I have no doubt that is the theme of every one of their press releases, but imminent action justifies their budget and their budget is directly tied to their capability, their capability is tied to their success and their success is tied to their promotion.
This of course has nothing to do with the grunt that does the dying.
Have you ever thrown away your career over a disagreement with the efficacy of a plan with management? 'Cause yeah should, apparently.
This is complete BS.
Flag Officers aren’t considering the next budget request 24/7 as you’d like to think, and as they themselves have been working with Soldiers/Sailors etc. their entire adult lives, they do indeed care about the “grunt” dying.
Part of their mission is effective use of resources and accomplishing the give mission with the least amount of chaos. The Flag with the itchy trigger finger always need more of everything is rapidly regarded as someone who needs to be replaced.
I would if I thought people were going to die for no reason because of their plan, and they wanted me to be a part of it.
They have the right to expect a) a mission, and b) the ability to carry out that mission in terms of resources and rules of engagement.
This President has been in the habit of using the military without giving them a mission, resources, or even a plan. Let’s be real about what’s going on in this administration: “This is what I can politically do, so this is what the military has to live with.” It’s really not any more complicated than that.
To be real, the plan is “get out as much as politically feasible”. I wish it were just “get out”, but this is better than any plan that gets us more and more involved.
In the case of ISIS, it’s “get in only as much as I have to so that disaster strikes on someone else’s watch”.
Well, at least we’ll get more aggressive leadership regardless of who wins in 2016. Assuming it’s not Sanders.
If you don’t know what the mission is, either read the newspaper or scroll up a few posts where I say what it is.
Don’t blame Obama because you don’t know what’s happening in Afghanistan.
I’m not going to fault Obama much for that. He does seem to be doing a good job of not getting Americans killed. There was a death in Iraq the other day, but the first in 4 years. If he was burning the lives of US troops for political gain, then I’d be furious.
That’s the opposite of a mission, which is why they are complaining. “Be there, get shot at, die, do little if any good, but make sure we don’t lose Afghanistan and ruin my legacy.”
By that standard, Carter was a wildly successful President, much better than Ronald Reagan when it came to foreign policy.
We may have lost several key allies during the Carter years, but only a handful of US troops, so SUCCESS!! Whereas Reagan may have rolled back the Communist bloc on his watch, but it cost the lives of US servicemen, so FAILURE!!
Good point, because it was obvious from my post that I don’t EVER consider military engagement to be justified. Oh wait, it wasn’t at all. That’s something you over-interpreted incorrectly.
I was just disputing your measurement of Obama’s success at foreign policy. “Not getting Americans killed” is a pretty easy task, at least in the short term. The next President will face an ISIS and Taliban, as well as a Russia, that are all stronger next year than they are now, with the challenges more urgent. More Americans are likely to get killed in those fights because we didn’t deal with those threats when it was less costly to do so.
There’s no reason to believe that any of these organizations or nations will rise to a threat level that would justify any pre-emptive actions or wars of choice. Unless America is attacked en masse, there would be no reason to risk American lives against any of these.
Our allies and our enemies were equally impressed with Ronnie’s courage, how he stood up to the massive military juggernaut of Grenada, and brought it to it knees.
By the way, how is that Grenada Memorial coming along? Still planning to erect a plaque at a strip mall in Keokuk?
The military didn’t ask the President to wage a war of choice. They only asked that if he do so, which he is, that he give the military the ability to accomplish the mission.
No no, just remember that REAGAN led us in that war!
The Republican Study Committee has drafted plans are to relocate the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum from the National Mall and replace it with a huge monument to commemorate the striking victory that President Reagan delivered to the cause of international communism which directly led to the Wall being torn down a few years later. According to the RSC’s plans, the $3.7 billion monument will be financed by the Koch brothers and by cutting food stamps and privatizing air traffic controllers.
The high cost of the project is due to the sole source award going straight to Boeing, which produced the Peacekeeper (aka MX) missile. House Democrats point out that your average engineering and construction company could actually do the work for about $270 million, but Republicans want the memorial to also hearken back to the cost and increased debt of Reagan’s defense buildup.
You realize that Afghan training and CT missions is exactly what the military wants to continue to do. Obama didn’t just invent training and CT operations out of whole cloth and tell the generals to go do this.
So, when did the military ask the President to obey their orders?
(Yes, everyone, I realize I’m now wading hip-deep into adaher’s alternate reality of political events, where he can say that things happened but somehow he can never back up what he says.)
Well, ascribing deaths to something that may or may not happen doesn’t get us very far, except to turn up the wattage.
I’ve alluded to it before in relation to the Kurds but one huge failing of this administration - and previous ones to some extent - has been the lack of clarity, decisiveness and continuity what is a policy direction today may not be tomorrow but might be by next month. In between, motivated factions die. Literally. Through lack of support however that may come (Intell, drones, arms, etc).
Half of the region has had US support given, taken, given, and absolutely no one trusts the US to ever see anything through.
The CIA and State treat people and groups like little puppets they yank around for reasons that will soon disappear.
In fact, someone from the Obama Admin spoke yesterday abot their concerns with the Chinese State visit to the Uk and the level of new cooperation; he ended by saying 'we understand the frustration people have with working with the US … '.
And he’s not fucuking wrong. The US has been and remains a disaster of a partner in the region.
That was not my measurement of Obama’s success at foreign policy. I have no idea why you want to extrapolate my postings in this singular subject to “all of foreign policy”.
