A[nother] New General for Afghanistan

Yet another new general is being appointed to command the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.  Reports last week were that President Obama is going to appoint Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford to replace General John Allen when he leaves later this year.  A couple of comments.

First, as I have said for a long time, there is too much turnover in the top job in Afghanistan (and Iraq before that).  If a general (or any other person) is not doing a good job, they should be replaced.  But once you find somebody doing a good job, keep them there.  Don’t move them out and bring somebody else in who has to learn the job all over again.  We should not be replacing the top general in Afghanistan every year.  This is not a matter of punching a ticket; it’s doing a good job.

Second, it has been pretty clear for a while now that President Obama no longer believes Afghanistan is the necessary war he was saying it was in 2008 when he was running for president.  Whether this is because of things he learned since he became president or because it was just a good political issue against President Bush and Senator McCain, I don’t know.  What I do know is that he certainly hasn’t spent much time talking about Afghanistan, which would seem to indicate Afghanistan is not at the top of his list of priorities, to say the least.

Third, and tied in with point two, another sign of the Administration’s commitment to Afghanistan (or, rather, lack thereof) can be seen in the fact that the new general being appointed to run the show in Afghanistan has never served in Afghanistan.  He did serve 22 months in Iraq, but it was at the beginning of that war, during the invasion and the time immediately thereafter.  It was not during either the insurgency or, more importantly, during the counterinsurgency efforts under General Petraeus.  We have been in Afghanistan for eleven years, and it is a war unlike any other.  And yet the Administration is appointing somebody to run it who has never served there.

I don’t know if we could have succeeded in Afghanistan.  It is pretty clear now that we are not going to.

Comments

[John Bernard]

I would like to direct you to my Blog simply because I have speaking about the complexities of COIN dynamics and our inexplicable lack of desire to consider the possible affect of the prevailing religion (99% Islamic compliance), in the AO (Area of Operation).

While some might think General Allen was "doing a good job", the fact is he was only thee because he was fully prepared to carry the Adminstrations water. This might make him a loyal "servant" of Barrack Obama, but it is hardly an endorcement for his "qualifications" as the Commander of Troops in Afghanistan.

The fact is; he's a dolt. An educated dolt, yes but a dolt never-the-less. He has left our troops in an untenable situation make worse by an unreasonable ROE, a ridiculous vision for Afghanistan and an historically incorrect view of the religion thaty binds them all - Al Qaida an the Taliban included and the result has been a quickening of the declared enemy's morale and an associated uptick in attacks and "insider attacks".

Please visit www.letthemfight.blogspot.com for a more detailed explanation of the players, the religion and the criminally negligent conduct of our politicians and our General Grade Officers.