Quagmire Afghanistan: Why President Obama Must Resign

In February 1968, American journalist Walter Cronkite famously commented on the CBS Evening News that the United States was mired in a stalemate and that the war probably could not be won.  That marked the end of President Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency.  He was not able to straddle the widening credibility gap after Cronkite's statement following months of reassuring the American public that the war was making progress.  At the end of March he announced that he would not seek re-election in the 1968 election.

The war was labeled a "quagmire" and the haunting lessons of Vietnam continue to enter into public debate every time we go to war.  We learned to never again move the "war room" from the bloody fields where generals know how to win wars in America into the spotless Oval Office of the White House. President Bush allowed only his generals in Iraq and Afghanistan to advise him, conduct and win the war in Iraq.

While there is debate as to how this one theater on the global war on terror could have been handled, President Bush never overstepped the generals who were in harms way.  He retaliated to the Islamic fascist terrorist attack on our soil on 9/11 by taking America to war.  As Commander in Chief and against grueling public pressure, tumbling approval ratings and an unimaginable orchestrated campaign by the Democrats in Congress to politicize the war so as to politically destroy President Bush and elevate them into power, President Bush provided all the support that his generals requested.  He never wavered in his support. As President, Bush's number one priority was to defend America.  He honored the oath of office. He honored the Constitution. Amazingly, he conducted a 6 year war with a controlled deficit and a roaring economy.

The facts are clear and available for anyone who cares to look.

President Obama campaigned strongly that the war on terror could not be won in Iraq, but rather in Afghanistan.  He made compelling statements during his short time in Congress that not only undermined the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he refused to admit that the surge in Iraq which clearly stabilized the front and was victorious, actually worked.  President Obama, for whatever reason, said the war must be fought and won in Afghanistan, after doing everything he could with his Democrat colleagues to undermine the effort. He told us that was where Osama Bin Laden was hiding.  His promise to America was to shift the war on terror from Iraq, where we already won and were at a significant advantage in the war on terror, to Afghanistan where we are at a significant disadvantage. By capturing Bin Laden we would win the war on terror.

That is the extent of President Obama's entire foreign policy.  Better yet, he has no foreign policy.

To briefly summarize the timeline of what has taken place up to now in the recent upheaval on the war in Afghanistan, I will paraphrase from the Wall Street Journal's, Obama and the General and editorialize intermittently.

In March of this year President Obama unveiled his "comprehensive new strategy . . . to reverse the Taliban's gains and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government."  He, as Commander in Chief, pledged to properly resource this "war of necessity," which he also called during the 2008 campaign "the central front on terror."  The President then sacked his war commander, who had been chosen by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in favor of Gen. Stanely McChrystal, an expert in counterinsurgency.

Upon arriving in June, Gen. McChrystal launched his assessment of the forces required to execute the Obama strategy.  His confidential study was completed in August and sent to the Pentagon.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen told Congress that more troops would be needed, and a figure of 30,000-40,000 was being considered.

The figure had clearly stung President Obama. Soon after, Gen. McChrystal's confidential report was leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. (For the sake of argument, let's assume that Gen. McChrystal had leaked the report after getting no calls returned from his Commander in Chief, after being ignored by his Commander and Chief, after watching his Commander in Chief stall and play distraction games while his men were dying in battle, and after having only met with his Commander in Chief once since April.) The report said that the U.S. urgently needs to reverse a "deteriorating" security situation.

Soon, the full retreat began in Washington, led by a vocal group (President Obama) within the Administration that wants to scale back the mission. The White House (President Obama) told the Pentagon to hold off asking for troops and Gen. McChrystal not to testify to Congress. Remarkably, President Obama mused on the Sunday talks shows, "Are we doing the right thing?"

Then, Gen. McChrystal gave a speech last Thursday before the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. It was scheduled and approved by the Pentagon weeks before the Afghan political jitters seized official Washington (President Obama).  The General was hardly incendiary.

