Petraeus Listens to McCain's Rant on Afghanistan Withdrawal Deadline

The planned July 2011 withdrawal of SOME troops in Afghanistan has been a bug up John McCain's butt. The deadline, timeline, whatever you want to call it seems to be confusing to many. It seems to me that the withdrawal timeline isn't there to discourage our allies or so that terrorists can regroup, as McCain insists. The deadline is there so that the corrupt Karzai government has a time frame in order to get its act together.

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The video cuts off before Petraeus gets a chance to speak but here's some of what he said:

Petraeus tried to make his position clear, reiterating a comment he made during hearings on Afghanistan two weeks ago: “It’s important to note that July 2011 will be the beginning of a process ... not the date by which we head for the exits and turn off the lights.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) zeroed in on the essential difficulty facing the Obama administration — how to balance continued support for the war with calls from his liberal base to make plans to exit as soon as possible. Citing a quote attributed to Vice President Joe Biden in Jonathan Alter’s book “The Promise” — that “you can bet on it” that in July 2011 a large number of troops will come home — Graham asked Petraeus whether the comment was accurate.

Petraeus responded in his typically artful style by reframing it. Petraeus said he had a conversation with Biden immediately after meeting with the president in the Oval Office about the much-argued-over July 2011 withdrawal date.

“The vice president said, ‘You should know that I’m 100 percent supportive of this policy,’” Petraeus said, and he added that neither he nor Defense Secretary Robert Gates had heard Biden make the statement quoted in Alter’s book. Read more at Politco

Junger on Life as a Combat Soldier

Combat comes down to fear, killing and love. Sebastian Junger, author of "War" and co-director of "Restrepo," says if we left Afghanistan, the results would be catastrophic.

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Meet the Press Roundtable on Afghanistan

Meet the Press roundtable was pretty good this morning, especially Sebastian Junger, Wes Moore and Tom Hick's comments. Junger has a new movie and a new book out. I wish the conversation could've been longer.

As humans, we shouldn't be in Afghanistan at all. War damages every human spirit. Soldiers get the full physical, mental and spiritual impact of war. The most ignorant thing we do is send soldiers off to war, break their spirits and then expect them to return to normalcy when they come home.

No war is ever "won." You can't win a war because if it costs one single life, then it can never be a win. The McChrystal debacle, in my mind, illustrates the idiocy of war.

But there are real world realities. Human beings do really dumb things. There are terrorists out there.

One of our nation's biggest blunders is invading Iraq and letting Afghanistan languish. We've helped to create a disaster in which there are no good solutions. Afghanistan's own leader, the loathsome Hamid Karzai, stands in the way of progress. Hicks says Karzai's government is the biggest problem in Afghanistan. But he says the biggest mistake would be to leave Afghanistan. Nothing is right in Afghanistan. It almost seems hopeless there.

A couple of good reads and two opposing opinions on Afghanistan today, one by Andrew Bacevich here and another by Tom Ricks here.

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New War Documentary Restrepo Offers Soldiers View

This is a must listen. It's pretty moving. I was listening in a grocery store with headphones and was caught off guard with tears rolling down my face. "Restrepo" was co-directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. The film has nothing to do with politics, only with the realities of war. I plan to see it. All Americans should see it. It opens in theaters tomorrow.

McChrystal Gives Terrorists a Free Throw

Imagine you're Al Qaeda or Taliban and the top general in Afghanistan publicly criticizes the Obama administration. Imagine your glee.

McChrystal just made it more difficult to "win" the war in Afghanistan, if a war can be won at all. I'd argue not.

The Rolling Stone story is now posted here.

Instead of supporting Obama, republicans are excusing McChrystal.
I'd like to say we no longer belong in Afghanistan after this public display of immaturity, but I know that we're not going to withdraw. Worse, Obama will probably have to keep McChrystal. But I'd argue that McChrystal's idiocy has endangered the lives of our soldiers and American civilians. As if Obama doesn't have enough disasters to contend with. McChrystal, in his small mind, obviously didn't think about that.

There are also questions as to whether McChrystal is serving well in Afghanistan. He appears to be too chummy with Hamid Karzai.

I have to question McChrystal's mental state, especially after reading this. Perhaps he has spent too much time warring around.

Representative David Obey, a democrat, is calling on McChrystal to resign. I don't want to see him resign. I want to see him fired.

Read what Robert Gibbs had to say about the article and Obama's response here.

