General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThat's just it ...
On MSNBC, there was a segment on Iraq and the introduction of Special Operations soldiers back (?) Into Iraq. The guest, a former SEAL, was asked whether he thought it appropriate to use Special Operations soldiers. His response was exactly what people don't seem to understand/recognize ... he said he didn't believe so because there was no specific operational purpose.
That got me to thinking ... that's just it ... how does he know? How does he know what, or whether there is an operational plan?
But more, doesn't that statement fly false in the face of EVERYTHING that this Administration has done? Hasn't EVERY action that was questioned by the "experts" (left and right), proven to be well planned/thought out and proved a positive result?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
KT2000
(20,584 posts)and I wondered what his agenda really is. He has a newsletter for Special Forces so I wonder if he wasn't there for the publicity. Maybe I am too cynical but there is more money in being critical of the president than agreeing with him.
Does a former SEAL still have access to classified info?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Former nobodys have access to real time planning.
What's more, I don't know of many special ops folk that talk about operational planning, let alone doing so on tv.
Yes ... There is far more $$$ second guessing the administration.
Last edited Fri Jun 20, 2014, 01:11 PM - Edit history (1)
Is a Democrat with liberal views. His news service is subscription type web news that focus' on SF Militaries around the world and SF Operations going on. He has very distinct knowledge of what SF Teams are tailored to do and does not see any of those tasks at hand.
The one real up-front and possible specialty task is Green Berets are always used to train locals in insurgencies and guerilla warfare to disrupt enemy capabiliites. But if the Iraqi Army has not caught on by now, after years and years of training, a cram session is not going to change anything.
KT2000
(20,584 posts)
brer cat
(24,579 posts)PBO is very smart. Unlike a recent president, he doesn't act from his gut, but from careful analysis. He has a plan and an objective whether this SEAL realizes it or not.
Cha
(297,323 posts)snip//
"Last fall, as President Obama weighed airstrikes against Syria, deliberations followed a clear pattern: The president solicited scores of options, planners returned with possibilities, and, according to people involved, Obama would reply with the same question: And then what?.
Over the last several days, with Obama mulling involvement in another Middle East conflict, this time in Iraq, that dynamic has held.
MOre.. LATIMES
tblue37
(65,409 posts)He asks essential questions: How do we know when we are done? and What path would move us toward a goal after our initial moves?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)That suggests an advanced level of planning that has led to results that gopers never see coming and DUers mock as being "nth dimensional chess" (as they struggle to explain the positive outcome, yet again).
Cha
(297,323 posts)Some duers.. "multidimensional chess!!1111
"
brer cat
(24,579 posts)That is much better with the point I was trying to make. He doesn't shoot from the hip and he is always looking way down the road.
Cha
(297,323 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)All the arm - chair analysts don't need to trouble themselves with, as there is no consequence to they typing.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Unless the very existence of your profile on this board is simply an apparition. That's the irony in your mocking of "arm-chair analysts." You are one of us.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I don't claim superior knowledge or analytics ability over the administration experts that are calling the strategic shots.
Big difference.
JI7
(89,252 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I'm talking about the 300 "advisors" being reintroduced into iraq.
But more I'm talking about the shark jumping being done by those "in the know" that consistently are proven wrong.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Is that what will ultimately unfold is the demonstration of your rightness and the wrongness of those who countered you.
But what the history of the American Military Industrial Complex demonstrates is that there is no unknown in this. The motivation for our action is not unknown even to the lowest of the ignorant. But what this represents is a continuation of a history which can be read and conceived by anyone who is willing to submit to the gaining of knowledge.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)That there is an operational plan in place? Please!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)What are you talking about?
brer cat
(24,579 posts)one of those known unknown or unknown unknown.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Beer, whiskey, or weed ... or some combination thereof.
The Road Runner
(109 posts)
JI7
(89,252 posts)and do it based on what we saw with bin laden, the benghazi guy, and how they got bergdahl out.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)
morningfog
(18,115 posts)If there is a specific operational purpose, let's hear it. We have not been told what the end game or goal is here. This is Bush-Lite Doctrine.
This is pre-emption, even if been sold as a smaller footprint.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)And the idea that we can't know the knowledge of those in power, this is the exact nonsense that was embodied in Rumsfeld's statement on "unknown knowns."
The idea is to subvert responsibility through the denial of knowledge. And, in this case, what we do is deny the guilt of this very action by obscuring knowledge through the ruling order.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)That you were privy to information held by those making decisions.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)And I am privy to the decision making because the underlying process of American imperialism never changes. It is transparent what is going on. That is why the idea that we simply don't know the reasoning behind Obama's action is so ridiculous. I'll ask you the same questions I asked someone else.
