RETRACTED: Inside This Morning's White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, 'Beef' With McChrystal

washingtonindependent.com:

Update, 8:50 a.m.: I am retracting this post, published yesterday, titled "Inside This Morning's White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, 'Beef' With McChrystal."

My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and so I trusted the source for this one. Elements of the account have been subsequently borne out: yesterday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama will ask his Afghanistan-Pakistan advisers to provide him with an exit strategy for the eight-year war, which is congruent with but not identical to my source's information that Obama has asked the team to derive timetables for troop withdrawal.

Read the whole story: washingtonindependent.com

Comments

[RTIII]

11:22 PM on 11/12/2009

Thus far I have a cautiously negative view of Seymore Hirsh (sp?), but today he was on NPR reporting on how much of a big deal this was that Eikenberry had said what he did. He said that this is / may be in effect the beginning of the US pull-out from Afghanistan. He had a rather convincing argument. It's worth listening to if you can find it online somewhere - maybe pbs.org? I didn't look...
.

[TheBaffler]

12:02 AM on 11/13/2009

What problem do you have with Hersh? He's one of the best investigative journalists in the country. He digs up facts and exposes things no one else does.

[RTIII]

01:50 AM on 11/13/2009

I know of an instance - first hand knowledge - where he reported on an important incident and claimed to interview and quote someone who he never actually talked to.
.

[H321]

11:11 PM on 11/12/2009

Washinton Independent? I wonder who their "sources" are. Interns most likely.

[pov]

10:48 PM on 11/12/2009

To bad there were survivors.

[scottowego]

10:47 PM on 11/12/2009

I'm starting to think this country has really gone insane. Just read an article about President Obama's trip to Asia. China's booming economy, controlled currency, millitary build up. North and South Korea just had a serious clash with their navies and the north continues it's nuclear program. Japan is no longer allowing our ships to re-fuel there if they are headed to the Middle East. Then we've got our own economy, jobs and so many other issues threatening our position in the world order. What are we doing persuing action in a civil war in Afghanistan????? It's time to take a couple of steps back and look at this view holistically. To see what's is actually beneficial to the USA. Bring our troops home. We have TOO MANY other issues that are much more of a threat than what's going on in Afghanistan right now. This is serious stuff yet Washington drags it's heals yet again. Much like the economic disaster they watched created. They don't really DO anything until a crises hits us between the eyes.

[wonketteRAWKS]

10:05 PM on 11/12/2009

Who is the National Security insider?

[iceage7]

08:36 PM on 11/12/2009

Whats the big deal..i like dissenting voices..everyone is saying that this dissention is tearing the afghan plan apart. Obama said he does not want yes men..dissention is healthy..look what happened during the last adm..no dissention leads to bad decisions...Good for Obama...Love it love the dissention

[skialethia]

08:12 PM on 11/12/2009

Petraeus, McChrystal and Gates are tight as thieves!

[jrutle]

08:09 PM on 11/12/2009

The fact that the NSC is upset with Eikenberry probably gives some idea of the pressure Obama is under to make a decision to add forces. Thank God the Ambassador is standing up as one of a few voices not wanting to go to war with the Taliban. It serves no purpose to our counter-terrorist concerns.

[mcantwell]

07:27 PM on 11/12/2009

Quote: "Eikenberry, the top U.S. envoy to Kabul, is a prominent voice among those advising Obama, and his sharp dissent is sure to affect the equation. He retired from the Army this year to become one of the few generals in American history to switch directly from soldier to diplomat, and he himself is a recent, former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

Thank You Gen. Eikenberry for being the voice of SANITY.

[Antifascist-08]

07:15 PM on 11/12/2009

Has anyone else seen hardball tonight where they reference a new article in The nation about how our criminal contractors in Afghanistan are paying of the taliban so they won't blow us up n the highways? In other words, tax payer money is going to the taliban, the people we are fighting.

We are paying the people we are trying to kill and capture not to blow up our convoys.