Some excerpts from the article:

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

Really?

"I'd rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner," McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.

"Unfortunately," he adds, "no one in this room could do it."

With that, he's out the door.

"Who's he going to dinner with?" I ask one of his aides.

"Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It's fucking gay."

Read how the author got access to McChrystal here. It involves a change in travel plans due to the volcanic ash in Iceland and a lot of liquor. Here's more from the article:

McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal," says a member of the general's team. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He's a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can't just have someone yanking on shit."
At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," he groans. "I don't even want to open it." He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.

"Make sure you don't get any of that on your leg," an aide jokes, referring to the e-mail.

Afghanistan Could be Saudi Arabia of Lithium

Imagine if this new found wealth was used to educate and liberate the women of Afghanistan and bring peace to the region. But it will probably only make matters worse. Greed always gets the best us.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries. NYT

Karzai the Wily Survivor

An interesting look at the motivations of Hamid Karzai:

Obama and Karzai Press Conference May 11

Obama said civilian casualties aren't a political issue: We have an interest in preventing civilian casualties because "I don't want civilians killed." Full video:

Obama's Schedule May 12

Today is Karzai day.

At 10:15 am eastern, Obama meets with Hamid Karzai.

At 11:15 am, they'll hold a joint press conference

At 12:25, Obama lunches with Karzai.

McChrystal's Update on Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai is scheduled to visit Obama at the White House Wednesday.

Another Taliban Leader Captured in Pakistan

On the heels of the capture of Mullah Baradar, another one caught:

Another leader of the Afghan Taliban has been captured by authorities in Pakistan working in partnership with U.S. intelligence officials. Taliban sources in the region and a counterterrorism officials in Washington have identified the detained insurgent leader as Mullah Abdul Salam, described as the Taliban movement's "shadow governor" of Afghanistan's Kunduz province. Read more at Newsweek

Gibbs Declines to Talk About Taliban Commander Capture

Updated with video. Gibbs says he does his own twittering.

If you're so inclined, watch Robert Gibbs press briefing here.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs begins his briefing by taking a question about the capture of a Taliban commander in Afghanistan, but he declines to "get into this topic."

"This involves very sensitive intelligence matters," he says. "This involves the collection of intelligence, and it is best to do that and not necessarily talk about it." Politico

The Taliban deny the capture:

Also on Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman denied that the insurgents’ second-most important leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured in Pakistan.

“He is safe and free, and he leads the command and he is in Afghanistan,” said the spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, who was reached by cellphone on Tuesday.

United States officials confirmed the arrest to The New York Times last Thursday but asked the newspaper to withhold the information until Monday because it would impede intelligence operations. They described him as the most significant Taliban figure yet arrested, head of their military operations and second in importance only to the Taliban “emir of Afghanistan,” Mullah Omar. Mullah Baradar was arrested in a joint raid by Pakistani intelligence agents with C.I.A. agents accompanying them, American officials said. NYT

Troops Massing for Afghanistan Offense

I read that the Taliban are dressing like civilians until it's all over, so I can't imagine how this is going to go well.

McCaffrey: Afghanistan Surge Will Kill or Wound 500 Soldiers by Summer

Let's hope McCaffrey is wrong.

Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces.

The dire forecast was made by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003.

“What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That’s what we probably should expect. And that’s light casualties,” said McCaffrey, who is also president of his own consulting firm in Arlington, Va., and has conducted numerous trips to the war zones to assess the political and military challenges at hand.

As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty. Army Times

Suicide Bomber Kills 8 Americans Within U.S. Base

Update Dec. 31: CIA head Leon Panetta's statement on 7 CIA employees killed.

CNN is reporting that the 8 killed are CIA workers.

Portrait of a Military Family

This is heartbreaking;

Taliban Says God is on Their Side

Look at these guys. Wouldn't they rather read a good book or go to the movies or how about a game of hoops? The Taliban says it will defeat the U.S. troops, despite the troop escalation.

Stanley McChrystal's Interview With Al Jazeera's Riz Kahn

Stanley McChrystal takes several viewer questions and they aren't happy that the U.S. is in Afghanistan.

Drone Hellfires Kill Al Qaeda Leader

Let Whack A Mole begin!

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Marines On the Job

I now understand why the Afghanis don't call out the Taliban. The Taliban are insidious creatures. What the Marines are up against: