for the United States with long term military, economic, and foreign policy consequences”

Same page (106)

Instead, the Washington Post cited “top Army officers’ as saying the war might well last into summer.

1 – 10 days later our troops had won victory and taken Baghdad.

2 – the same idiots are saying the same things again.

Oct 12, 2009 - 8:59 am 18. davod:

“I don’t think people should be offering Dubya as the example of a sage commander-in-chief. He stuck with Rummy and his wooden-headed Pentagon crew far too long.”

It is my understanding the military chain of command from the general in charge in Iraq through the JCS did not agree with Petraeus.

Bush overuled all to go with Petraeus.

Oct 12, 2009 - 2:26 pm

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