Perhaps a few war-related headlines, flew under your Radar, this week in "politics" ...
Secretary Gates Replaces U.S. Commander in Afghanistan
Stephen Abott - Budget Insight - May 11, 2009
In a press conference today, Defense Secretary Gates announced the replacement of America’s top general in Afghanistan. The commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, General McKiernan, is being replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. McChrystal, former Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), is seen by Secretary Gates as having a more suitable background to the complexities of the war in Afghanistan.
(emphasis added)
the Under-the-Radar Recap continues ....
McChrystal's Appointment Increases Chance of Getting Bin Laden, Sources Say
Paul Bedard - US News & World Report - May 15, 2009
The appointment of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the next Afghanistan commander increases the chances that the United States will capture or kill Osama bin Laden, intelligence sources say. After all, it was McChrystal who went to Iraq in 2006 as the military's top manhunter. His men quickly started rounding up or killing a long list of al Qaeda operatives, including the biggest prize of all, Abu Musab Zarqawi.
[...]
McChrystal was in Iraq as commander of the supersecret Joint Special Operations Command, which includes the Army's Delta Force, the Navy's SEAL Team Six, and a high-tech intelligence unit known was Task Force Orange. [...] According to an intelligence source in Iraq at the time, McChrystal revamped how JSOC works with the CIA and teams from the National Security Agency, which does communications intercepts. He fused all the units together so that a Delta Force squad on the hunt could receive immediate intelligence on the target's whereabouts.
(emphasis added)
From My Lai to Bala Baluk
Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off
Mike Whitney - CounterPunch - May 15-17, 2009
Barack Obama is aggressively stepping up the war in Afghanistan. He's intensified the cross-border bombing of Pakistan and he is doubling the number of U.S. troops to 68,000 by 2010. He's also a strong proponent of pilotless drones even though hundreds of civilians have been killed in bombing raid blunders.
[...]
Obama chose McChrystal because of his "black ops" pedigree, which suggests that the conflict in Afghanistan is about to take a very ugly turn. According to Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, McChrystal ran the "executive assassination wing" of the military's joint special-operations command. (JSOC) The experts believe that he will breeze through congressional confirmation hearings because many Senators believe that his counterinsurgency theories helped the surge in Iraq to succeed. There's some truth to this, too. But it would be more accurate to say that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad helped to reduce the violence. That is the truth about the surge; it's a public relations moniker for ethnic cleansing.
(emphasis added)
‘Cheney Praises McChrystal’
Kelley Vlahos - The American Conservative- May 13, 2009
The headline says it all. Smack in a middle of his latest FOX News torture apologia, ex-Veep Cheney says President Obama would be "hard put to find anyone better than Stan McChrystal" to lead the forces in Afghanistan.
[...]
WaPo calls him a "manhunter," who must transcend the "perception that he is, at his core, an Army Ranger, an elite practitioner of rapid-fire raids intended to ‘find, fix, finish’ the enemy." Sounds like a Schwarzenegger film. The NYT admits, "Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence."
(emphasis added)
Well that is one fine "Vote of Confidence", eh?
Cheney would know a thing or two about the JSOC, it seems. (according to Sy Herch, anyways)
Stanley McChrystal: A History Of Condoning Torture?
Andrew Sullivan - The Atlantic - 11 May 2009
Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will [the Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in: "they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."
(emphasis added)
And now the for "THE Quote", that may have caused you to open the Diary (the Diary Title Quote).
Looks like Wall Street Investor's types, still think that "Serious War -- means Serious Business." Seems they think the choice of McChrystal, is a "very pragmatic" one ...
McChrystal Clear
Investors Business Daily - Opinion - 05/13/2009
President Obama has chosen a new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. This is Obama's war. This is his general.
During the campaign, candidate Barack Obama said Afghanistan was the right place to fight what is now called an overseas contingency operation. At first glance, with his choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take over as the top U.S. commander there, he may have picked the right man to fight it.
[...]
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer is a former Army intelligence officer who worked with McChrystal in support of Joint Task Force 121, an elite special ops unit that excels in the capture and killing of high-value enemy targets.
Shaffer calls McChrystal a "very pragmatic commander" who "will be successful in translating broad policy guidelines into achievable, measurable objectives regarding military activities — which will result in, frankly, a regaining of lost ground in Afghanistan."
(emphasis added)
Well ...
Is it your War?
Is this your General?
Is this even still your Country?
Is this Openness, Transparency, and Accountability?
Is this the road back to .... Security ????
OK, Let the age of the "drone wars" begin ...
Do you think Arnold's script writers will step in, and write us a happy cliff-hanger ending?
Seriously, I used to think Afghanistan War, was the "Just Cause" War, out the two Bush Wars. ... But now I don't know what to think anymore -- even the Taliban aren't who we were told they were, according to Bill Moyers' interview last night.
What are the Objectives of the Afghanistan War 2.0? ... and Once again, How do we know when we have Won? ...
Winning at What Cost, to our National Heritage? ... to our National Psyche? ... to our brave Soldiers?
This is not the first time, when, as a Country, we faced such disturbing Quandaries ... (probably won't be the last, either, given Human Nature)
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
(emphasis added)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations - April 23, 1971
Dudes and Dudettes, where'd they Hide OUR Country?
Imagine ... Peace ... (if you still can)
Now, better get used to the idea of Perpetual War ... Obama's War(s).
Someday "Happy Days" will return, you betch ya, -- if we just keep dreaming! ... If we just "give it more time" ...
Given enough time, maybe, we will finally find out afterall, the eternal truth --
"That War IS Hell!"
(... and Welcome to the Machine ...)