Monday, December 07, 2009

Obama adviser to McChrystal on defeating the Taliban: "Is that really what you think your mission is?"

Jihad Watch

Of course not. We're way beyond "victory" now. Everyone knows that enemies are defeated by building schools, roads, and hospitals.

In any case, now we know that Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan is not intended to subdue (much less "kill every member of," as an Obama aide describes defeating them) the Taliban. What it is for is not so clear. "Obama pressed for faster surge," by Anne E. Kornblut, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung for the Washington Post, December 6 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

His chance came at an Oct. 8 meeting of Obama's principal advisers, presided over by Jones -- the "dress rehearsal" for a full-scale National Security Council gathering the president would hold the next day. Speaking by video link from Kabul, McChrystal began with the policy underlying his approach, established by the White House review, hastily compiled in February, that led to Obama's March 27 strategy announcement and the deployment of nearly 22,000 new troops through the spring and summer.

In June, McChrystal noted, he had arrived in Afghanistan and set about fulfilling his assignment. His lean face, hovering on the screen at the end of the table, was replaced by a mission statement on a slide: "Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population."

"Is that really what you think your mission is?" one of those in the Situation Room asked.

On the face of it, it was impossible -- the Taliban were part of the fabric of the Pashtun belt of southern Afghanistan, culturally if not ideologically supported by a significant part of the population. "We don't need to do that," Gates said, according to a participant. "That's an open-ended, forever commitment."

But that was precisely his mission, McChrystal responded, and it was enshrined in the Strategic Implementation Plan -- the execution orders for the March strategy, written by the NSC staff.

"I wouldn't say there was quite a 'whoa' moment," a senior defense official said of the reaction around the table. "It was just sort of a recognition that, 'Duh, that's what, in effect, the commander understands he's been told to do.' Everybody said, 'He's right.' "

"It was clear that Stan took a very literal interpretation of the intent" of the NSC document, said Jones, who had signed the orders himself. "I'm not sure that in his position I wouldn't have done the same thing, as a military commander." But what McChrystal created in his assessment "was obviously something much bigger and more longer-lasting . . . than we had intended."

Whatever the administration might have said in March, officials explained to McChrystal, it now wanted something less absolute: to reverse the Taliban's momentum, deter it and try to persuade a significant number of its members to switch sides. "We certainly want them not to be able to overthrow the government," Jones said.

On Oct. 9, after awaking to the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama listened to McChrystal's presentation. The "mission" slide included the same words: "Defeat the Taliban." But a red box had been added beside it saying that the mission was being redefined, Jones said. Another participant recalled that the word "degrade" had been proposed to replace "defeat."

Already briefed on the previous day's discussion, the president "looked at it and said: 'To be fair, this is what we told the commander to do. Now, the question is, have we directed him to do more than what is realistic? Should there be a sharpening . . . a refinement?' " one participant recalled.

Said a senior White House adviser who took extensive notes of the meeting: "The big moment when the mission became a narrower one was when we realized we're not going to kill every last member of the Taliban."

"Defeat" = "kill every last member"?
Guest Comment by Hugh (as reported by JW):

Words such as "defeat" and "victory" are inappropriate here.

There is a world-wide push, by adherents of Islam, to suppress further the non-Muslims who remain in lands conquered by Islam (the outflow of Hindus from Pakistan, Bangladesh; the war on Christians in the Moluccas and pressure on Hindus in Bali; the war on indigenous Christians, who were there before the Arabs and Islam arrived, in Egypt, with the Copts, in Iraq with the Assyrians and Chaldeans, in Lebanon with the Maronites). There is a world-wide push to prevent non-Muslims from defending themselves, from retaining, or putting up, any obstacles at all to the steady spread, and effort to make dominant, Islam.

This "war" is not, in the main, conducted through open qitaal (combat) or through terrorism, though terrorism is certainly a venerable weapon of Islam ("strike terror in the hearts of the Unbelievers" etc.), and one that is being used. But far more common is the promotion of Jihad (the struggle to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam) through other means-- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa and, in Western Europe, above all, demographic conquest, as predicted by Arab leaders (Boumediene at the U.N. in 1974, Qaddafy in more recent times), which could lead to the takeover of Europe, of the countries of NATO, of the historic heart of the West, simply through a rise in numbers, and in influence, accompanied by constant efforts to make the West forget what it is, to forget what it is in danger of living (its science, its art, its political freedoms, its solicitousness for individual autonomy, its equality of the sexes, its everything), to forget that it has a perfect right to defend itself. In large part, the class of collaborators -- the word fits, for already Europe is being occupied, and already there are the early Resistants, and the plausible, easygoing, smooth collaborators with their siren-song, is working to avoid any real resistance, anything to rock the boat or rather pot of slowly-boiliing water, until it is too late. Why they do this, what worldview or greed or stupidity explains the individual case, or the collective case, can be argued over but it should not be the focus of attention. How many of these people are simply members of a political or media elite who did nothing to stop, failed to recognize, over the past several decades when this unprecedented event occurred -- the large-scale penetration of the West, settling within the West, of the bearers of an ideology as subversive of the advanced West as were Soviet Communism and the Nazism of Germany under Hitler.

We see it in the reaction of the elites, but not of sensible people, to the vote on minarets in Switzgerland. Such a vote is symbolic, of course, because there are only a handful of minarets in Switzgerland at present. But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali noted in her article on the vote, symbols are important. A "small group" wanting to fly the fylfot (Hirsi Aligoes out of her way to describe the "swastika" indirectly, geomgatrically), now a symbol of mass-murder, or the hammer-and-sickle, the symbol of mass state oppression, would not be defended by the kind of people now deploring the Swiss vote. The minaret -- see Erdogan -- came into Islam as a deliberate symbol of power, o'ertopping the Christian bell towers, to inspire awe and fear among the population. It has the same function today, and is otherwise not necessary, in an age where wristwatches and cellphones give the time of day, and can be programmed to give the time of prayer. In any case, the spectacle of everyone from Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, to the government of Iran, being "outraged" by the minaret ban is absurd, is beyond any conceivable hypocrisy. Do they think we don't know what the Shari'a says should govern the repair or building of churches or Jewish temples? As for others, as Hindus, non-monotheists, why don't even ask. And are we not all capable of observing what happens to churches that exist (ask the Copts, or the Chaldo-Assyrians) in the Muslim-ruled lands. or what happens if the millions of wage-slaves in Saudi Arabia dare even, behind closed doors, to sing Christmas carols -- much less what would happen if they tried even to suggest that a church should be built for the millions of Christan workers who keep those rich primitives afloat?

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