Tensions between Eikenberry, McChrystal will be focus of their Washington visit

[elias49]

Source: Washington Popst

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, and the top U.S. military commander there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, assumed their posts amid lofty expectations that they could re-create the hand-in-glove partnership that Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had while leading the war effort in Iraq
Eikenberry has resisted some of McChrystal's wartime experiments. The ambassador refused to release funds to expand a military effort to turn villagers into armed guards. He opposed one Army brigade's plan to form an anti-Taliban alliance with a Pashtun tribe and funnel it development money. He criticized the military's proposal to buy generators and diesel fuel for the energy-starved city of Kandahar and supported a longer-term hydroelectric dam project.
Some disagreements between the men may reflect growing pains, as the military makes room for the greatly expanded U.S. Embassy in Kabul. When President Obama took office last year, there were 360 American civilians in Afghanistan. Now there are more than 1,000 and counting, the most rapid growth of a U.S. civilian mission since the Vietnam War.
During a lengthy policy review in the fall, Eikenberry argued against sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. And U.S. officials said he continues to think that the United States should find other Afghan figures, including provincial leaders, to work with rather than rely so heavily on Karzai. Eikenberry's position infuriated Karzai, who often views U.S. support for "sub-national governments" in Afghanistan as a threat to his authority.
Of McChrystal and Eikenberry, Crocker said: "They need to resolve any differences among themselves or take it back to Washington because the stakes in Afghanistan are too great not to have a unified effort."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/08/AR2010050803391_pf.html

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So, essentially, the US does not have a clear plan for Afghanistan conquest. The two top men have widely divergent views on our mission...Eikenberry seems more aligned with the idea of nation-building; helping Afghans to help themselves (if that's possible), while McChrystal seems to be more interested in conquest at any cost - even if it means making backdoor deals with the reportedly drug-loving President Karzai and his criminal half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, strongman of Kandahar.
So I guess we start our new, big last-ditch offensive without a plan.
And, sadly, the song that President Obama seems to sing is McChrystal's tune. God help us all, but especially the innocents that will die this summer - women, children, old men - because we have a military that not only wants to rule the world at large, but seems to own the executive and the legislative branches of our own government.

[bemildred]

1. This is what happens when war is treated as a public relations exercise and porkbarrel opportunity.

There is zero chance this will ever be anything but what it is right now, i.e. a ghoulish failure.
:puke:

[gimama]

2. Thanks for posting this

Yes, this IS a big deal.

[saigon68]

3. Two (2) ASSCLOWNS