Andrée Seu Peterson on the "Time" cover 
Click to Print
Include Comments
McChrystal: Another surge
The Washington Post got a hold of the assessment of the situation in Afghanistan that Gen. Stanley McChrystal – head of U.S. operations there – sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Obama. His ultimatum: more troops, or “failure.” He wrote,
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.
As we reported last week, very few Americans support sending more troops to Afghanistan, and some Democratic leaders in Congress have already stated their opposition to that strategy. Your move, Mr. President.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
back to top43 Comments to “McChrystal: Another surge”
Isn’t it amazing how “confidential” memos always leak and nothing happens to those people?
The surge in Iraq worked. If we don’t do one in Afghanistan, then we should be honest about it and just pack up and go home. Nothing will be gained by prolonging the conflict and more American lives should not be lost.
Report comment to moderator
More troops or failure? A bit reminiscent of a young woman who got a Master’s and couldnt find work in her field (though she didnt do an extensive search). She went back for a PhD and still no job in her field. If there’s no work for a MS, why expect there to be work for PhD.
A large conventional army–built after all to hold back the hordes of the Warsaw Pact in the cold war–seems to have limited value in Afghanistan. The fighting in them thar frozen rocky cliffs and narrow valleys render everything but carpet bombing sorta useless. We could send in more infantry forces (RANGERS, Seals, etc) but then you have all those unsettling flag-draped coffins to contend with later.
I’d advise everyone to read the latest George F. Will column “Been there, Didnt do that” where he compares our Bosnia mission to Afghanistan. Essentially, Bosnia is still an insolvable mess located in “placid, prosperous Europe”. Afghanistan is plopped right in the midst of an area which is neither and unlikely to be either any time soon.
Report comment to moderator
A difficult situation to say the least. Horrendous loss of our troops to win. Unspeakable horror and destruction at home if we lose. To much death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan as ir is. To many innocent lives destroyed. I do not believe that any man has the answer, but killing one another is surely not it. The only answer I can think of is; MARANATHA!
Blessings
Roger
Report comment to moderator
The surge in Iraq did not work. Iraq is still a disaster and may have only prolonged its agony.
Report comment to moderator
The only thing that worked in Iraq was termination of the traditional war to search and destroy insurgents. Once we paid our enemies instead of killing them, things quieted down. But the surge was just an excuse for not withdrawing when we should have. Nothing surged. There was no more of the same. The surge was a ceasing and desisting.
Report comment to moderator
Senator Obama opposed the surge in Iraq because he said it wouldn’t work. Then President Bush followed through on the advice of his generals and it worked beyond all dispute. Then Obama, with head in the sand, still tried to say it didn’t work (thinking that because he says something, it becomes “reality”). He is in denial and he showed dangerously terrible judgment. And for getting it dead (and I mean dead) wrong, we put him in charge of the whole operation.
Shame on those who, with precious little concern over his proven lack of experience and lack of good judgment (let alone his lack of self-honesty) voted him Commander-in-Chief.
Report comment to moderator
But I reamin enormously proud of the U.S. military for sticking to this mission and war on terrorists and jihadists wherever they are. I am proud of the President for listening to his officers on the field and shifting strategy to implement an effective surge and meet far more of our mission goals in Iraq than anyone had expected. The surge was another high-point in U.S> military history, especially when we consider the new and different challenges we had to learn for fighting a whole new type of war–and fighting it well and as responsibly as possible. But much remains to be done.
Report comment to moderator
#7 When we have a govt with the backbone to shut the door and not permit any jihadi nation citizens into the USA, then we will win the war against them. Better more stringent visa tracking for muslims permitted into the USA could have prevented 9/11. That is cheaper than troops abroad on an endless and some allege unwinnable war.
For too long the war in Afghanistan was “under-resourced” due to the elective Iraqi war. And I suspect this President will see the Afghan war as one more place to call for big cutbacks to fund his health care take-over.
Report comment to moderator
Sawgunner, I believe that shutting both the front and back door on terrorists is important. Watch the windows too, as far as I am concerned. So I agree with you while maintaining by support for the military front on this war as well. I think that Obama’s approach in Afghanisatan will result in much of the same difficulty that the Russians faced in Afghanistan 20 years ago. But Obama does not pay attention to the lessons of history.
