Article

2008-09-01 Iraq

Incremental Anbar drawdown expected - Marines chaffing to go to Afghanistan

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-09-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top
File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq

#1 Chaffing?

chaff[3,verb]

Main Entry:
3chaff
Function:
verb
Date:
1827

transitive verb
: to tease good-naturedly intransitive verb : jest, banter

Posted by Parabellum 2008-09-01 10:26|| 2008-09-01 10:26|| Front Page Top

#2 Right now, Petraeus should be conducting a rear guard operation. That is, assuming that all congressional and presidential support for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the WoT are going to be pulled out from underneath the Pentagon, as soon as Obama is inaugurated.

Or worse, that the Democrats will try to run the wars, just so they can lose them and kill hundreds or thousands of soldiers, while destroying the morale of the rest.

By this I mean that the Iraqi military should be fully operational and self-supporting, with a procurement list of equipment that can be purchased from election day to inauguration day, on an emergency basis from any supplier.

And that from election day, a dramatic draw down of forces from both nations are to begin immediately. All field commanders will turn over control of their area to their Iraqi counterparts. Evacuation will then commence on the sole order of General Petraeus. He will have no public comment other than "no comment".

Operations in Afghanistan will be to remove all friendly forces from the highest risk areas first and turn operations and equipment over to NATO forces remaining. The situation in Afghanistan will go to hell overnight. Surprise.

General Petraeus will then submit his resignation effective a few days before ID, which will be approved and signed by W. Bush.

So when Obama enters the office, he will have no armies in the field, no commanding officers, and be utterly powerless to betray either Iraq or the US military.

To misuse them, he will have to have new congressional approval to commit forces, he will have to select new generals to lead those forces, and figure out some way of deploying units that don't want to deploy.

And he doesn't have the balls or guts to do so.

Iraq can cite a SOFA clause that once out of the country, Iraq does not have to readmit US forces, and won't. So there will be nothing the Democrats can do to sabotage Iraq.

And the Pentagon can say that it needs a massive budget increase for new equipment and maintenance, and that it will take "a year or two" before they are ready to go to Afghanistan again, once they get the money.

The US Navy is in a much better position, as if Obama orders them to attack anyone, however unlikely, all they have to do is have very bad target analysis, for everything but SAM sites. Hospitals, orphanages, shopping areas, baby food factories, etc.

The Democrats have long hated and despised the military, and made no secret of it. For them to assume that the military will gladly throw away their lives on the whim of such scum is foolhardy.

There are times when military bureaucrats and other REMFs really shine, and this is one of them. If they want to logjam, obfuscate, red tape and stop cold the actions of malevolent politicians, there are none better than the "Chairborne Rangers."

"Urh!" (cough, cough)

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-09-01 11:16|| 2008-09-01 11:16|| Front Page Top

#3 For a long time Obama has puzzled me, he's obviously unqualified, but gets support.

I think I've finaly got his number, he's running like he would for church alderman, not for Pres.
And people are familiar with that kind of campaign.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-09-01 12:05|| 2008-09-01 12:05|| Front Page Top

#4 "Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is said to have also told Petraeus some U.S. forces should be pulled out of Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan when the two met in July in Baghdad."

WTF? This pathetic media PR for their pathetic candidate has reached stunning levels. As though the USMC is going to listen seriously to that empty suit, who is about to get crushed. Perhaps next The One can drop in on NASA and tweak the settings on their next Mars landers, or drop in at Treasury and help with their currency trading operations.

Also one can only hope that the "mistakes" the general's talking about are recognized above all to have been the failure to impose our will, the basic purpose of warfare. "Alienating" an Anbar Sunni is not something to worry about - it can happen instantly and for no reason. Nice to see the complete fairy tale being peddled by AP - the poor widdle Sunnis were "alienated" - it's not that they were engaged in a vicious barbaric attempt to secure their dominant position and wreck the new Iraq because they couldn't run it, and switched when they had failed after making the appropriate calculations. Nah, nothin' like that.

Posted by Verlaine 2008-09-01 12:49|| 2008-09-01 12:49|| Front Page Top

#5 'Moose paints a disturbing scenario, and I certainly wouldn't discount it. But I think Bambi as Prez together with Dhimm's in control of both sides of Congress could do far more damage to both the military and the country. My nightmare is that they will do their utmost to 'Europeanize' our forces. They will slash or eliminate funding for operations and maintenance, equipment replacement, weapons procurement, new weapons development, BMD, etc., etc. until our armed forces are a hollow shell, incapable of projecting force to Omaha, much less Afghanistan. Simultaneously, they will make it clear that all provocations, no matter how egregious, will be met with words only, never force. We will have the Tehran embassy takeover repeated over and over. NATO will be toothless and Russia will reabsorb its former empire.

In other words, not only may they try to force defeats in the present wars, they will reverse the result of the Cold War if they can.

All along they will be cheered on by their willing accomplices in the MSM. And they will reintroduce the "Fairness Doctrine" to stifle any organized opposition. Sites like this one will be stomped out.

/plausible nightmare

Posted by PBMcL 2008-09-01 13:01|| 2008-09-01 13:01|| Front Page Top

#6 More than plausible. Guaranteed.

Posted by lotp 2008-09-01 13:07|| 2008-09-01 13:07|| Front Page Top

#7 Moose, the Marines have something called 'malicious obedience'.

Meaning if you're despised as a leader, and you order a unit to go from point A to point B, and there's a 10-foot deep ditch between the two points, they will drive right into the ditch, provided none of them will get hurt and other Marines are not counting on them.

The big issue re the military is that the Dems remember that Clinton backed down when the senior military stood up to him on certain issues early in his first term. They won't let that happen again.

Posted by Pappy 2008-09-01 13:28|| 2008-09-01 13:28|| Front Page Top

#8 All that could be recovered from. Far worse would be the effect of those they would promote to flag rank, the next generation of Weasley Clarks and Meritless McPeaks.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 13:37|| 2008-09-01 13:37|| Front Page Top

#9 You guys are really pumping up Obama. While I think these are nightmare scenarios, they are nothing more than dreams. If you think that either the military brass or the republicans would sit by idly while this took place, then you are really in dreamland. The MSM doesn't own public opinion any more. If they really tried some of this crap, the dems would be out of office and lose control of congress in 2 years>

Don't get me wrong, I think Obama is a complete douch who will try versions of this stuff. But I doubt very much if he will succeed.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-01 14:04|| 2008-09-01 14:04|| Front Page Top

#10 Pappy in labour parlance it's called Working to Rules.

Posted by .5MT 2008-09-01 15:21|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2008-09-01 15:21|| Front Page Top

#11 Anbar handed over to the Iraqis, successfully. Whodathunkit? Congratulations to all the men and women who accomplished this improbable task.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 18:00|| 2008-09-01 18:00|| Front Page Top

#12 indeed, and a deep thanks to and prayer for those who made the ultimate sacrifice and their families and loved ones. Their sacrifice wasn't in vain

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-09-01 18:03|| 2008-09-01 18:03|| Front Page Top

#13 More lies. This isn't really what's happening. The One himself said the surge couldn't work.

Or, The One doesn't have perfect judgement and was totally fucking wrong about the only major issue he voted on!

Posted by Mike N. 2008-09-01 21:55|| 2008-09-01 21:55|| Front Page Top

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