McChrystal's 40,000 Troop Hoax

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Robert Naiman - Writer

It's a time-honored Washington tradition. If you want to bully the government into doing something unpopular and the public into accepting it, manufacture a false emergency. Iraq war? If you don't approve it, mushroom cloud. Banker or IMF bailout? If you don't approve it, financial collapse. Social security privatization? If you don't approve it, the system will go "bankrupt."Our brand is crisis, as James Carville might say.

General McChrystal says that if President Obama does not approve 40,000 more U.S. troops for Afghanistan, and approve them right away, "our mission" - whatever that is - will likely "fail" - whatever that is.

But even if President Obama were to approve General McChrystal's request, the 40,000 troops wouldn't arrive in time to significantly affect the 12-month window McChrystal says will be decisive. So McChrystal's request isn't about what's happening in Afghanistan right now. It's about how many troops the U.S. will have in Afghanistan a year from now and beyond.


There is no emergency requiring a quick decision by President Obama. The current situation in Afghanistan is being used as a bloody shirt to try to lock America into to an endless war, and, as Andrew Bacevichargues in theBoston Globe, lock the Obama Administration into the continuation of military force as the main instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

TheWashington Postreports:

In his 66-page assessment of the war, McChrystal warns that the next 12 months will probably determine whether U.S. and international forces can regain the initiative from the Taliban.
But as theWall Street Journalnotes:

a recent study by the Institute for the Study of War - a Washington, D.C., think tank headed by Kimberly Kagan, a military analyst who worked on Gen. McChrystal's assessment team - suggested it would be difficult to move enough troops from other posts to deploy anywhere close to 40,000 troops before next summer at the earliest.

The military agrees with the institute's overall findings, although has identified different units it could deploy over the course of the next year.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/McChrystal-s-40-000-Troop-by-Robert-Naiman-091014-660.html

[tekisui]

1. Also--Ask for more than you need to soften the public.

He has requested up to 80,000.

But, watch DU. When President Obama makes his decision to put more troops in Afghanistan it will be defended.

[cognoscere]

4. That's a tactic the powers that be

have used for decades. For example, if they wanted to raise the price of gas by fifty cents, they would increase it by, say a buck fifty, and then gradually lower it to their target price. The sheep would then be grateful that their gas cost dropped by two thirds, completely ignoring the increase.

[midnight]

5. This is a perfect example of what is going on with health care.

The people asked for single payer/medicare style health care delivery system, and the insurance owned congress is making it sound like we will be lucky to get a watered down version of a public health option, where those who can't afford insurance will have to buy this option with maybe a watered down penalty????? In the end, so many will be so grateful for nothing.... But wait.. a watered down public option might pass after all,maybe, we will get more than nothing and be super grateful with a modest bump in a premium....Blah, Blah, Blah....

[FiveGoodMen]

2. "If you want to bully the government ... and the people ... manufacture a false emergency"

Yup.

That's all that's been happening since '01.

And it isn't letting up now that "we" have congress and the White House.

[Tutankhamun]

3. It's pure bullshit, the idea that America needs to conquer the middle east.

Or that American citizens would benefit one iota even if we succeeded (which, of course we won't). 100 percent pure undiluted bullshit.

[closeupready]

6. Defense contractors would benefit, that's for damn sure.

And we know they run our foreign policy.