Obama Faces Revolt From Generals Over Strategy In Afghanistan

Rolling Stone:

In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war -- go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire -- or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.

Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers -- including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of U.S. Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 -- could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party...

Read the whole story: Rolling Stone

Comments

[nectanebus]

Victory IS an exit strategy.

[aonemandog]

Time to "retire" both Petraeus and McCrystal....and any other military leaders who threaten to "revolt" if they don't get their way. I say bring the troops home. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, let our reservists and regular troops who have been stop-lossed and forced to do too many tours come home and resume life with their families. Then, institute universal draft, no exceptions, requiring at least two years service for every young person. After two years service, every additional year yields one year of free college.

[Opus Loki]

Never in the history of U.S. conflcts has the top commanders NOT asked for more troops This is a worthless article. Gen Wes Clark, Gen Caffery, (CNN Live) and Gen Petraeus (right here) have all stated that the President is going about business correctly. I'm here on ground, 40,000 aditional troops is a pipe dream. There is no foot print to put them. Nobody here thought that would happen. Strategy first, troop numbers second, and yes wars are expensive and ufortunately it creates more jobs than getting health care. Senators and Congressmen will fight harder to keep defese contracts and contract jobs in their districts than to ensure their constituents have health care.

[SparkyDash]

Good article. I'm with our vice president. Bless you Joe.

[bioluminescence]

The rest of the world combined spends less on their military than the U. S. Apparently the U. S. government wants Americans to be safe from every conceivable threat except, of course, their own health care system.

[thepoliticalcat]

So we can't find a trillion for health care over ten years, but we can spend a trillion in one year on war? What's wrong with this picture?

[nectanebus]

What is wrong with the picture is this: as long as we are under attack it will take money to win. The real scandal is that we could have won a long ago for a tenth of the cost.

[Firbolg]

Time to dust off the portrait of General Douglas McArthur and hang a copy in the Pentagon lobby.

[SparkyDash]

Too bad that wasn't the last time a general attempted to strong-arm a U.S. President. Truman surprised quite a few people, but none as much as MacArthur.