Report comment to moderator
Will this look bad for Obama if he pulls out now without finishing, or winning?
I feel bad for our guys over there. Anyone could see that was an even worse situation than Iraq.
You can’t step into a hornets nest with a flyswatter.
Report comment to moderator
I am in contact with a high ranking Marine Corp officer on the ground in Afghanistan. He says their mission isn’t clear. They have so many Marines and personnel there now that they are sleeping six to a room intended to hold two. Officers are sleeping with enlisted. There is a shortage of resources because there are just TOO MANY PEOPLE. The rules of engagement make them sitting ducks. How is it they don’t have enough people?
My son is a Marine. Why would I want a clueless president to send them into this chaos just to stick to his campaign mantra that the Iraq was the wrong war.
Unless someone can actually figure out a mission for our troops, KEEP YOUR #$%^* HANDS OFF MY BOY!!
Report comment to moderator
Guns don’t kill people. Politicians do!
Report comment to moderator
I agree about getting the mission straight and firm first, Xion.
Report comment to moderator
If we require clarity, we don’t belong in Afghanistan.
McChrystal’s proposed surge will require a prolonged, intensive, and costly commitment to deploy our soldiers as sitting ducks.
McChrystal says he needs a counter-insurgency strategy, and the troops to implement it, just to stop the Taliban from winning over the next 12 months. But we’ll not win — not in 12 months, or for a long, long time. It’s no exit strategy.
Americans like XION won’t like a plan to protect Afghans instead killing insurgents and controlling territory. We could live and die with the clarity of an anti-insurgency strategy, because we understand that. But a counter-insurgency strategy is uncertain. McChrystal proposes to put our soldiers at risk, palling around with hamlet dwellers who may or may not be terrorists, without a heavy display of armor. McChrystal wants the military to be more like social workers than GI Joe.
McChrystal says our only other options are withdrawal or defeat.
He says it’s only a matter of months before the top-down strategy of the last 8 years is routed by the corruption and failure of the Kabul government and the ascendancy of the Taliban in the allegiance of the countryside.
XION is rightly alarmed that McChrystal is criticizing Bush’s Afghan command over its unwillingness heretofore to be sitting ducks. If XION thinks it’s bad now, McChrystal vows to make it worse.:
“Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us — physically and psychologically — from the people we seek to protect. . . . The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves.”
McChrystal thinks our forces are too preoccupied with protecting our soldiers.
For the sake of XION’s peace of mind, Obama should cut our losses and beat a retreat.
Report comment to moderator
#14 Gee, Scroop and I occasionally agree. Though I detect a little sarcasm.
Report comment to moderator
ROGER PATNO (3): A difficult situation to say the least. Horrendous loss of our troops to win. Unspeakable horror and destruction at home if we lose.
Frank: Sez who?
Too many historians, military officers and politicians assert that we wouldn’t be targeted for “unspeakable horror and destruction at home” if we didn’t go butting into the affairs of other nations’ half a world away.
We insinuate ourselves into said foreign affairs — whether in the name of “free markets”, “democracy,” or “national interests” (now there’s a catch-all term if ever there was one) — and when the natives have finally had enough and they kill innocent Americans via terrorism, we pretend they hate us “for our freedom”?
John Quincy Adams was right. And God’s counsel at Proverbs 26:17 is certainly applicable. But American politicians — to say nothing of the people who elect them — continue to insist that we know better.
Report comment to moderator
JoelMark: Have some guts. Speak clearly. What SHOULD Obama do? In Iraq? In Afghanistan? What should be the objective in either of those countries? And how do we get there?
I’m for pulling out of Iraq. I’m for pulling out of Afghanistan. Neither of these is really a country. Both are a collection of tribes which don’t like each other much, and never will. Neither has ever had a military that amounted to much. Neither has attacked us, thought the Afghan gov’t certainly didn’t help much. Maybe, just maybe, the people who ran it, and then had to flee and hole up in caves have figured out that that wasn’t a very smart thing to do. And they certainly know now that we know where they live.
Most importantly, 8 years out from 9/11, if we can’t protect ourselves from most foreign-based terrorist attacks at home, we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves.
Besides, our own domestic terrorists scare me a lot more than the jihadists.
