Thursday, October 1, 2009

Oh, good: a 3-star speaks!

McChrystal Rejects Scaling Down Afghan Military Aims

As I understand how things are supposed to work:
1) civilian leadership - e.g., the President - determines war aims.
2) military leadership - the generals - figure out how to achieve the aims.

Now, I sympathize with Lt. Gen. McChrystal: he probably hasn't seen or heard ANYONE articulate our aims in Afghanistan... No one has. We have no well-articulated... oh, forget that - we have NO in-any-way-articulated strategic objectives.

In that vacuum, sure, the military leader will fashion a strategy that at least appears to avoid "losing" - whatever the hell "losing" might be.

BUT: the final call on overall mission, on strategic objectives - this belongs to our civilian leadership.
Sure wish somebody in the Administration would realize this!

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