"We need to reverse the current trends, and time does matter," he said. Asked vaguely about taking a narrower approach that leaves Afghanistan to its own devices and strikes at terrorists from afar, (Biden's brilliant idea) Gen. McChrystal offered that "a strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted one." He warned the country would descend into "Chaos-istan."

Rather than putting the effort into finding someone worth fighting in Afghanistan, President Obama and his Democrat minions have picked their battle with the President's own, hand-picked, four-star leader Gen. Stanely McChrystal.  They have now launched their orchestrated attack machine to destroy the credibility of Gen. McChrystal simply because he disrespected the chain of command in Washington.

Think about that for a moment. This is the White House (President Obama) at war with it's (President Obama's) own general because Gen. McChrystal is trying to get through to his Commander in Chief's (President Obama's) thick head that they are in very serious trouble! A predicament that President Obama put them in and now refuses to listen for reasons I will get into shortly.

In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut.  President Obama even called the General for a meeting in Copenhagen for only their second face to face since Gen. McChrystal took over in April.  It was a 25 minute scolding on the tarmac.

(And to think that prior to knowing the reason for the meeting some of us were willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt that he was at least making an effort to meet Gen. McChrystal regardless of the "stain-on-the-blue-dress" moment.  It certainly had appeared that the uproar from the news of President Obama going AWOL had forced his hand at a second date with Gen. McChrystal. Little did we know he was calling him in for a spanking and a lesson in Deception Politics 101.)

Look, Gen. McChrystal is not a politician.  He does not care about political warfare.  He could not have known that his Commander in Chief would go wobbly so soon on his commitment to him as well as to his own Afghan strategy when he was tapped for the job in April. President's change strategies in war all the time. This, however, is an obvious cop out for fear of losing his liberal base support for his radical domestic agenda.

President Obama is not interested in winning the war on terror as he is in ramming his liberal and radical agenda down our throats. He obviously does not take this extremely dire situation seriously. Gen. McChrystal has had to watch his men get killed while President Obama brings out his "A" team, starring President Jimmy Carter, to launch his race card attacks on anyone who happens to disagree with him so as to stall and distract while he maneuvers and manipulates a way to get nationalized health care to a vote in the Senate as soon as possible.

The General has had to watch his men get killed while his Commander in Chief takes his "A" team with him to Copenhagen to try his worn out magic in front of the OEC so that his Chicago "loyalists" won't spill the dirt on him.  I'm sure Gen. McChrystal understands the priorities of a corrupt President.

The war in Afghanistan is President Obama's war now.  It was his main, and only, foreign policy agenda that he had called "the central front on terror" in his campaign, then again as President.  It has now become his biggest obstacle to nationalizing health care and to his massive spending agenda.  It is an obstacle for his plan to redistribute wealth from those who have earned it and give it those who will vote for him, to bankrupt the private sector and the country, to create sustained, long-term debt that will inevitably create unimaginable inflation, soaring interest rates thus forcing huge government takeover and massive tax hikes on everything imaginable.

Frankly, the war is a pain in the ass for him!

President Obama knows the situation in Afghanistan is dire.  It is becoming a quagmire.  Gen. McChrystal is scared to death of what he knows can happen, what is happening and what will happen in Afghanistan under the leadership of his current Commander in Chief, but he is there to protect his troops, to win a war and to defend his country, not worry about breaking someone's fingernail or hurting someone's feelings in Washington.

Beltway Generals who created a Vietnam quagmire and brought down a President and a nation in 1968 have no place in the Afghanistan "war room."

President Obama must resign because he is in violation of the oath of office for usurping the Constitution. As Commander in Chief and President of the United States of America, President Obama's number one priority is to defend this country, one he does not like, and the troops he put in harms way. Domestic agendas, particularly anti-constitutional destructive policies, are secondary to the defense of the country. I believe President Obama is derelict in his duty.

Chuck

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