Obama losing war support Americans are losing confidence in the ability to win in Afghanistan

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—With the deadliest month in Afghanistan on record, more Americans are expressing concern the United States and its allies cannot win the war. USA Today reports:

“Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.”

Its no wonder the administration is losing support for the war with tiring allies, a corrupt Afghan leader and government, decreasing support from natives, and pressure from foreign agitators. The slide in approval of Obama’s handling of the war coincides with his domestic approval as recorded in the USA Today/Gallup poll:

“Only 41% of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45% Monday.”

Pressure is mounting from the left of the president’s party to exit the war and focus on domestic issues— conceding defeat regardless of its consequences.

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Afghanistan records deadliest month Civilian deaths on the rise as the conflict drags on

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (AP)—A minibus full of civilians struck a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan early Sunday, and Afghan officials said six of those on board were killed.

Also Sunday, the last troops from the 1,600-member military contingent began to leave the country, marking an end to the Netherlands' four-year mission in the central province of Uruzgan. They will be replaced by American, Australian, Slovak and Singaporean forces.

German Army Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, a NATO spokesman, told reporters Sunday in Kabul that the Dutch pullout did not show a weakening of the international coalition.

"The overall force posture of (NATO) and of the Afghan security forces is increasing," Gen. Blotz said. However, the increase in NATO troops comes primarily from a surge of U.S. forces, who recently have taken over control of key areas in Helmand and Kandahar from British and Canadian forces.

Sunday's blast in Kandahar hit a bus in the Maiwand district outside Kandahar city, according to provincial spokesman Zalmai Ayubi.

A NATO patrol arrived soon after the explosion and treated the wounded at the scene, the coalition command said.

U.S. and NATO forces are stepping up operations against the Taliban in Kandahar and nearby Helmand province. July was the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly 9-year war, with 66 troops killed. Overall NATO deaths were highest in June, with 103 troops killed.

A NATO service member died Sunday after an insurgent attack in south, the coalition said in a statement. It did not provide further details.

The escalation in military operations also threatens more civilian casualties, potentially undermining support for the U.S.-led mission among Afghans as well as the public in troop-contributing nations.

At least 270 civilians were killed in the fighting in July, and nearly 600 wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said.

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Obama’s win for losing strategy? What the president might be trying to accomplish

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—Accepting General Stanley McChrystal's resignation was the right thing for the president to do, technically speaking. But looking past his tepid comment (the explosive comments came from the general's aides) and putting the mission before the man may have been a mistake of historical proportions—as McChrystal was had-picked for his expertise—this is not to say Petraeus isn't up to the challenge, but if he must abide by the same politically correct ROE's, including a hard withdrawal date, failure could be imminent. 

Petraeus is certainly competent and his successful Iraq surge strategy amidst a deteriorating situation on the ground coupled with being told by a senate panel they weren't prepared to believe a single word of his report shows his fortitude as well as stern dedication. Yet with current conditions, including a civilian command with a misguided strategy and an enemy embolden redeployment date could undermine the good general's military mission. 

But there is another consideration here, a larger question about the hard withdrawal date and its consequences—it is possible Mr. Obama is committing to it simply to sabotage the mission and marginalize the military? Think of it this way, if we pull out and utter chaos erupts like in Vietnam, would Obama’s predecessor if he isn’t reelected in 2012 really redeploy troops to an already failed conflict theater? Besides, Obama has perfect scapegoats, the notoriously crooked Hamid Karzai and George Bush, who took us into war in the first place against a country the left says didn’t have anything to do with 9/11.

--Killswitch Politick

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Grim milestone reached in Afghanistan US troop deaths reach 1,000 since the war began in 2001

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—The United States incurred 1,000 US troop deaths when a suicide car bomber rammed into a NATO convey. Commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said about the Afghan war, “nobody is winning” in a Newshour interview on PBS.

In a nutshell, the war is in a stalemate, as the Taliban has been regaining ground since the end of 2008 and counterinsurgency groups have risen with it. More perturbing is Hamid Karzai’s corruption and until just recently, no pressure has been brought to bear by the administration—that has begun to change since the two failed terror bombings in the US—and of course, its poppy production continues.