What is it that you think we don't know? And why isn't someone telling us?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Let's all hear the operational plan for a military/diplomatic action! 
morningfog
(18,115 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)To end military involvement in iraq.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)is through military involvement in Iraq?
This is spinning in absurdity, even for you. We ended military involvement in Iraq at the end of 2011. That was the end of that chapter, the end of Us military involvement. Obama is now starting the next chapter with new US military involvement in 2014. Not even you can suggest with a straight face, that the objective of this renewed US military involvement is to end military involvement (which actually ended in 2011).
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I'm saying that the end goal is to remove military forces from iraq. But unlike us keyboard generals, our government has to do it in a manner that doesn't further destabilize the entire region.
And that means attempting to "advise" (I.e., maintaining a military presence ) so as to create the space for a political solution to evolve.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)We are talking about Iraq, not Afghanistan, where our troops are still there.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Our combat forces were drawn down in 2011; our advisors and embassy staff remain.
So what are you talking about?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)So now you are saying Obama wasn't being honest when he said that all US troops had withdrawn from Iraq?
Embassy staff is not the US military, so you can't hang your hat on that. The US military withdrew in 2011. If it didn't we were lied to then and clearly the objective was not to remove them. Indeed, Obama tried to negotiate US troops staying there longer.
The US military is going back in now. The US military is not going into Iraq after having left to ensure that the US military can leave Iraq. This is an amazing display of doublethink on your part. Really quite impressive!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Between combat forces and military advisors. Right?
Who do you think protects the embassy personal?
morningfog
(18,115 posts)The embassy was protected with a few hundred private contractors with the State Department. I forgive you if you don't distinguish between mercenaries and US military. Iraqis don't either.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)No.
I do want the US to do what is reasonable to prevent a complete destabilization of the region. If that means 300 or 3000 advisors, so be it.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)The "advisors" we are sending aren't just IRS taxi auditors.
They're armed soldiers.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Those advisors are soldiers to advise on military matters.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)How could we? I am not privy to what is being said in the national security meetings
today, nor are they.
The hair is on fire once again. The man that sits in the Presidents seat is once again judged and condemned with out a trial. He is taking us back to Iraq, feet on the ground!! OMG OMG!!!
Bull! I will wait to see what our ever calm and rational President proposes.
Thanks for this much needed OP 1SBM.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)What does the Obama administration know that we couldn't also know? And, if they know, why isn't he telling us? Is now not exactly the time to tell us exactly what is going on?
I don't understand this idea of deferring knowledge to a future date.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)You do understand we are still at war, correct? Bushes War? You remember that do you not?
So the Bushcos lied to us every step of the way. Yes they did. So when our President that ended this war has to step in again to clean up BushShit, you question his knowledge of the threat and want him to broadcast his intentions to the world.
Great strategy!
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Unchanging, yet, somehow in our need to prevent the horror of this persistent nothingness, we choose to see different realities.
When truth becomes dangerous, that is exactly when it needs to be known. Do not couch your fear of the truth, which in actuality is a fear that there is nothing more to be known about this conflict, within the false fear of informing "the enemy."
That is, to be frank, a bullshit move.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)
FEAR OF TRUTH smh
Gotta go Cha~
Cha
(297,323 posts)
lol sweet dreams about the truth, she~ 
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)The illusion that must be maintained is that there is always a deeper justification for actions we either do not fully understand or find reprehensible. There always has to be a truth known only by the ruling order.
Again, I ask, what exactly is it that we couldn't know about this situation?
BlueCheese
(2,522 posts)... that the war in Iraq is over, at least from the American perspective. I do think we have some responsibility in Iraq, given how much we screwed that place up, but I'm pretty sure that ending the war there is on our list of accomplishments somewhere.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Which may be true in the sense of temporary measures. But has the last decade not demonstrated exactly that such control is fleeting and that what this control ultimately does is leave a vacuum which is occupied by a lasting enemy?
Also, the idea that we have ended the war, which then justifies its continuation, is a ridiculous affair. We can label this as "post-war" conflict or whatever sort of mental wrangling necessary to make us feel like there's a difference. On the surface this may seem like a humanitarian mission. But underneath it is the continuation of imperialist American foreign policy.
BlueCheese
(2,522 posts)There aren't any good answers now. Iraq was in a bad place before the war, and it's a different bad place now, but now it's partly/mostly because of us. But we can't fix it. So, we're kind of stuck.
Cha
(297,323 posts)snip//
"Last fall, as President Obama weighed airstrikes against Syria, deliberations followed a clear pattern: The president solicited scores of options, planners returned with possibilities, and, according to people involved, Obama would reply with the same question: And then what?.
Over the last several days, with Obama mulling involvement in another Middle East conflict, this time in Iraq, that dynamic has held.
MOre.. LATIMES
Good morning, she~
Cha
(297,323 posts)sheshe2
(83,793 posts)The people that wish this President fails make me sick. The ones that light their hair on fire every single time and are proven wrong time and time again make me sick.
They have been proven wrong each and every time Cha! Yet they lather rinse and repeat.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)There is a lot of overlap in the "hope he fails" group and the one that run around with their hair on fire.
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)you are correct.
Cha
(297,323 posts)around with hair on fire speculating on all kinds of shit like chucky todd.
Bobfr @Our4thEstate Follow
Dear @PressSec #ChuckTodd just lied, again. Yelling like a maniac that #PBO is 'sending troops back to Iraq.' He should be banned from #WHPC
she for the Graphic.. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5124095
Mahalo, 1StrongBlackMan
bravenak
(34,648 posts)
JustAnotherGen
(31,828 posts)How exactly does THIS guy know? If he knows - then who is the rat that is talking out of school?
sheshe2
(83,793 posts)they are like~ everyone has one.
bigtree
(85,999 posts)The premise behind President Obama's initial 'surge' of U.S. troops into Bush's Afghanistan quagmire was to 'push back' resisting Afghans enough to allow some sort of political reconciliation. That effort was predictably bogged down by the difficulty in getting the disparate tribes and factions to accept the central authority NATO set up in Kabul. Even more difficulty in getting their installed government to accommodate the interests and demands of the resisting rest of the war-split nation.
Obama's military offensive against Kandahar was an abject failure. What happened to the promised ability of the U.S.-led NATO forces to protect the residents of Kandahar against Taliban blowback from their invasion? Nonexistent. The ability to protect innocent civilians from NATO attacks, or insulate them from the negative consequences and effects of the NATO military advance? Nonexistent. The ability of NATO to provide and deliver the services and amenities of the central government to the displaced residents? Nonexistent.
The pullback from their self-defined litmus test in Kandahar was no surprise. Declaring that, 'This is not Fallujah', NATO had announced at the beginning of 2010 that they were counting on local 'political leaders' to direct the upcoming U.S.-led assault on their neighborhoods and communities in Kandahar. They pressed on into Kandahar City after declaring 'success' and 'progress' in their assault and takeover of the town of Marjah - an operation which also was preceded by the killing of civilians fleeing the announced raid by NATO forces bent on replacing the Taliban-based authority in the town of 80.000 with representatives from the corrupt Karzai regime.
In the pending Kandahar advance, as in the weeks leading up to the military offensive against Marjah, NATO sought to soften their path by warning off potential resistors and allowing them (and the residents in the way) time to flee to other parts of the country. No refugee centers were established to handle the anticipated flight of residents from the promised fighting on all sides; no provisions of food provided, no medical centers set up, no living quarters contemplated for the residents forced out of their homes by the invading forces.
Even our would-be puppet, Karzai, bristled and balked at the prospect of more destructive NATO conquest in Afghanistan on his behalf. The once-willing accomplice has seen the political writing on the wall and appears to be looking to settle for the assumption of power wherever the Taliban would allow. His reported outburst at the beginning of the Kandahar campaign, threatening to 'join the Taliban', was a open-warning to the U.S. that he recognized there is no 'political solution' that can be reasonably carved out of the devastating, withering military campaign.
The military was quietly hoping we don't notice that they didn't actually transform that Marjah misadventure from the leveling of homes, the taking of residents' lives, and the destruction of farmland and livestock into the nation-building success that they intended for the mission to highlight. Predictably, resisting Afghans avoided the areas where U.S. troops had massed in the Kandahar region, and the resistance scattered their violence around the capital and elsewhere, killing former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani that September.
President Obama and his republican Pentagon holdovers led our nation from Kandahar - the administration and the Pentagon's self-described 'center of terror' - to a retreat to Kabul. They tolerated the continued deaths of our our soldiers as our troops eventually hunkered down there; tolerated the thousands drastically wounded; troops waiting for some declared 'victory' to materialize out of their desperate defense of their own lives against the Afghans that the President and the Pentagon claim we we're liberating.
We've been in Afghanistan longer than our country fought WWII. Pres. Obama's escalated occupation ignored whatever Afghans might regard as freedom in our insistence that their country be used as a barrier against the terror forces we've aggravated and enhanced in Pakistan. Our soldiers are fighting to control the Afghans, and they are busy fighting to force the U.S. to release that control.
All the while, most of the original threatening figures in our terror war have been killed -- their violent spawns made witness to the worst of al-Qaeda's warnings about U.S. imperialism, more than satisfied to have the bulk of our nation's military forces bogged down and fighting for their lives in Kabul. The primary suspect who led our forces to that country, bin Laden, wasn't even found in Afghanistan.
Why didn't Pres. Obama listen to the experts who told him that the U.S. forces were counterproductive to his stated goal of giving the government 'room' for political reconciliation? It's a shame and a clear repudiation of whatever he hoped to achieve in Afghanistan that more troops were lost there in pursuit of what Pres. Obama said are primarily political goals of the Afghan government, than Bush did in retaliation for the 9-11 attacks.
Cha
(297,323 posts)enough reason to trust him. I don't care who else doesn't trust him.
Obama's Mideast airstrike refrain: 'And then what?'
snip//
"Last fall, as President Obama weighed airstrikes against Syria, deliberations followed a clear pattern: The president solicited scores of options, planners returned with possibilities, and, according to people involved, Obama would reply with the same question: And then what?.
Over the last several days, with Obama mulling involvement in another Middle East conflict, this time in Iraq, that dynamic has held.
MOre.. LATIMES
Like I said I trust President Obama's record of history and I don't give a shit who fucking cringes.. "cringe" away.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)secrecy to any politician? You have to at least grasp the fundamental underpinnings of such feelings of distress, even if you do not agree.
This is not a matter of believing enough in the good nature of President Obama. It is about how we should never trust ANY politician's good nature in maintaining secrecy around such things as engaging the armed forces in conflict.
This is precisely a subject which demands transparency and explanation.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Government=Bad ... Fantasy=workable good.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)What is bad about government is not its very existence but the trust we place in it. And not even all trust but the trust which requires us to make the argument that some truths are better left unsaid and we are better off being ignorant of them.
That is the true fantasy.
Cha
(297,323 posts)for us. They run exponential circles around the wannabes.
Donna NoShock @NoShock
Follow
Another productive week @BarackObama
9:52 AM - 20 Jun 2014
71 Retweets 51 favorites •Reply
http://theobamadiary.com/2014/06/20/the-presidents-day-10/#comments
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)It was just more of what Bush did. A surge, an increase in the action. Is that nation secure at and peace? No.
The use of military forces currently deployed as devices of some Meta style DU status tussle does not sit well with me.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)Troop levels wanted were more on the lines of 50,000 to 40,000, they got 30,000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/us/obamas-journey-to-reshape-afghanistan-war.html?pagewanted=all
hhttp://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/world/asia/us-scales-back-plans-for-afghan-peace.
htmlttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcchrystal-wanted-50000-troops/
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)He's not batting zero, but he's far from perfect.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I said he has an operational plan. All evidence shows he (and his team) put a lot of thought into their every action. And that thoughtfulness has produced far more hits than misses.
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)"Hasn't EVERY action that was questioned by the "experts" (left and right), proven to be well planned/thought out and proved a positive result?"
Therefore all actions have positive outcomes, no?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)A bit of hyperbole on my part. Not everything has been positive ... but I am confident in saying: everything has turned out positive or the least negative for the circumstances.
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)Life is life and stuff happens.
I haven't seen any evidence about what their plan is. I don't know what their plan is, but I think the president is on the right course with this so far.
He's going take some Vietnam/mission creep flak for these troop decisions, but it's the right thing, I think given their probable task of target identity, etc.
He's just putting his finger on the trigger and when a president does that, most listen.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)I agree that we live in a culture of "instant explanations." It's amazing when you watch the media, how many Instant Experts there are, and how many of them are simply repeating the same crap they heard or read from their fellow pundits.
And so we get people who jump on and make asinine knee-jerk reactions without knowing all he facts.
But at he same time, we can't give out leaders the benefit of the doubt to assume that they have some secret strategy that runs against the evidence. We did that in Iraq, when the public assumed that Buschco had access to knowledge and a grand strategy that would solve the problem quickly.
And frankly, to those of us who are older, one word is always in the background. Vietnam. It was the basic mistake of thinking you can step into deep social divisions in a different culture and shape it to our will. And we were trapped there for a decade. The only end to it was to admit that we had no clue how to resolve it, and leave.
Vetnam f'd up the Presidency of Johnson (and wuold have tarnished Kennedy's legacy if he had lived longer) because the secret plans kept turning out to be wrong.
People who are voicing concerns about the same thing happening again have a legitimate point.
riqster
(13,986 posts)[URL=http://www.sherv.net/][IMG]
[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.sherv.net/][IMG][/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.sherv.net/][IMG][/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.sherv.net/][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
Christ on a pinball, what nonsense we hear from the 101st Chairborne. Nice OP, 1SBM.
The Road Runner
(109 posts)...but it would be politically untenable for the US to simply do nothing.
So...he'll do the bare minimum possible to appear to offer the illusion of a response.
Same thing he did regarding the token "economic sanctions" he placed on the Russians around the Ukraine crisis.
