Hillary Clinton Speaks on Talks With the Taliban

Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen speak on Obama's plan to drawdown 10,000 troops this year and 33,000 in all by next year. Pelosi said the drawdown could go faster than planned.

Taliban and Karzai's response to the drawdown plan:

Mullen on Libya on Meet the Press

Admiral Mike Mullen says he hasn't seen any reports of civilian deaths. Mullen said that the goal is not ousting Gadhafi. Hmmm. I'll never understand war.

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Richard Engel says the idea of the UN resolution is to give the rebels time to take care of their sick, learn from their mistakes and regroup, so that they can tackle Gadhafi. That would make sense if it works.

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John Kerry says he wouldn't call this a war. Now I'm really confused:

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Mullen Touring Middle East Reassuring Allies

The best thing we could do to provide Mideast stability is ramp up our alternative fuel research and development. Our foreign policy in the region has been based on our need for oil.

Mullen on Newly Discovered Nuclear Facility in North Korea

North Korea says the plant is for generating electricity.

Adm. Mullen says the ratification of START is a national security issue. Standing in the way, of course, for no good reason except to oppose Obama, are the republicans led by Jon Kyl.

Adm. Mike Mullen's Town Hall on Veterans Video

Gates and Mulllen Speak on McChrystal Video

I wonder if McChrystal thought about how much harder he made Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen's jobs before he made foolish remarks for public consumption.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he was “nearly sick” when he read the magazine article that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

“I couldn't believe it,” Adm. Mike Mullen said at a Pentagon press briefing Thursday afternoon. “I was stunned.” The Hill

Obama Furious With McChrystal and Orders Him to DC

Stanley McChrystal has long been a schmuck. He openly mocked Obama in this video I've posted from November. He should've been fired then. Now, the guy criticizes the commander in chief in an interview with the Rolling Stone? He (his aides) also mocks Biden. Read excerpts. It is very school boyish.

He's risking the lives of our soldiers by behaving in such a manner and he's risking our lives as American civilians. For what? So that Rolling Stone can make a lot of money? McChrystal needs to be promptly fired for insubordination. But first, he should be publicly shamed.

The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been summoned to the White House to explain biting and unflattering remarks he made to a freelance writer about President Barack Obama and others in the Obama administration.

The face-to-face comes as pundits are already calling for McChrystal to resign for insubordination.

McChrystal has been instructed to fly from Kabul to Washington today to attend Obama’s regular monthly security team meeting tomorrow at the White House.

An administration official says McChrystal was asked to attend in person rather than by secure video teleconference, “where he will have to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes about his colleagues in the piece.” Read more at Politico

The article isn't out yet but here is a sampling of McChrystal's immaturity:

McChrystal described his first meeting with Obama as disappointing and said that Obama was unprepared for the meeting.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones is described by a McChrystal aide as a “clown” stuck in 1985.

Others aides joked about Biden’s last name as sounding like “Bite me” since Biden opposed the surge. Read more

John Kerry weighs in:

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McChrystal is an embarrassment to Admiral Mike Mullen:

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Mullen Speaks on the Defense Budget

Alter on Obama's Cold and Bracing Meeting

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter speaks about his observations of Obama. Alter has a new book, "The Promise: President Obama, Year One."

Alter recounts when Obama called Gen. Stanley McChrystal's boss on the carpet, Admiral Mullen, with Robert Gates, and "dressed them down."

McChrystal was behaving as though he set the policy on Afghanistan. Alter described Obama's meeting with Mullen and Gates as "cold and bracing."

When I saw the video below from Nov. 2009, it appeared to me that McChrystal had little respect for Obama's process of determining troop numbers.

Obama does get angry, Alter said. "What he doesn't do is he doesn't flip out," he said. "It's more of a kind of a cool anger, which can be scarier if you're on the receiving end of it. There's nothing nasty about it." Most people like working for Obama, Alter said.

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Mike Mullen Speaks on Doing More for Veterans

Adm. Mike Mullen on Don't Ask Don't Tell

Adm. Mike Mullen says gays should be allowed to serve openly. He made it clear he was speaking for himself only. He says he supports Robert Gates' plan to change the policy. The dinosaur in the room, republicans, led by John McCain, who is opposing repealing don't ask don't tell.

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Obama's Schedule Jan. 13 2010

Obama will speak around 3 pm on clean jobs from Lanham, Maryland. Obama will tour the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee Center. It may be live streamed at MSNBC.com or cnn.com.