Speaking of which, I spent much of the day today with a developer who is building two buildings for Federal agency tenants. One had an interesting list of other potential tenants he is not allowed to rent space to, because they are considered likely terrorist targets. The list included public defenders’ offices and abortion providers. Imagine that…
Report comment to moderator
“Besides, our own domestic terrorists scare me a lot more than the jihadists.”
This probably accounts for why your analysis isn’t trustworthy.
Report comment to moderator
How we crowed when Afghanistan helped bring down the Soviet Empire.
Report comment to moderator
Random Name (19): How we crowed when Afghanistan helped bring down the Soviet Empire.
Frank: The conventional wisdom has it that, after screwing the poosh in Vietnam, we wanted the Soviets to have their own version in Afghanistan.
We got what we wanted — but we learned nothing.
Now it’s our turn to screw the pooch again.
Report comment to moderator
#20, Frank, I think some of us did learn something from what happened to the Soviets and the problem is in the application of those lessons. In my humble opinion, the generals advising a new sort of surge do know but the Commander-in-chief won’t let them do it. I prefer either following the advice of the military leaders, OR, just pulling out — RATHER than running the ineffective middle course (as I see it) that Obama apparently wants to run in order to keep variuos wings of his support happy.
Report comment to moderator
XION: Guns don’t kill people. Politicians do!
Kindly, with words.
Take the word, “surge.”
A surge is a temporary spurt of more of the same. The word calls to mind ocean tides and other irresistible forces of nature. The movement of a crowd, the rush of emotion, or a current of electricity.
A surge is natural.
Bush’s surge wasn’t more of the same and it wasn’t temporary. It was a permanent switch. Petreaus ceased and desisted. He stopped Rumsfeld’s ANTI-insurgency strategy and replaced it with his opposite, incompatible, counter-insurgency strategy. In all but name, the surge was a withdrawal. The troops quit their futile combat and became cops and community organizers.
Then, Petreaus constantly postponed assessment of the results. The Pretreaus surge was permanent.
The Petreaus surge was a psychic camouflage for Bush’s forced retreat. What worked was the retreat, not the surge. What worked was the evasion of accountability for years of futile slaughter.
Report comment to moderator
I prefer either following the advice of the military leaders.
XioN doesn’t. McChrystal advises counter-insurgency. XION prefers search and destroy or nothing.
Many Republicans, such as Sen. Hutchinson, don’t either. They’re talking about sending in NATO to try and do what McChrystal says requires a US commitment (the Brits and Canadians having said buh-bye).
McChrystal prescribes the only tactics that can establish a stabile, pro-American nation called Afghanistan 2.0. The problem is, I don’t think XION is willing to sacrifice his son to redeem Afghanistan 1.0. XION doesn’t want our soldiers to perish as sitting ducks. He wants them to go down with guns blazing at everything that crawls, whether man, woman, child, or Taliban. Either that or come home. McChrystal wants XION’s boy to pal around with Taliban. If y’all have the stomach for that, take one step forward and say yessir!
There may be other strategic objectives worth pursuing besides Afghanistan 2.0, however. We’ll have to consider Obama’s advice about that.
Report comment to moderator
Scroop Moth wrote; “A surge is a temporary spurt of more of the same.”
NOT in the case if the Iraq War. The surge came with a new strategy to deal with lessons we were slowly learning about how to fight a war as unique as this one was. Our old strategy was effective but the flaw was that we often just chased the evil insurgents from one province to another. The surge was the plan for simultaneously rooting out the rats for removal at multiple places at once and disallowing the enemy to retreat to other places. This required more troops in more places at once.
And it worked. It is a proven way to deal with this kind of warfare more effectively and with fewer casualties in the long run.
Scroop Moth wrote; “The word calls to mind ocean tides and other irresistible forces of nature. The movement of a crowd, the rush of emotion, or a current of electricity.”
Fine, as far as semantics go, Scroop. But it sounds like you do not understand it’s actual application in recent and current military contexts. It is not a natural term, but a military strategy.
Funny how so many people have opinions and they have no idea what actually is going on.
Report comment to moderator
Scroop Moth wrote; “The troops quit their futile combat and became cops and community organizers.”
Nonsense. They actually eliminated a greater number of the enemy. They turned from a sequential and systematic strategy to a simultaneous well-timed strategy. They meeded more men on the ground to act simultaneously.
