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Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! November 27, 2009 Mission accomplishableBy Greyhawk![]() General McChrystal met American lawmakers in Afghanistan this week, and told them "he believed that the mission was accomplishable". Some of the lawmakers pressed McChrystal on Obama's lengthy decision-making, but the general described it as a "thoughtful process and wouldn't go any further," Price said. "I was a little surprised he didn't voice frustration with the delay." "The visit could serve as a bellwether of how much support Obama will receive from congressional Republicans when he makes his announcement about the next phase of the war in Afghanistan on Tuesday night at West Point." Republican support for President Obama's Afghanistan decisions is crucial - and that places the President in an awkward position. Support for the war from Democrats has plunged; according to a recent Quinnipiac poll 58% felt "the U.S. should not be involved in Afghanistan now". The same November 18 poll indicated only 38% of Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling the situation in Afghanistan - a figure reinforced by results from a November 24 USA Today/Gallup poll. "Approval of Obama on Afghan war dives" read the headline appearing in newspaper kiosks, hotel rooms and airports nationwide - "55% disapprove of the way he is handling Afghanistan and 35% approve, a reversal of his 56% approval rating four months ago." It's not likely that Obama is enjoying outperforming President Bush in this regard - but even though Democratic support for President Bush and the Iraq war plunged rapidly and immediately in 2003 it would take a full year after the fall of the Hussein regime before overall support for the president on Iraq dipped below 50% permanently. But to the delight of Democrats (Harry Reid: "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war") and horror of many Republicans...
...even as support for the effort fell to its lowest point President Bush declined to let public opinion drive military strategy: "I understand the politics of war, and I will listen to these allies and friends. But for me, the overriding concern is to succeed in Iraq. These political concerns are short-term compared to the long-term consequences of failure. And I would, from my perspective, I am more than willing to sacrifice short-term popularity to do what is absolutely right, so that in the long term, people will say, 'Now I understand why he made the decision he made." ![]() While the results might seem counter-intuitive in light of his even more rapidly plunging support, President Obama seems less inclined than his predecessor to ignore the favor of the American voting public, and the resulting pressure from more vulnerable members of Congress. It's safe - to the point of inanity - to say that all polls indicate a divided American electorate. Beyond that they leave much to interpretation, and acting on interpretation means risk. But generally leaders lead and followers choose sides and risk is part of the equation. And while it's a difficult political trick to be all things to all people all of the time, the New York Times assures us that Obama's Afghan Strategy Will Contain Messages to Several Audiences, even though the story contains this cautionary note: "as Mr. Obama's own aides concede, the messages directed at some may undercut the messages sent to others." As for what might follow, we'll see what happens after Americans get polled again.
Posted by Greyhawk / November 27, 2009 10:42 AM | Permalink 1 TrackBack...or "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" ***** CBS (or maybe Obama or Gibbs): "Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone." Better: "Troops will START coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone." So th... Read More 1 Comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
![]() Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com ![]() Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Something tells me sly old General McChrystal outfoxed President Lightworker: namely, McChrystal simply asked for twice as many troops as he thought he really needed. In the end, "Mr. Dithers" fell into a trap and not only gave McChrystal what he needed, but also several thousand more troops to spare.
McChrystal knows that "nothing succeeds like success." Therefore, if he has a political goal (which he almost certainly does), success in Afghanistan will produce the interesting result of making Obama and the Donks look good...while making them also look like idiots at the same time. Citizens will likely soon be asking an obvious and uncomfortable question: "Well, now that McChrystal has turned things around in Afghanistan, just why did Obama take so f***ing long to give him what he needed to win?"