Obama's Afghanistan Plan in 4 Minutes

The White House puts out a shorter video for those who decided not to watch the entire speech. The WH did this for healthcare too. I also recommend that people check out Stanley McChrystal's speech to the troops that followed Obama's address to the nation and Admiral Michael Mullen's interview on the plan.

Obama Set To Address the Nation on Afghanistan Dec. 1

Update: Obama will speak at 8 pm eastern. If you're not near a TV, it will be live streamed at WhiteHouse.gov.

President Obama is expected to address the nation early next week, saying he will send a sizable force of additional troops to Afghanistan, sources tell NPR.

The tentative plan is for the president to make his announcement Dec. 1, followed shortly thereafter by testimony on Capitol Hill by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Also expected to brief Congress is the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. More at NPR

McChrystal Delivers Troop Request

General Stanley McChrystal hand delivered his long-awaited request to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said after McChrystal returned from the meeting at an air base in Germany. WaPo

Obama has to decide and he said his decision will be based on whatever is most effective at eradicating Al Qaeda:

Sitting in an air-conditioned office within this gargantuan NATO encampment in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. officer pointed to a map of Kandahar province that indicated, with small, rectangular boxes, where soldiers deployed by President Obama earlier this year were now operating.

There were two battalions to the north of Kandahar city. Another to the far south. Canadian forces were going to swing to the west. About 5,000 new U.S. troops in all.

"But there, there and there," the officer said, pointing to towns just outside a belt where the Americans and Canadians were stationed, "and there," putting his fist on the city, which with 800,000 residents is the country's second-largest population center, "we don't have anyone."

If more forces are not forthcoming to mount counterinsurgency operations in those parts of the province, he concluded, the overall U.S. effort to stabilize Kandahar -- and by extension, the rest of Afghanistan -- will fail.

"We might as well pack our bags and go home . . . and just keep a few Predators flying overhead to whack the al-Qaeda guys who return," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "There's no point in doing half-measures here."

I'm not a fan of war, any war, and I'd like to see us pull out but it seems if we're going to be there then we should be all in. We should also set a deadline. We have to set benchmarks for progress, an exit strategy. Polls show that most people are opposed to more troops in Afghanistan. People are war weary but they're also clueless about Afghanistan, so I'm not sure that we should leave Afghanistan based on an uninformed public.

Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, has described himself as a "skeptical audience" of the case for sending more, and says he wants to be sure the strategy is correct first. Republican critics have reacted sharply to the delay, accusing him of dithering.

POLL SHOWS OPPOSITION TO EXTRA TROOPS

A Gallup poll published Friday showed a fall in support for the war, with 50 percent of Americans opposed to sending more troops, while 41 percent supported it. Obama said he understood the public's concerns.

"This is not easy and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," he told a news conference at a summit of world leaders in Pittsburgh Friday. "That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some tough questions."

Increasing evidence of fraud in last month's Afghan presidential election has made the case for sending more troops to protect the Afghan government more difficult to defend. WaPo

But republican critics should shut their pie holes. Afghanistan languished under Bush for years and all of a sudden they want Obama to hurry up? They now care about Afghanistan? They didn't care then. They only care now because it's Obama making the decision. Obama's not George Bush and he's not going to plunder a nation just because. Republicans are still acting like trolls under the bridge. They serve no useful purpose, not even "loyal opposition:"

Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, has described himself as a "skeptical audience" of the case for sending more, and says he wants to be sure the strategy is correct first. Republican critics have reacted sharply to the delay, accusing him of dithering.

The Story of Commander McKiernan's Ousting

In mid-March, as a White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan was nearing completion, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met in a secure Pentagon room for their fortnightly video conference with Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Kabul.

There was no formal agenda. McKiernan, a silver-haired former armor officer, began with a brief battlefield update. Then Gates and Mullen began asking about reconstruction and counternarcotics operations. To Mullen, they were straightforward, relevant queries, but he thought McKiernan fumbled them.

Gates and Mullen had been having doubts about McKiernan since the beginning of the year. They regarded him as too languid, too old-school and too removed from Washington. He lacked the charisma and political savvy that Gen. David H. Petraeus brought to the Iraq war.

McKiernan's answers that day were the tipping point for Mullen. Soon after, he discussed the matter with Gates, who had come to the same conclusion.

Mullen traveled to Kabul in April to confront McKiernan. The chairman hoped the commander would opt to save face and retire, but he refused. Not only had he not disobeyed orders, he believed he was doing what Gates and Mullen wanted.

You're going to have to fire me, he told Mullen.
....

The humiliating removal of a four-star general for being too conventional reveals the ferocious intensity Gates and Mullen share over a growing war that will soon enter its ninth year. It also demonstrates their zeal to respond to President Obama's demand for rapid success in a place where foreign armies have failed for centuries.

