I am the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. You can read my work on The Seminal or at Rethink Afghanistan. The views expressed below are my own.
I am the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. You can read my work on The Seminal or at Rethink Afghanistan. The views expressed below are my own.
Supporter's of General McChrystal's counterinsurgency policy are heart-broken over his firing. Not that they don't agree with it, very few COINdinistas took the position that McChrystal should be permitted to undermine civilian control of policy as he did so plainly in the Rolling Stone piece. Support for McChrystal came instead in the form of "he's our only hope" and warnings about ruining the war effort. Nevertheless, McChrystal was fired, and now his supporters want revenge.
The target of this vengeance is quite clear: Karl Eikenberry, US Ambassador to Afghanistan. Take a look at these snippets from across the blogosphere, keeping mind that this is just a sample of the anti-Eikenberry sentiment out there.
So now I am waiting for that POS Eikenberry to be fired along with that ineffective Holbrooke. The relationship between the military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan is a two-way street. If the Ambassador and Special Envoy don’t get along with Karzai and cannot influence him or even get a meeting with him then they need to be FIRED asap and some people need to be put into place that can be effective at their job and get along with the military leadership.
In fact, one e-mails: “It would be a travesty if we fired McChrystal and kept Eikenberry.”
Not only is McChrystal the “only one with any sort of relationship with [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai,” says this civilian advisor to the McChrystal-led International Security Assistance Force. Eikenberry “has no plan, didn’t get COIN [counterinsurgency] when he was the commander and still doesn’t.” Plus, the advisor adds: “The Embassy hates Eik. That’s not necessarily an indictment (I’m no fan of the Embassy). But it contributes to the dysfunction and it means that half the Embassy is focused on keeping Eik in line.”
See the narrative building? McChrystal was doing a good job (they've leaked red meat to give pro-McChrystal progressives some lefty cover), it was that "POS Eikenberry" and his "meddling" that are really at fault. He's a backstabber and dysfunctional. McChrystal's violation of the relationship between civilian government and the military is no longer at issue, it's practically ignored. They've moved on to the blame game.
So McChrystal's supporters want a scalp of their own, and they've chosen Eikenberry as their target. McChrystal and Eikenberry have been feuding for some time now, so it's no surprise he draws the most wrath from the general's dismissal. But if we actually look closer at the tension between Eikenberry and McChrystal, we see that the Eikenberry-haters are way off base. Their attacks are, at best, childish displays of sour grapes, and at worst, a fundamental misunderstanding of their own strategy. Ambassador Eikenberry is not at fault here. In fact, Eikenberry was right all along.
(This is an issue that is widely misunderstood. It's a must-read. - promoted by normboyd40)
We've heard it ad nauseum. The troops are happy to be in Iraq and don't support the Democratic plan for withdrawal. We have also heard how most of our military and most of our veterans are "gasp" Republicans!! Well, it seems that our troops in Iraq have given more than 6 times as much money to the Obama campaign than to Grandpa McCains!!
Deployed Troops Give to Obama Over McCain by 6 - 1 Margin
Open Secrets is reporting that troops overseas are giving to Barack Obama over John McCain at a rate of 6 - 1:
According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.
Homophobia irks me. Being gay and being born and raised in the Deep South, there’s a deep divide over how people think, based on what they’re taught, and what they’ve actually experienced. I can assure you my extended family, who despite my pleasure, occasionally use the N-word, and repulse from news about “the gays,” continue to do so because they don’t have friends or acquaintances who are African-American, or who are LGBT, or Jewish… or Muslim… pretty much anything not really shouting out its existence in Dixie… and don’t fundamentally understand why their views are so offensive to me.
Now, I can’t blame my 88 year-old grandmother for her archaic use of language. She’s of a different generation that I am, and all I can do is gently educate her about how the world actually works. There are, in fact, gay people in America, and they tie their shoes just like you do. And that you ABSOLUTELY do not use slurs or slanders, ever. I only this week managed to get her to remove her lawn jockey from her front yard, and that thing has made me queasy since I realized what it stood for. When I was 12.
My uncle, who I wouldn’t give two cents for when it came to voting for a Democrat in the first place, and I’m sure has a USB cord attached from Fox News to his brain, has twice tried to educate me on Barack Obama. That Obama is a Muslim, that he’s a closet terrorist. He’s constantly sending out emails about Barack Obama and his craziness. I’ve just started forwarding him back snopes.com articles debunking urban legends, or direct material from all kinds of sources. When a cousin asked who I was voting for, I knew where the conversation was leading. I said, “Obama,” and looked upon his astonishment. “Why?” he asked in a condescending way. “Because I believe in the Constitution. Because I believe we need a direct change from the policy of Dubya. Because I don’t promote the politics of hate and exclusion.”
I walked out of the room, not even wanting to engage the idiot in any type of educational exercise, only because I know he is an avid hunter, was wearing camo at the time, and was probably locked and loaded, his stache from the oversized gas-guzzling SUV he drove in on. Sure enough, within 10 seconds, I hear n-word this, muslim that.
My point is… take the time to educate folks, and desensitize people. I prolly should have had a sit down, and maybe that will come one day. When I buy teflon.
I'm just disappointed that some people simply cannot see the forest for the trees. And don't have a willingness to hear the other side. Or realize, that there's a probable chance, from what we've witnessed as a family, that his own son is a flamer.
In other news, I'm an uncle! Landon Cain, born at 7:56am, 10lbs, 2oz. 23 inches.
"But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November."
"The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdraw.."
Note: Mooncat here, piggybacking on Felicia's post. ThinkProgress notes that an Nadeem Al-Jaberi, member of the Iraq parliament said as many as 70% of Iraqis might be in favor of withdrawal. He also said the gigantic U.S. Embassy is not helping our public image in Iraq:
AL-JABERI: It is certainly larger than the diplomatic mission for which it has arrived for. … I mean why do we need 3,000 employees in an embassy in Iraq if we consider it as a diplomatic mission like any other diplomatic mission? From the principle of reciprocity, would it be appropriate for Iraqis to establish a 3,000 employee embassy in Washington? … It [the embassy] certainly would not be a very positive signal to the Iraqi people.
(Important issue, well researched by FC. - promoted by mooncat)
We come before you today with another of those giant stories.
In fact, this one is so large that to make it a bit more digestible we’re going to break it down into smaller parts. Today’s, obviously, is part one.
The issues we’ll discuss will be an immediate concern of the next President, they impact upon our relationships with many of the world’s nations, and they directly affect whether we will return to a nuclear arms race with Russia…and even more fundamentally, whether we will be a nation that embraces the “first use” of nuclear weapons while asking others to give them up.
And with that, I bid you welcome to the mostly uncharted territory of “Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons”.
Those of you who are regular readers will know that I like to bring you stories that are not part of the conversation you might generally see at this site (or anywhere else, for that matter); and I have a good one for you today.
We will discuss a military “spy satellite” program that has great potential for use by other customers-including law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
A program, frankly, that has a huge “Big Brother” potential.
A program that may end up costing $150 billion of today’s dollars-or more-over the next 25 years.
And with that introduction complete, let’s talk about “Space Radar”.
Those of you who are regular readers will know that I like to bring you stories that are not part of the conversation you might generally see at this site (or anywhere else, for that matter); and I have a good one for you today.
We will discuss a military “spy satellite” program that has great potential for use by other customers-including law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
A program, frankly, that has a huge “Big Brother” potential.
A program that may end up costing $150 billion of today’s dollars-or more-over the next 25 years.
And with that introduction complete, let’s talk about “Space Radar”.
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