TEA BANH & HUN MANITH VISIT TO US SEC DEF GATES SEEMS TO SAY NOTHING WHILE
AMERICA IS DOING ABOUT FACE WITH AFGHANISTAN AND POLAND ?
from this columnist
September 23, 2009
FOXNews.com
by KT McFarland
opinion
Do Gates and
McChrystal Have the Guts to Fight for Afghanistan?
In the next few days we will learn whether President Obama has the courage to
do what what is necessary to prevail in Afghanistan. And he does not, will our
military leaders have the courage to resign in protest?
General McChrystal’s report on the Afghan War should be required reading for
us all. It’s written in plain English and is brutally realistic in its
assessment of the current situation. It makes clear that if we continue on the
path we’re on, even with the additional 21,000 troops President Obama has
already added, we’re headed for certain defeat.
Put simply, the General concludes that President Obama’s stated goal “to
disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to
prevent their return to either country in the future” cannot be accomplished
with the current troop levels, resources and military strategy.
Although McChrystal doesn’t ask for more troops in this report, he is
expected to do so as early as today. He could ask for as many as 40,000 more
troops, in addition to the 68,000 Obama has already committed to the Afghan
war.
While McChrystal warns that additional troops and resources alone will not
guarantee success, it will at least give him the tools necessary to implement a
new strategy.
Leaking the McChrystal report to the press, and to the county’s leading
investigative reporter, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, was no accident.
The military has now put the ball firmly in President Obama’s court. The
McChrystal report leaves no room for ambiguity. If the president is not willing
to add more troops, commit more resources, and adopt a different military
strategy, he is going against the advice of his highly regarded, handpicked
military commander. The inevitable defeat that would follow would be Obama’s to
own – politically, strategically, militarily.
The question is what does Obama do with the ball now that he’s got it? As
recently as last month President Obama called Afghanistan a “War of Necessity”,
in contrast to President Bush’s “War of Choice” in Iraq. He can hardly walk
away
from the war now.
But accepting McChrystal’s recommendations and ramping up our war efforts
will be difficult as well. To do so President Obama faces an uphill battle
persuading the American people that this war is worth the effort, and
convincing
his anti-war political base to go along with it.
If Obama decides to not decide-- in other words to delay or refuse to commit
the resources McChrysal has called essential-- what will Gen. McChrystal, his
boss Gen. Petraeus, and Secretary of Defense Gates do? Will they resign in
protest, or hold their noses and carry out a policy they know is doomed to
fail?
After the Vietnam war fiasco, many of our junior military officers said
“never again.” Never again would they stand silently by and fight a war they
knew would end in disaster. Yet that lesson was forgotten in the aftermath of
September 11. Once again, our political leaders were unwilling to commit the
troops or resources needed to bring a quick conclusion to the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars and once again our senior military leadership went along with
it. The one military leader who had the courage to call for more troops, Army
Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, was fired by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for
saying so. The message was clear.
For now, the battle lines are being drawn in Washington. A fundamental
principle in our Constitution is civilian control of the military. That means
our political leaders set the policy and our military leaders recommend to them
what resources they need to carry them out. If our military leaders disagree,
they have two options-- carry the orders out in silence, or resign in
protest.
In the next few days we will learn whether President Obama has the courage to
do what what is necessary to prevail in Afghanistan. And he does not, will our
military leaders have the courage to resign in protest?
Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland served in national security posts in the
Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations. She travelled to Afghanistan in May and
observed firsthand the shortcomings of our Afghan war
policy.
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Statement
US PRESIDENT RONALD
REAGAN INSISTS ON CAMBODIA INDEPENDENCE. 1988
On April 28, 1984, Deng Xiaoping, Chairman of
the Advisory Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China,
meets U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
(Photo: fmprc.gov.cn)
Photo
Gallery>>>
President Reagan's address to the 43d Session of the United Nations
General Assembly in New York, New York . September 26, 1988.
"Mr.
Secretary-General, there are new hopes for Cambodia, a nation whose freedom and
independence we seek just as avidly as we sought the freedom and independence
of
Afghanistan. We urge the rapid removal of all Vietnamese troops
...."
"Prime Minister Pham Van Dong called on me
and, in the presence of Premier
Chou En-lai, swore in the name of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam that the latter would always respect the land frontiers as
well as all islands belonging to the "Kingdom of Cambodia" March 1970 by
Sihanouk . Wilfred Burchett book "The China Cambodia Vietnam triangle "
P-176-177
UN Passes
Strong Resolution on Cambodia Human Rights
Abuses
Feb. 27, 1982 : UN Commission on Human Rights
meeting in Geneva adopted a resolution condemning Vietnam’s occupation of
Cambodia as a violation of Cambodian human rights. The vote was 28 in favor, 8
against,
and 5 abstentions.
5. Oct. 21,
1986 The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution A/RES/41/6, by vote of
116-21 with 13 abstentions, calling for a withdrawal of Vietnamese forces
from Cambodia.
As of
today,Cambodia is still occupied by the Vietnamese troops despite the call from
the US president to Vietnam to cease her occupation of Cambodia since 1988.
Cambodia needs Independence from Vietnam and the Vietnamese
invaders.
Vietnam must cease her occupation of Cambodia at
once.
BURY
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