Wednesday, September 23, 2009

E-mail From Michael Yon:

"If General McChrystal were to resign, that would be the clearest statement imaginable that the top General in the Afghan war believes this is unwinnable using the resources made available. That would mean ending the war and giving Afghanistan back to the Taliban or anyone else who can take it. If McChrystal were to resign due to poor resourcing, we should stop fighting and start bringing our people home."

I'll be shocked if more troops are sent in as Gen. McChrystal requested. Retreat is what liberals do. The "good war," as Pres. Obama referred to it, was always just a way to slam Bush and look hawkish. It was never sincere.

Have to add Krauthammer's excellent take (via NRO) on Obama’s lack of response to the McChrystal memo on Afghanistan:

Well, I think what's really important here are two dates. The first is August 30. That's when the McChrystal report was sent to Washington. That is three weeks ago. Obama has had a single meeting [on that report] since then.

He says he hasn't reached a conclusion — I suppose because he is spending all his time preparing for Letterman and speeches to schoolchildren — to focus on a war in which our soldiers are in the field getting shot at and, as the president himself is saying, without a strategy.

Now, the other date is the 27th of March, when Obama gave a speech in the White House flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State, in which he said, and I will read you this, because it is as if it never happened, "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So we for six months have been living under the new Obama strategy, of which he says today we have none. And his next sentence is, again in March, "This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review" — not the beginning, the end of the policy review.

So it has been his policy, and now he tells us we don't have a cart and we don't have a horse.

What's happening here is he announced the strategy of counterinsurgency in March. He said at the time that we “cannot afford” an “Afghanistan that slides [back] into chaos.”

He said "My message to the terrorists who oppose us — We will defeat you," And now he's not sure he wants to defeat them.