Top U.S. Commander for Afghan War: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’
September 21st, 2009Failure? Someone wound up with a whole lot of opium and heroin, and a bunch of corporations made a killing from a gusher of absurd and lucrative contracts.
That sounds more like just another day at the office than failure to me—considering the criminal organizations involved and their blood soaked gravy train.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s shakedown reminds me of a classic bit of black comedy from my IT days, when “consultants” would show up to my festering tumor workplace du jour bearing, “innovate solutions”:
I used to think, “How come these bozos are so happy when this big top is weeks—or even days—away from total failure?”
After watching well groomed people printing out “Standard Operating Procedures” and preparing PowerPoint presentations, it hit me: “I get it. The whole damn show is a scam. We’re all just pretending to be busy until the checks start to bounce. And then it will be time to do it all again somewhere else.”
So, after eight years of failure, McChrystal writes, “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”
By Christ on a stick, I damn near choked when I read that. It all came back to me. Doomed IT workers are told nonsense like that on an almost daily basis. Did McChrystal hand out matching branded stress relief balls, pens and mousepads? Were delicious bagels and fresh, hot coffee provided?
You know what I’d tell bosses, after sitting though something like that, especially if the consulting firm sent a supermodel in a shortish skirt to deliver the pitch, with all the nerd-slobs in the room wondering, “Is her blouse unbuttoned like that on purpose?”
“Hold on to your wallet.”
Via: Washington Post:
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.
McChrystal concludes the document’s five-page Commander’s Summary on a note of muted optimism: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”
But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.
He provides extensive new details about the Taliban insurgency, which he calls a muscular and sophisticated enemy that uses modern propaganda and systematically reaches into Afghanistan’s prisons to recruit members and even plan operations.
McChrystal’s assessment is one of several options the White House is considering. His plan could intensify a national debate in which leading Democratic lawmakers have expressed reluctance about committing more troops to an increasingly unpopular war. Obama said last week that he will not decide whether to send more troops until he has “absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.”
The commander has prepared a separate detailed request for additional troops and other resources, but defense officials have said he is awaiting instructions before sending it to the Pentagon.
Senior administration officials asked The Post over the weekend to withhold brief portions of the assessment that they said could compromise future operations. A declassified version of the document, with some deletions made at the government’s request, appears at washingtonpost.com.
McChrystal makes clear that his call for more forces is predicated on the adoption of a strategy in which troops emphasize protecting Afghans rather than killing insurgents or controlling territory. Most starkly, he says: “[I]nadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced.”
I was working as a [legitimate!] consultant for an insurance firm about 15 years ago, when they decided to let EDS take over their IT department. EDS, as they often do, offered me a job, and I took it. EDS was there for about 2.5 years (I quit after 2, seeing where it WASN’T going), and in that time the host company’s IT budget went up by 400% (from just shy of $1mm/yr to just shy of $5mm/yr), and we produced a handful trivial, NON-mission-critical software systems for them. There were a lot of talented people on the team who, if management had let them, could have done great things. But the top dogs at EDS were never interested in improving IT at that company, evidently, and the good people all quit, one by one.
But there were lots of powerpoint presentations, and lots of “training”.