Scroop Moth wrote; “The Petreaus surge was a psychic camouflage for Bush’s forced retreat. What worked was the retreat, not the surge.”
This is political spin ignoring reality. The surge made a gradual withdrawl (without surrendering) possible. Many men and women died for this mission and Petraeas was not on a political mission whatsoever.
Scroops political spins are actually rather insulting to those in charge and got results.
________________
Report comment to moderator
JOEL MARK,
The surge wasn’t a further tactic of anti-insurgency, much as you would like to spin it that way. The surge was a tactical reversal and a contrasting strategic objective. The surge was epitomized by paying rats instead of shooting them. Anti-insurgency and counter-insurgency were mutually incompatible tactics, in Petraeus’ view. The surge was as much about stopping some tactics as it was about commencing others. It was experienced by both troops and populace as something totally different.
Regarding troop movement goes, the surge required much less. During the anti-insurgency phase, troops went out on search and destroy skirmishes and retreated to base. Their objective was to kill rats, imprison and “interrogate” massive numbers of young men, and control territory. But all this did was increase the number of rats.
During counter-insurgency, on the other hand, troops stationed themselves in many small posts among the people, where they distributed cash and jobs, and tried to make friends of heavily populated neighborhoods. The objective was population, not territory. The objective was to release prisoners, kill terrorists with kindness, and protect the lives of the people. Petraeus taught soldiers to regard the death of a civilian as a strategic loss rather than as a collateral tragedy. This decreased the number of rats.
For some commanders, the surge required an impossible psychological re-orientation, and Petraeus removed them.
You misinterpret the insult, JOEL. My explication of the surge is a tribute to Petraeus, and an insult only to Rumsfeld and his coterie of war criminals. One can’t celebrate the magnitude of counterinsurgency without admitting the failure of anti-insurgency.
Report comment to moderator
JoelMark: The surge failed. Utterly.
In case you hadn’t noticed, just about every day Iraqis are perishing in attacks in considerable numbers. Our guys aren’t out there much, but their withdrawal to safer quarters and not the surge is the only reason for that.
Report comment to moderator
The surge in Iraq (which Obama unwisely opposed and then wrongly refused to acknowledge its effectiveness) applied new lessons we had learned about how to fight a new kind of war. Under the old strategy, the enemy was being defeated and chased out of some communities, BUT they were often setting up again elsewhere. The surge, however, simultaneously rooted out the enemy at multiple places and prevented them from relocating. This required more troops in more places at once.
It worked well. And it did not result in a significant “surge” in our casualties and that of innocent Iraqis either.
SM wrote; “The surge was epitomized by paying rats instead of shooting them.”
False dichotomy. Many were indeed shot during the surge. But many were also paid and given jobs as you stated. We had to distinguish potential friends from foes and that was a tough task. Due to this strategy, we did get more than usual information from the locals during the surge and it turned out to be quite helpful in many cases.
Also, the surge did not increase the number of “rats.” Many of those came from Iran and Syria and other Middle East countries–all cowardly refusing to wear uniforms and hiding behind women and children. And many came from Iraq itself. This factor is why this was such a tough war all along.
Report comment to moderator
The surge did not make a new sudden utopia out of Iraq, but it did get them to the point where the responsibilities for protecting their security could be gradually passed on to them at a faster rate.
Report comment to moderator
Also, the surge did not increase the number of “rats.”
Behold I show you a great paradox: Anti-insurgency increased the number of rats by trying to kill them, which only multiplied them. Counter-insurgency decreased the number of rats by letting them live, and subsidizing them.
Under the old strategy, the enemy was being defeated and chased out of some communities, BUT they were often setting up again elsewhere.
They they weren’t being defeated. We were being defeated, according to Republican statesmen like James Baker and Brent Stowcraft who intervened to rescue Bush from himself, and according to Gen Pegraeus, who stopped the bleeding.
Report comment to moderator
On David Letterman last night Obama admitted that he has no coherent strategy for Afghanistan. He is hemming and hawing and hand ringing.
“There are those that argue that now’s the time to completely pull out of Afghanistan. There are coherent arguments for that, but there are enormous risks involved in that. There are those who say, let’s double down and put more troops in Afghanistan. There are good arguments for that but also enormous risks.”