Is there anything more completely absurd than this?

I guess we will just have to stay tuned, because i think we will find out a lot more.

This is CRA ZY !

Out now.

[jrutle]

07:57 PM on 11/12/2009

Yes, I saw Hardball. Our military presence in Afghanistan is a "no win" situation and the contractors are contributors to corruption. The exit strategy should be an orderly withdrawal of military forces now and conversion to a multi-lateral strategy for addressing legitimate national security interests. The Nation also ran a very good set of short articles destroying a number of myths about Afghanistan in its Nov 9 issue.

[jrutle]

07:59 PM on 11/12/2009

BTW - we also started paying off the Iraqi insurgents not to attack us at the same time we conducted the military surge. Many analysts believe this had a larger role in the decreased violence than the additional 20,000 troops.

[talkitreal]

07:00 PM on 11/12/2009

Defense Secretary Gates is very angry about the leaks, and threatens to FIRE anyone from the Defense Department who he finds out has been leaking information.

I think that Secertary of State Clinton, should do the same, at the State Department! FIRE the leakers.

I also think President Obama should also FIRE anyone who is leaking information out of the White House as well

I should not be hard to find out the culprits of any leaks, as there are only a limited number of people that attend a meeting in the war room, so it should not be hard to figure out who is leaking information.

[mcantwell]

07:24 PM on 11/12/2009

Gates already knows who the culprits are. He is just a puppet.

[uhuhuh]

05:56 PM on 11/12/2009

All the crisis going on in our country, health care, unemployment, Afghanistan, and the economy. Isn't it time for Obama to take off for a couple of weeks, yeah, that's the ticket, let's go to Europe for some photo ops and let our problems stew for awhile. You know I am a community organizer, nobody ever told me about the Commander-in Chief thing, I am confused.

[edgarcaycedoc]

06:03 PM on 11/12/2009

I think you miss one of the biggest differences between the "shrub" and Obama. Obama has no intention of going on a three week vacation every two weeks. He doesn't even have land in Crawford.

[uhuhuh]

06:05 PM on 11/12/2009

Nigeria perhaps, isn't that his homeland or perhaps Yemen.

[FirstShirt]

06:24 PM on 11/12/2009

As a matter of fact, he has never even owned any land. Or run a business. But he is making up for it with his corporate welfare approach.

[23000Days]

06:20 PM on 11/12/2009

Ah. Another sputtering candle from the right.....

[abouttime]

05:40 PM on 11/12/2009

Se Also: democracynow.org article published this morning (Nov 12)

"In a last-minute dissent ahead of a critical war cabinet meeting on escalating the Afghan war, US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has cast doubt on a troop escalation until the Afghan government can address corruption and other internal problems. Meanwhile, a report reveals how the US government is financing the very same insurgent forces in Afghanistan that American and NATO soldiers are fighting. Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack. [includes rush transcript]"

Seems that War Incorporated is making tons of money!
Stop Fascism in America!

[23000Days]

06:18 PM on 11/12/2009

The situation reminds me of Milo Minderbinder from Catch22!

[Antifascist-08]

07:17 PM on 11/12/2009

Right

[blacksmithn]

08:04 PM on 11/12/2009

True, except that in this case, what's good for M&M Enterprises isn't good for the country, and everybody doesn't have a share.

[tbone99]

06:32 PM on 11/12/2009

The Ambassador is worried about corruption in AFGHANISTAN?

That guy needs to come back to the states and see what the banks are getting away with- Goldman Sachs is running the country , pulling Obam's strings like a marionette.

And what does he think the war in Iraq was about? - it was a pay -to- play for oil companies , and defense &security contracters.
Some countries harvests opium fields - the U.S harvests dead bodies

[Coinyer101]

05:30 PM on 11/12/2009

Machrystal needs to find new work.....,

[Travis bdboy]

04:49 PM on 11/12/2009

Gotta luv the headlines.....like you were sitting at the table recording it....sensationalism journalism