Obama Keeps Fiddling, Afghanistan Keeps Burning

On October 2, I addressed the issue of the President of the United States posing for pretty pictures while trying to get the Olympics staged in Chicago for his cronies. At the time it was written, Obama had spoken to his commander in the field in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal exactly once in six months, and then staged a hurried twenty minute discussion with the general before leaving Europe. Subsequently, the U.S. came in last in the competition, and we still have no policy in Afghanistan.

Pictured are some recent recruits for the Afghan Security Forces which will guard the country once America has fully withdrawn. Not exactly spit and polish, nor very encouraging. America needs to finish off its mission in Afghanistan so these sterling warriors can maintain the peace in our absence. If the ultimate mission of pushing Al Qaeda out of the country, destroying the war-making abilities of the Taliban, and securing the border regions with Pakistan are not accomplished before America withdraws, it will all have been in vain, and at great human cost.

But a week later, there only seems to be more confusion, more indecision, and more Democratic infighting than there was just a week ago. And except for meaningless speech or two, the president who can't make a decision won't even get control of his own advisers and make a damned decision. Democratic President John F. Kennedy showed what kind of disaster that can lead to, but also learned lessons from it that Obama seems incapable of learning. Kennedy listened to his advisers, and with the CIA leading the pack, the National Security Council made the decision to invade Cuba via the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy abdicated his responsibility, and merely rubber-stamped the decision of others.

That indecision and abdication of responsibility resulted in the USSR boldly putting intermediate range nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba, figuring that the weak young President had no stomach for a fight. They didn't figure on Kennedy's learning in office and recognizing that Harry Truman was indeed right--"the buck stops here." The CIA, all the joint chiefs of staff, and several of his civilian advisers demanded acts of war ranging from full-scale ground invasion (a unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs) to strategic bombing and tactical nuclear strikes. Only a few of the members of the council sought to avoid war if the goal of removal of the missiles could be accomplished. Against the advice of most of his advisers, Kennedy decided (yes, made a decision) that turned out to be exactly the right one. He went on television, and declared that a nuclear attack on any nation in the western hemisphere would be considered an attack on the United States which would be met with a full retaliatory response. That made the final result clear if the Soviet Union didn't back down and remove the missiles.

Having established that he was not the same man who caved in at Vienna three years earlier, he then overrode his advisers and carefully chose to enact an immediate quarantine on all ships moving into Cuban territorial waters, making clear that it was a quarantine and not a blockade. A blockade stops all shipping from entering the waters of a sovereign nation, and is considered an act of war, leaving the peace avenue closed. But a quarantine would stop, search and release all ships entering Cuban waters which were not carrying materials of war. Thus, the United States could not be accused of trying to "starve Cuba out." Along with some back-channel diplomatic maneuvering, it worked. And America moved back from the brink of thermonuclear war.

In today's world of terrorism and asymmetrical warfare, the situation is quite different, but the underlying need is the same--protect America from a foreign attack. And for God's sake, make a decision. The last time a president took his advice from policy wonks was the guidance Robert McNamara gave Lyndon Johnson. It included incrementalism and avoidance of sufficient boots on the ground. But at least Johnson made a decision.

The lesson to be learned from the two examples is: Half-measures don't work and civilian advisers are useful only up to a point--plus--make a decision before it's too late. It would be nice to say "make the right decision," but that doesn't always happen even under the best of circumstances. But indecision emboldens the enemy, confuses the military, and ends up making a bad situation worse.

So now we come to Obama's ongoing inability to make that decision. His two best war generals have made their desires clear. Both General McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, and General Petraeus, the former commander in Iraq, have advised a full-scale surge, accompanied by 40,000 new troops in the war zones. The peaceniks in the administration are saying everything from immediate withdrawal to a "mini-surge." In other words, turn tail and run, leaving the mission a complete failure, or give it another little try, only do it on the cheap. Half-measures, as I pointed out, don't work. Two different sets of advice, of which I prefer the generals' version. But it appears that Obama can't walk and chew gum at the same time. It would be bad enough if there were only two alternatives, but he's been presented with no less than five. And he's gone on shutdown.

His own Secretary of Defense has passed on McChrystal's advice to the president with a full favorable recommendation. And even that has produced a cat-fight. Obama mouthpieces have suggested that McChrystal was too public in his opinion, and that Gates had bypassed the commander's direct bosses in the military chain of command. Now that's interesting. Aren't the Democrats the ones who are constantly whining about civilian control of the military being in jeopardy? Yet when the highest ranking civilian in the Defense Department does his job, he is criticized for not deferring to the military. Well, consistency has never been a liberal trait.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is believed to be leaning towards McChrystal's recommendation. But Vice President Crazy Joe Biden (who opposed both Gulf Wars and has tried to sabotage the efforts in Afghanistan) wants to get the troops out and lob bombs off drones sent from ocean going warships. Obama is said to be leaning toward "McChrystal Lite," the incremental half-measure approach which cost us so dearly in Vietnam. And yet it was Obama who called Afghanistan "the right war, " but apparently he doesn't really want to win it. After all, somebody might get hurt.

Equally telling is the weak advice and poor judgment shown by Obama National Security Adviser James L. Jones which seemed to be leading to his dismissal. But he has been very vocal, and very articulate announcing the Obama hesitancy as in reality being strong, deliberative leadership. He has brown-nosed the president while demeaning the generals, and seems now to be very secure in his formerly weak position. And worst of all, as the press cavils, the administration waffles, decision-making fails, and Afghanistan burns, public support for more troops for the "right war" has dropped to 38 percent. Yet 57 percent want victory and think progress is being made.

That makes the decision both more difficult and more vital, and the sooner, the better. A bold president, knowing that granting McChrystal the troops he needs for a successful surge would be unpopular but would likely produce the exact result the majority still want, would just do it. As a commander-in-chief, he would get high scores for military decisiveness, and as a politician he would get immense political capital, which he sorely needs. But this is Barack Obama. He must deliberate. He must assess every minute detail. He must confer, confer, confer, and keep conferring until somebody tells him where he should go so he can lead.

He holds himself out as a great leader. In fact, he is a weak sister, incapable of giving up the hand-wringing and peace propaganda of his childhood. I haven't mentioned the "kumbaya option" but I'm sure it's been proposed. In everything he has done in nearly ten months in office, he has proven that the buck stops everywhere except on the executive desk in the Oval Office. He never heard (or ignored) the old saying: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way." Doing one of those things would require making a decision--something he has shown himself to be incapable of.

END NOTE: This article was written before I discovered this morning that the idiots at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee had granted the messiah another phony credential. The Euroweenies have finally found a President who will do anything to put America out of the top spot, and sandwich her in with the other weak, impotent, useless, bureaucratic socialistic republics waiting to surrender to Putin and Islam.

Afghans and Americans are now dying in Afghanistan not just because of this horrendous anti-American President's combination of immense ego and complete spinelessness, but now it is apparent that they will continue to do so in order to keep up his image as a great peacemaker, like Neville Chamberlain. Overnight, America has become even less safe than it was before this narcissistic non-entity received the "Surrender and Declare Peace" Nobel Prize. I'm going to write a letter to the Pope and ask him to immediately begin the process for declaring Obama a saint. We might as well add blasphemy and sacrilege to the list of awards this bottom-feeder has received.