Then he says,
He keeps saying that he is trying to come up with a strategy. Well, then obviously he doesn’t have one. He has been sending more troops. There has been killing going on. Our boys are dying. And he is wondering what our strategy might be.
Oh, boy. Hard questions. Good idea.
BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THE PRESIDENT ADMITS WE HAVE NO %#@$ STRATEGY!!!!! Our Community Organizer-in-Chief admits that he has no idea what he is doing. In a 10 step recovery program he is only on step one! He admits he has a problem! Even left wing European periodicals are saying he is way over his head.
Report comment to moderator
SM wrote; “They they weren’t being defeated.”
In war, there are many battles. When the insurgents were defeated in certain battles and driven out of their holes, too many of them were able to diffuse among the people and thus be protected from final elimination. They were able (in some cases) to relocate elsewhere. That’s why we needed the surge as a new strategy. We were learning how to fight this new kind of war in Iraq.
But we were not being defeated, despite what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed. Perhaps we would have been in due time had we not done the surge.
Report comment to moderator
What Obama lacks is not a strategy. He has two or three! What he lacks is the information to choose between them. McChrystal has a strategy but unfortunately not a crystal ball to tell Obama that counter-insurgency is better than the pursuit of other goals. McChrystal can’t even give Obama an exist strategy for counter-insrugency. (By definition, counter-insurgency doesn’t have an exit strategy).
Gates may be trying to think up a more narrow goal than McChrystal proposes, one that doesn’t require an open-ended commitment and enables commanders to theorize an exit strategy.
XION is correct that Obama must decide ASAP. McChrystal is giving Obama up to 12 months to make a dramatic move. Nevertheless, time is closing the window of opportunity for nationbuilding. XioN is forcing Obama’s hand, not even giving him credit for firing the Bush commander (”we’re doing what we can”) and sending in McChrystal (”we’ve got to do what we must or get out”).
I have a hunch that if Obama were Bush, his infallible gut instincts would simply pick the strategic goal that was most likely to change the course of history and make him into a great president.
Obama can’t do that. He’s looking for the means to persuade both Democrats and Republicans that he has an exit strategy. (That actually means he knows what he’s doing, XION.)
Obama has got to persuade more people than Democrats. You, for example. I haven’t heard you volunteering for McChrystal’s dirty dozen. Some Republicans aren’t on board. Sen. Hutchinson is refusing to send 40,000 more troops without first getting into a huge fight with NATO, to the extent of abolishing it.
Report comment to moderator
XION wrote; “Our Community Organizer-in-Chief admits that he has no idea what he is doing.” (no coherent strategy).
He did nake that clear but it wasn’t really a sincere confession. He is also making it impossible for us to know what he’s doing. Perhaps the more penetrating question is whom will he opt to please the most–his radical base, or those who want to win this war.
Report comment to moderator
Obama inherited a strategy called, “In Iraq, do what we must; in Afghanistan, do what we can.” As a strategy, it was negligent and irresponsible. McChrystal has made it clear that Bush’s strategy was a march to defeat.
Anyone who questions Obama’s sincerity is not sincere.
Thanks to Obama, we are facing the need for judgment and correction. It was Obama who sacked the Bush commander in the field, appointed McChrystal, and ordered a strategic review, as Bush should have done.
Report comment to moderator
#35, “Obama inherited a strategy called, ‘In Iraq, do what we must; in Afghanistan, do what we can.’”
Who says? That doesn’t even mean anything, Scroop. That sounds like nothing but a critic’s spin. Bush changed commanders several times himself and we don’t know the all reasons for such things. Opinionated blog commenters who try to pretend they do know the reasons are on thin ice.
Your comments, Scroop, simply and continually revolve around a partisan need to criticize and condemn Bush to the end of time. You don’t know what you are talking about.
On the other hand, those of us on the right have held to a generally supportive stance toward Obama with regard to his resolve to fight and finish this war. I’m sure there are some exceptions, but we want to win just wars more than elections.
Obama did inherit strategies from Bush and, indeed, he has im namy or most cases, just carried on Bush’s foreign policies. Obama is not experienced at all in this realm and I think he knows it. So he is smart not to just toss away all of Bush’s policies. I would rather Obama go slow than act quickly out of his profound inexperience.