Afghanistan is a sorted affair, there is no real functioning government, only a post-warlord ruled geography with an uneducated, unskilled, and poverty stricken population that is subject to the whims of the Taliban seesaw—a population that does not seek to be liberated because history has taught them nothing else.

And therein lays the fundamental problem as General McChrystal sees it, “Our success is very dependent upon the [Afghan] people believing in the future. What they have to believe is that the government we are working towards is better than what an alternative would be."

-- Killswitch Politick

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With friends like these in Kabul, who needs enemies? Karzai is showing the international community his true colors

Kabul, Afghanistan—Hamid Karzai’s comments that he’ll join the Taliban were clearly designed to garner attention, any attention, and to distract from the sham elections his country just held. No one is really buying the I’ll just take my toys home temper-tantrum the Afghani president is spewing but it does point the elephant in Kabul—an administration that is double-dealing and playing both ends against the middle.

Afghanistan’s leaders are the most corrupt among the world over and attempts to even remotely disguise it are being cast aside. Figuring he’s got nothing to lose, Karzai doesn’t have many friends at this point, so why not go for broke?

The Afghan invasion was to root-out the Taliban and wayward Al Qaeda members but has since turned into a conflict without a clear goal and practically no exit strategy. This is not the fault of the US military or any of its allies; it is the dubious product of a citizenry and corrupt government that has no interest in a peaceful future.

President Obama, Congress, and military commanders have a challenge perhaps two-fold more difficult then those that were faced in 1974; we wish them all the best and hope for a victorious resolution.

-- Killswitch Politick

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A war of words

President Obama’s Afghan policy speech has been described in different ways, but perhaps the most accurate way to describe it is to describe the man delivering it – absent principal and heavy on equivocation.

We describe it this way because no person of principal could have delivered such a speech, it simply was intended for too many specific audiences; it spoke directly to the anti-war left in promising prompt exit, the hawks got their surge, the libertarians were assured that cost would outweigh perseverance, isolationists were guaranteed that America would not go it alone and would be the first out the door – and the list goes on, should one be so inclined to enumerate it.

We wish the President quick and decisive success because his policy is centered around a quick deployment and redeployment – in other words, the President has by his very words has put forth the military must find success quickly and decisively, for we simply do not believe he has the conscious will or political fortitude to withstand setbacks such as Iraq suffered. If those setbacks occur, Mr. Obama has clearly demonstrated by his delayed decision to commit more troops that he will look for an exit, no matter if it be in victory or defeat.

As he accepted the Noble Peace Prize, he exclaimed, “Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize ... my accomplishments are slight"; a bit of humble pie or an attempt to position himself for an uncertain future? Mr. Obama won the Nobel Prize without merit and that is clear. But what remains unclear is his disposition on the wars he now fully owns; speaking to the nation he again kicked dirt on his predecessor, stating that the last administration squandered resources to fight an elective war in another country, thereby ignoring what he has called the “necessary” war in Afghanistan.

None of these statements are consequential in-and-among-themselves but they do speak to a demeanor the President is attaching himself to – a man who believes leadership comes from uttering crafted rhetoric rather than one who is willing to lead out of conviction.

It has been said the pen is mightier than the sword, for the sake of our military and our national security, let’s pray that will be the case.

-- Killswitch Politick

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The overseas contingency snags GITMO

For the first time since signing an executive order to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, as he promised during the 2008 campaign, President Obama now admits his January 2010 deadline will not be met. The President would not set a new deadline, saying of the delay to close the facility he, “…knew this was going to be hard.” The President’s qualifier is not just “hard” by convenient definition, but rather, “technically hard.”

Technically hard? Try near impossible; the questions raised by critics were legitimate – where will the administration put 200+ detainees? Bermuda and Palau have already taken the first of those that have been cleared as non-combatants, the Chinese Uighurs, who dominated the 24/7 news cycle with video showing them lounging and frolicking in the island paradise.

Bob Schillerstrom, Chairman of the DuPage County Board, has requested Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to convene a Special Session of the General Assembly ASAP to deal with the many safety measures questions surrounding the prospective use of Thomson Correctional Center to incarcerate federal detainees now held at Guantanamo Bay.

