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Unbidden, Petraeus discussed whether his strategy in Iraq — protecting the population while cleaving apart the insurgency through reconciliation efforts to crush the remaining hard-core enemies — could also work in Afghanistan. The question has particular salience as Petraeus takes over U.S. Central Command, which will put him at the helm of all U.S. troops in the Middle East and South Asia, thereby giving him a large role in the Afghanistan war.“Some of the concepts used in Iraq are transplantable [to Afghanistan] while others perhaps are not,” he said. “Every situation is unique.”
Petraeus pointed to efforts by Hamid Karzai’s government to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that would potentially bring some Taliban members back to power, saying that if they are “willing to reconcile,” it would be “a positive step.”
In saying that, Petraeus implicitly allied with U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Last week, McKiernan rejected the idea of replicating the blend of counterinsurgency strategy employed in Iraq. “The word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is the word ’surge,’” McKiernan said, opting against recruiting Pashtun tribal fighters to supplement Afghan security forces against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “There are countless other differences between Iraq and Afghanistan,” he added.
...does he?
Or is Spencer Ackerman reading too much into these remarks?
You decide.
Update: Greyhawk here, with a few added comments.
1. The headline on the linked piece is by far the most vile, disgusting attack on General Petraeus I've ever seen - lower than the "General Betrayus" shit from MoveOn and New York Times. The General is not involved in the political campaign. He does not and will not "bolster" either candidate.
2. Since Obama and McCain both promise more troops for Afghanistan (the only concrete promise Obama made during this week's debate was that he would kill Osama) and only one of them has already said he would personally tell Petraeus how to fight a war (actually, how he will conduct a retreat), how exactly does Petraeus "bolster" Obama?
3. Ackerman is either the most ignorant, ill informed person to ever write about military strategy and tactics I've ever read or he believes that his readers are. McKiernan wants three (beyond what he's been promised already) additional combat brigades, aviation and UAV assets, and associated support troops in Afghanistan ASAP. But he doesn't want to call it a "surge". The only thing "unsurgelike" about it might be the duration - he seems to imply they will be there for much longer than the length of Iraq's surge. In the good old days, reporters would wave a righteous bullshit flag for any general blowing that kind of smoke up their assess. How about you be the guy stooge who personally explains the "not a surge" stuff to the troops who will go to Afghanistan, Spence? While you're at it, come up with the catchy word you'd mandate they use to define their next twelve months downrange. As for my either/or at the start of this paragraph, my answer is "both". Spencer Ackerman has no busines writing about military issues. This blithering idiot is a Scott Beauchamp fanboy. No serious publication will ever feature Spencer Ackerman writing about military issues. His qualifications begin and end with "ability to type."
4. As for strategy, McKiernan's - as described during his last visit to the States - is identical to Petraeus' at the outset of the surge. The words used are the same, the core concepts are identical. There will be adjustments for terrain, weather, population, and other conditions as explained by Sun Tzu and others who came later. (See link below...)
5. Additional details here. I hate to repeat myself, but for whatever reason, ignorance gets repeated endlessly and if left unchecked people like Spencer Ackerman start believing themselves.
6. I think it's possible that never before in history have a presidential and vice presidential candidate team had as little combined knowledge and experience (zero. zip. nada. At least Dukakis was an Army vet...) as Joe Biden and Barack Obama. (Biden was a sickly youth with five medical deferments during the Vietnam era, and although Obama "thought about" joining the military he didn't because "The Vietnam War had come to an end" and "we weren't engaged in an active military conflict". ) But they do have ideas, that can't be denied. (And those ideas appeal strongly to people like Spencer Ackerman, that can't be denied either.)
