You are just not going to believe this.
The entire Afghan-Pakistan military alliance and "war" situation is just getting stranger and stranger. Just hours ago, the Washington Post reported that U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, sent several highly classified cables from Kabul to Washington this week. He argued forcefully for President Obama to put the brakes on any further troop elevations in Afghanistan until President Karzai could demonstrate that he could in fact control corruption and lead the country in a positive direction.
The generals and admirals are furious at Eikenberry mostly because he is a retired four star general who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2006-2007! Could this m*&^$% f*^&-ing Chinese fire drill get any more bizarre?! The story is here.
Let me ask you something my fellow veterans. Since this is the evening of Veterans Day 2009 that I am writing this to you perhaps you can reflect with me on the state of our armed forces in 2009.
Has everyone wearing a uniform above the rank of colonel or naval captain gone bonkers in this country? Do we have any sense of what we are doing or trying to do in No-plan-istan?
It seems to me for every five flag-rank officers that we have in a sealed situation room, we get ten opinions from them. That is okay in a football brain storming session before the big game, but a war is different. Lives are at stake.
Can’t we just bring them home? Is it really that hard to do?
A former commanding general of our troops in Afghanistan says for us to put the brakes on troop escalation. That has got to mean something to these guys making this decision as to whether or not to increase troop strength!
Here is an important paragraph out of this piece which speaks to the ambassador’s credentials:
"The ambassador also has worried that sending tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops would increase the Afghan government’s dependence on U.S. support at a time when its own security forces should be taking on more responsibility for fighting. Prior to serving as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Eikenberry was in charge of the Afghan army training program."
Wow! That is good enough for me. He has impeccable credentials. Lets bring them home. What do you say? Can you get an email out tomorrow to your congressman? Think about it.
In this article the Army is defending itself from criticism levelled at them for not intervening in Major Hasan’s apparent continual multi-year slide into insanity by saying that he never formally requested to be discharged from the Army. That story is here.
In this story posted in the Washington Post from the Economy Watch blog, we find out that young veterans have a much higher rate of unemployment than their peers who never served. Welcome home. Your job is gone. This is an old story unfortunately.
David Ignatius in an Op Ed piece tells us that the U.S. Armed Forces is not as dysfunctional as many media outlets say. That story is here.
In an Associated Press story we learn that the warlords that both the U.S. government and President Karzai relied upon to beat back the Taliban in Afghanistan now pose a problem because they are corrupt and they are in charge. Now what? The story is here.
Get a good sleep tonight. You have earned it.
Get informed and stay informed. It is your civic duty.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
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