The decision to close GITMO was made before Mr. Obama was sworn-in, a campaign promise he repeated. But ten months after issuing his executive order to shutter the facility, it remains open as there are real world consequences to campaign hyperbole turned on its head by reality. Mr. Obama practically guaranteed the American people he would restore the United States' standing in the world, yet has not been able to deliver. Not only are traditional American allies not actively giving assistance in the war efforts, they are quite hands-off when it comes to receiving GITMO detainees.

So the original question reposes itself, where will the US put GITMO prisoners once the facility is closed? A question the current administration won’t answer because it is unable to do so. Closing GITMO means the transfer of the detainees, plain-and-simple. And there aren’t any takers nearly a year later; as President Obama explained, "We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year. I'm not going to set an exact date because a lot of this is also going to depend on cooperation from Congress."

With the midterm elections fast approaching and with all 435 House members up for reelection, that political landmine is best to sidestep, but sooner or later, the political and security realities will have to be dealt with.


-- Killswitch Politick

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Playing politics with Afghanistan

President Obama said last week that he isn’t waiting on more information on Afghanistan but being certain he has the best strategy before sending more troops and spending "billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money."

Mr. Obama stated while in Tokyo last week, "Our goal here ultimately has to be for the Afghan people to be able to be in a position to provide their own security, and that the United States cannot be engaged in an open-ended commitment.”

The President has not committed to a request made publicly by General Stanley McChrystal three months ago for 40,000 and gives no certain indication of exactly what he intends to do, only saying, his decision “will be made soon” and that it will be “fully transparent so that the American people understand exactly what we're doing and why we're doing it and what it will entail."

Meanwhile, troop morale has fallen as a new Afghanistan survey found that "unit morale rates...were significantly lower than in 2005 or 2007". This, along with increasing political from both the left and right has been growing. President Obama has said, “I recognize that there have been critics of the process. They tend not to be folks who I think are directly involved in what's happening in Afghanistan. Those who are recognize the gravity of the situation and recognize the importance of us getting this right."

NATO has endorsed General McChrystal’s troop surge strategy and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan which would replace Japan's more discordant program for aiding the war-torn country – a refueling mission for US forces, which will end in January. Critics said the mission violated Japan's pacifist Constitution as that country’s constitution prohibits the country from sending troops to combat.

Japan’s support, along with US allies is growing strained. Mr. Obama and other Bush administration critics have beat a steady drum of diplomacy, replacing President Bush’s cowboy way with sophistication. But instead of allying with action, other countries are happy to greet talk with lip service. We were told time and again that Bush’s rush and buckaroo were isolating countries that would otherwise be committed allies, and now with a decidedly different personality in the White House, his suave style is all that accompanies him out of talks.

General McChrystal’s request ought to be heeded by the man who fired his predecessor, it is time for the Commander and Chief to listen.

-- Killswitch Politick

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Inching towards chaos

As President Obama continues his public waffling on Afghanistan, the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate.

With Hamid Karzai’s alleged ballot-box stuffing, the Iranians agitating and little-to-no help from our allies, the United States finds itself in a precarious situation in what Candidate Obama called a war we must win.

The Taliban has reformed and their strategy is clearing causing gains in their direction. A mountainous and lawless country, Afghanistan has long been the ideal breeding ground for the likes of Al Qaeda and warlords, not to mention, public support of the war has been on a steady decline since the war in Iraq began devolving – well before the surge and turn around.

Mr. Obama and Gordon Brown find themselves in un-winnable positions with their respective political bases – each wishes to pull the leaders further to the left and are demanding immediate withdrawal. But both leaders know full well where that will lead: a country left to the wolves, a signal to Islamo-fascists that American and Brittan don’t have the will to see their way through, and an effective surrender to Iranian interloping.

All of which is unacceptable should the two countries wish to remain true to their word and actions. If Messers. Obama and Brown do not head the call of the generals on the ground; the war is all-but-lost and so to will be the standing of their commanders-in-chief.

-- Killswitch Politick

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