Report comment to moderator
JOEL MARK: Who says? That doesn’t even mean anything, Scroop. That sounds like nothing but a critic’s spin.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s top officer acknowledged on Tuesday that for all the importance of preventing Afghanistan from again harboring al-Qaida terrorists, Washington’s first priority is Iraq.
“In Afghanistan, we do what we can,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “In Iraq, we do what we must.”
His statement, delivered with emphasis in a prepared opening statement to the House Armed Services Committee, prompted some Democrats to say it showed what they have argued for years: that the Bush administration has become so bogged down in Iraq that it cannot make more effort in Afghanistan.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-11-3963072919_x.htm
JOEL, that was Dec. 2007. That’s what Bush passed on to Obama.
Your comment at 36 is disrespectful, narrow, ignorant, prejudiced, ideologically blind to facts, and, worst of all, lazy. Your comments are all devoted to partisan efforts to evade responsibility.
Report comment to moderator
The goals and strategies for both fronts (Iraq and Afghanistan) in this war are in flux. They always have been. From what I have heard and read, what the military leaders are saying now is what even Obama was saying throughout his campaign–that we need to increase our commitment in Afghanistan and raise the number of troops there. They are making it clear that we will face defeat and failure in Afghanisstan if we don’t raise our commitment level beyond merely doing what we can. Now Obama is walking a strange fense and is currently wallowing in uncertainty and indecision with regard to our basic commitment.
Scroop Moth, this is not about Bush. Your transparent obsession with Bush and Bush alone is ridiculous and partisan. I’m glad you are not making actual decisiosn. The military leader’s reports were also not about Bush. They are non-partisan and focused on changing needs and re-focusing our mission.
My comment at #36 was indeed respectful and straightforward in expressing my opinions and perspective. If you want to find a disrespectful and bitterly judgmental posting, just look at #37.
Report comment to moderator
JOEL, #36 and #38 show you to be incapable of telling the difference between “a critic’s spin” of a central and enduring premise of Bush’s top military command. You don’t even try to reconcile your misstatement. What’s up with that?
You acknowledge that the “goals and strategies . . . in this war are in flux. They always have been.” But then you accuse Obama of “wallowing in uncertainty and indecision with regard to our basic commitment.”
Don’t you see your double standard? Thomas Rick’s book, Fiasco describes the multiple, successive, and mutually incompatible strategic goals and tactics of the Iraqi invasion and occupation. Yet you call Obama’s short command a “strange fence.” And me “ridicuilous and partisan.”
Obama inherited a military strategy (”what we can”) that was inadequate. You yourself appeared unwilling to believe that Bush’s commanders would have propounded such a meaningless strategy. Yet, a year after articulating that strategy to Congress, Bush palmed the same thing off on Obama.
When you say, “Bush changed commanders several times himself,” you grossly understate the exceptional boldness of Obama’s firing of a wartime commander in the field. Bush never did any such a thing. Obama’s recall of Gen. David McKiernan was the first intervention of its magnitude and kind since Gen. MacArthur.
The replacement of a four-star U.S. war commander so early into his tenure is exceptional. “This is the first time since MacArthur was called back during the Korean War that a four-star commanding general was relieved in the middle of a war,” said a senior Pentagon official.
http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB124206036635107351.html&date=2009-05-17
Obama terminated McKiernan’s military career for dowing what he could to float along with Bush’s strategic muddle.
Nothing you say about Obama has credibility, JOEL, if you can’t acknowledge that Obama is making progress toward bringing clarity to the muddle, to the extent that clarity can be discovered. McChrystal’s report is a credit to the commander in chief, not a detraction.
Report comment to moderator
#39 correction: JOEL failed to tell the difference between “a critic’s spin” AND a central and enduring premise of Bush’s top military command.
Report comment to moderator
It’s fair to say that we have Bush to thank for Hamid Karzai.
Report comment to moderator
Scroop, since you obviously missed it, Barack Obama is now the Presidetn of the Unitied States. The onlyu way to get over your Bush derangement syndrome is to admit you have a problem. Or is that why you still have it?
Report comment to moderator
I have lots of problems, JOEL, but none with the arguments I’ve made against your posts.
Report comment to moderator
back to topJoin The Conversation
You need to be a registered user of WORLDmag.com's Community section to "join the conversation."
If you are not a member yet, what are you waiting for? Register / Login Now!