I don’t know what this smells like, but whatever it is, it ain’t victory,
U.S. and NATO Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s long-awaited report containing a request for additional troops on Saturday was submitted to the Pentagon, but the Defense Department will hold it until the Obama administration reconfigures its Afghan strategy.
Spokesman Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis told media outlets today that McChrystal hand delivered the report to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Adm. James Stavridis.
In the report, which was leaked to the Washington Post on Monday, McChrystal warned of “mission failure” if the size of the allied force in Afghanistan remains the same.
The White House, however, has asserted that it will review the nation’s entire Afghan strategy before considering McChrystal’s request.But top Republican lawmakers have been pressuring the administration to act quickly.
“Right now the focus is on the strategic assessment itself. [The troop request] will be shelved until such time that the White House is ready,” a defense official told Reuters.
Sure, sure. We’ve got a war on in a place literally crawling with Islamic terrorists who are just begging to be rendered horizontal and room temperature, the lives of American troops are on the line, and the President wants to slowball this? Maybe if McChrystal could find some way to pitch this troop surge to the President as some sort of shovel-ready project that’s just begging to have billions in stimulus taxpayer dollars thrown at it, he might find a more receptive audience.
But, as DrewM over at Ace of Spades HQ points out, Obama may be taking this route because he realises that he doesn’t have the political capital left even within his own party to both get the troop surge McChrystal wants and get a watered down health care “reform” bill through. So he’s throwing the troops under the bus to get the far-left to accede to a health care plan that’s not as radical as they wanted.
We have a weak President. We know it. The military knows it. Our enemies know it.