"There are those who would have waited six more months" in order to have a less abrupt transition, Mullen said in an interview. "I couldn't. I'm losing kids and I couldn't sleep at night. I have an unbounded sense of urgency to get this right."
Read the rest at WAPO

Gates and Mullen Speak on Captured Soldier

Gates says he was disgusted at the exploitation of the soldier and they are looking for him.

Bowe Bergdahl's family speaks:

Mullen Reserved on Don't Ask Don't Tell

There is wide acceptance of gay people in the military by those of us who aren't in the military. But let's face it folks, many in the military are socially conservative and may be homophobic.
It would be a tough shift for the military to make. I'm sure that gay slurs are still used in military training. 

People against repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell believe that once gay people are allowed to openly serve in the military, they'll be soliciting sex. Really, that's what they're saying when they use the arguments that it would "undermine the cohesion of the units."
But that argument is ridiculous because it paints gay people as merely sexual beings. They don't view gay people as regular people.
Gay people want to serve in the military for the same reasons that non gay people want to serve. And there are rules of sexual conduct for everyone in the military.
It's obvious Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has reservations. He says the forces will comply with the new law when it comes about.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me talk about the issues of gays in the military. The president has told you that he wants to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy so that gays and lesbians can serve openly in the military. And the Pentagon said this week that you personally, along with Secretary Gates, are working to address the challenges associated with implementing the president’s commitment.

What exactly are you doing? And what exactly are you worried about?

MULLEN: The president has made his strategic intent very clear. That it’s his intent at some point in time to ask Congress to change this law. I think it’s important to also know that this is the law, this isn’t a policy. And for the rules to change, a law has to be changed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And there’s legislation introduced in the Congress.

MULLEN: And there is. Exactly. And so I’ve had discussions with the Joint Chiefs about this. I’ve done certainly a lot of internal, immediate staff discussions about what the issues would be and how we...

STEPHANOPOULOS: What are they? What are the challenges?

MULLEN: Well, it’s my job as the senior military adviser to provide best advice, best military advice for the president. And what I owe him is an objective assessment of what these changes would be. What they might impact on. And there could be speculation about what that might be, but my goal would be to achieve an objective assessment of the impact, if any, of this kind of change.

In addition, you know, I would need some time for a force that’s under a great deal of stress -- we’re in our sixth year of fighting two wars -- to look at if this change occurs, to look at implementing it in a very deliberate, measured way.

And what I also owe the president, and I owe the men and women in uniform, is an implementation plan to achieve this based on a timeline that would be set, obviously, after the law is changed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your predecessors, General John Shalikashvili, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs back in the early ‘90s, has said he has second thoughts on this whole issue now. He was against opening up service to the gays and lesbians then. Now he’s written, “I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.”

Is he right?

MULLEN: He’s certainly entitled to his own personal opinion. And certainly, I have the greatest respect for him.

There are also lots of retired generals and admirals on the other side. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s your opinion?

MULLEN: And what I would hope to do in this, George, again, given the strategic intent of the president, is to avoid a polarizing debate that puts a force that’s very significantly under stress in the middle. And to get this, get to this, assuming the law is going to change, and, again, a measured, deliberate way. And that, as the senior military leader, is what I consider my principal responsibility.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Measured, deliberate way. So it sounds like if the Congress calls you up to testify in this, you’re going to say now is not the time to repeal?

MULLEN: No, I actually -- I’m going to talk to the process that we have in this country, which is we follow the law, and if the law changes, we’ll comply. There’s absolutely no question about that. Read the whole transcript at CQ.

Afghanistan Commander McKiernan Resigning

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected today to accept the resignation of the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, and to recommend that the critical job go to veteran Special Operations commander Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Gates is expected to make the announcement in a hastily called Pentagon new conference along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen at 2 p.m. today, Pentagon officials said. WaPo

Robert Gates speaks on the Camp Liberty shooting and McKiernan, who was fired:

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"Nothing went wrong," Gates insisted. "It’s time for new leadership and fresh eyes."
Said Mullen: "[McKiernan has] been there almost a year and in fact under normal circumstances he would have rotated somewhere between 18 and 24 months...I have said we must focus all of our efforts, in terms of making Afghanistan better, there probably is no more critical ingredient in that than leadership." Politico

Mullen: Obama Very Deliberate on Strategy

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks on the Charlie Rose show about Obama's foreign policy. Seems the conclusion among our military leaders is that Obama tends to think. See what Robert Gates had to say here.

See the whole interview here. He says our foreign policy has been militarized over the last decade.