# McChrystal says no



## 7point62 (Oct 2, 2009)

General McCrystal has weighed in about the "Biden proposal" to scale down the war by relinquishing the battle against the Taliban and narrowing the focus to hunting down AQ. 

McCrystal says no. I'm quoting him from the NY Times: "You have to navigate from where you are, not from where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy."

He says the scaled down approach is nothing but a formula for "Chaos-istan."

Some of our SOF/SF folk here have stated that we should return to the type of very successful warfare they were conducting in 2001-2002. How do you feel about the General's statements? Is he wrong? Is Biden right? Is the answer somewhere in the middle?


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## JollyGreen (Oct 2, 2009)

The Idea to return Afghanistan to where SOF are the *SUPPORTED* forces vice the *supporting* is sound (my :2c:) however, turning attention away from the Taliban to AQ is not so sound. 
     There are many different groups that are at the heart of this insurgency, all of which must be extinguished to achieve the goals that we are after. Most notably a stable and legitimate government capable of providing security to its people.


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## racing_kitty (Oct 3, 2009)

I'll start off by saying I don't know a helluva lot about COIN.  I will say, though, that the VP's proposal to target just AQ instead of the Taliban makes absolutely no sense.  The war today is much different from the war that was fought in 2001-02.  Opportunities have been squandered.  Would the Taliban fighters who chose a return to their life prior to Taliban conscription in 2001 make the same choice today?  Especially after an (at best) apathetic approach to the "hearts and minds" aspect by conventional forces?  

I don't think so.  Some may still walk from the field of battle to return to their meager farms.  But it remains to be seen how many will continue to take arms against us out of a sense of revenge arising from somehow being wronged (either perceived or in all actuality) during the conventional military's grossly negligent mishandling of the Afghan war.  

In this aspect, I compare AQ/Taliban to a viper that's been found in the courtyard.  Even if you sever the body from the head, if you blatantly ignore the head it will still bite you and the poison will still kill.  Ignoring the Taliban to fight Al Qaeda is the same principle.  The Taliban will still kill us as we're looking around for AQ.  Unlike the severed head, however, the Taliban will come to us to kill us all the same.

To see SF be given the reins to run this war the way it needs to be run is what needs to happen.  VP Biden needs to keep his mouth shut if he's going to keep coming up with retarded ideas like that.  I don't blame General McChrystal in the least for saying "No" to his proposal.  I can only pray that the administration listens to him and comes up with the best strategy to win this war.


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## AWP (Oct 3, 2009)

This war is a "little" deeper than the TB or AQ......too bad most don't realize that.


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## HOLLiS (Oct 3, 2009)

General says something.

A politicians, with a history of sticking his foot in his mouth, says something else.

Who am I to believe?  


Biden, the comic relief for the Obama administration.


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## 7point62 (Oct 3, 2009)

Freefalling said:


> This war is a "little" deeper than the TB or AQ......too bad most don't realize that.




By "deeper" I'm assuming you mean many different factions engaged in the fighting at some level who do not share unified strategies and goals? Disunity, tribal infighting, power struggles among warlords, that kind of thing? One of the things that struck me in Pete Blaber's book was the caste system in the AQ/TB ranks, how the Uzbeks weren't allowed to talk to the Arabs, etc.


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## AWP (Oct 3, 2009)

7point62 said:


> By "deeper" I'm assuming you mean many different factions engaged in the fighting at some level who do not share unified strategies and goals? Disunity, tribal infighting, power struggles among warlords, that kind of thing? One of the things that struck me in Pete Blaber's book was the caste system in the AQ/TB ranks, how the Uzbeks weren't allowed to talk to the Arabs, etc.



Bingo.


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## pardus (Oct 3, 2009)

Interesting...

The General was right to reject this BS proposal.
Politicians, you need to keep the fuck out of this war, if 'we' need you, we'll fucking ask for you, get it?

We need to have a dedicated psyops team aiming at the Uzbecks if that info is true.

I am talking a programme like this...

http://selousscouts.tripod.com/pseudo_main.htm


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## Scotth (Oct 3, 2009)

Your never going to be able to hunt down all the AQ out there.  To make a long story short, look at the Isreali campaign in southern Lebanon to get rid of Hezbollah.  Your not fighting a nation state and the rules for massive military damage doesn't apply.  Isreal layed waste to most of southern Lebanon but they couldn't win because the rules for success is different between a nation and an extremist.  We would need to kill them all before more are recruited to there cause to end there campaign and they only need to survive.  Survival against the US and Isreal is viewed as a win by there supporters.  Your not fighting the man as much as your fighting the idea of what AQ is and I think McCrystal gets that.

The best we can hope for is creating a stable nation that won't allow AQ and similar organization sactuary in that country in the future.  Biden is missing the point IMHO, but I'm also not sure we have the time or the will in this country to see this thru either.  To much time has been wasted already.

The road to total and complete victory over the extremist in the middle east?  Isn't through the militatry it's Alternative Power and ridding the country of our dependance on oil.  Take away there money and any reason to care about there part of the world.  The problem will be gone.


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## Ranger Psych (Oct 3, 2009)

Fighting an "Ideal" that AQ, and the Taliban, believe in... is way different than winning a war by simply crushing the enemy.

This is SF's mission, purpose in life, and whole point... to be able to weed out the militants, show the entice-able a better way, and to ensure that the better path is chosen... 

SF needs to take point on this one, and for the bigger stuff have all the other cool guys at their beck and call for wack-a-mole ops when they figure out where the bad guys are... 

Granted, SF CAN do DA.. but their value is going to be in the fact that they will indubitably meld better to the populace and the people... Raids and ambushes and the like are what Regiment lives for... 



Ridding our dependancy on oil isn't going to happen overnight... but I think that one valid step is ridding ourselves of foreign oil. 

Honestly, in some aspects, closing the doors and doing things ourselves as a whole nation would do wonders for our economy... Start actually manufacturing our own goods. Keep American money in America... buy our OWN oil... Build our own cars, beds, dressers and the like. Cutting imports, and thereby cutting exterior flow of american funding would help bolster our economy as well as help reduce the funding, support, and the like that extremist organizations outside of the US recieve.


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## varsity (Oct 3, 2009)

This war has less to do with the Taliban or AQ than it does about the population.  If we focus on eradicating the "bad guys" more than incorporating the people into their own government, we lose.  

This war is people centric, not bad guy centric.  If we integrate the ANSF with the people, while simultaneously working on the corruption of the ANSF, we\they will push the "bad guys" out into the hills where there is nothing to stop us from J-Daming their asses off the planet.  This starts with partnering up with them.  You can't monitor and mentor from 10k away.  You have to live, eat, sleep and fight with them.  Partnership down to the lowest common denominator.  We have to "influence" them in every way we can.  We have to help them promote the right guys, we have to help them get rid of the right guys.  If the ANSF are corrupt and infective, it's our fault.  If they say they can't do an operation because of lack of air support or up armored vehicles, it's because we taught them that.  It's our fault.  Any other way does not work.  Once again, if we fail to do this, we lose.  Hold them accountable, and be culturally understanding.  I'm not saying be week.  Nowhere in any book or COIN manual does it say the COIN is nice.  It's hard, ugly work.  It gets nasty, but we have to do it the right way through their culture.  It's going to take time.  

VP Biden is looking at this problem from a very linear standpoint.  This situation is as far from linear as it can get.  The people are our target.  We have to give them something to stand on and believe in.  It starts with mentoring the ANSF.  We fight the corruption, we build their capacity and we get them to really protect and support the people of Afghanistan.  Killing bad guys is good, but we don't need to kill all of them.  Get them to work for us.  If the people feel safe and they believe the AFG forces are going to stick around and do the right thing, then the information comes out of the wood work.  

Something else.  Their democracy will never be like ours.  Get that idea out of your heads.  Our cultures are way to different.  What we have to do is take our ideas and use their culture as the conduit.  Not the other way around.  

Next piece.  It's going to take more troops.  We have to help them fix their own problems on a mass scale.  Not piece-mail.  We have to be partnered up across the nation.  SOF and conventional alike.  I know some people don't agree with me on this, but this is the way I see it.  I have seen it work and it will work with the proper support.

Wheeewwwww,

RB, how is that for a rant?

Oh, take this for what it is.  I'm just another asshole in a large group of asshole's who thinks they have it figured out.


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## JJ sloan (Oct 3, 2009)

Freefalling said:


> This war is a "little" deeper than the TB or AQ......too bad most don't realize that.



Word.

But for the sake of argument: can Biden tell me what the difference is between TB and AQ these days?  I don't see any difference anymore.  Oh yeah, thats right, TB wears uniforms and AQ doesn't.  Wait.... no, that can't be right.  Maybe it's the other way around.
On the other hand I do think that Biden's idea to target AQ and not TB would be successful in eliminating al Qaeda.... BECAUSE THEY WOULD JUST CALL THEMSELVES TALIBAN JOE!!!  What an idiot.
Has he learned nothing about his enemy?


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