"War Is Bigger Than Any One Man"

President Obama just fired General McChrystal and replaced him with General Petraeus. It was the right decision and the speech announcing the decision was everything you would hope it would be. I don't think another General will be granting any interviews any time soon.

More Proof The Obama Administration Can't Handle Counterterrorism

WASHINGTON — The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture had provided a window into the Taliban and could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.

Disclosure of Mullah Baradar’s capture came as American and Afghan forces were in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.

His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

Details of the raid remain murky, but officials said that it had been carried out by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and that C.I.A. operatives had accompanied the Pakistanis.

New York Times

Someone get the fainting couch ready for the Cheneys and Joe LIEberman.

McChrystal Mashup

Spencer Ackerman covers the General McChrystal/Ambassador Eikenberry hearings today on Afghanistan.

A lot of must read stuff in there.

Update: More

Statement From Florida Democratic Senatorial Candidate Kendrick Meek On President Obama's Afghanistan Speech

From the press release:

"President Obama's strategic review and subsequent policy decision on Afghanistan puts us on a course for success that we lacked for many years. The decision to wage a second war in Iraq prevented the completion of the mission in Afghanistan. As a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly who has traveled to Afghanistan, I know that our mission will be completed with the help of our allies who are also shouldering the heavy burdens of war alongside our military, and these sacrifices and dangers are shared between all of our citizens. Our success will be realized when terrorists and their accomplices no longer view Afghanistan as a safe haven to plot murderous attacks on innocent civilians."

For Those Who Oppose A Timeline For Withdrawal

Even though President Obama didn't actually give a timeline for withdrawal last night (he instead gave a timetable for when we would START to withdraw our troops)plenty of people on the right and even the left today are taking shots at him for doing just that. I have seen a bunch of bullshit around the net from all sides about how this might help the Taliban by letting them know all they have to do is wait us out and I think its worth excerpting a part of President Obama speech from yesterday.

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.

All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. Going forward, I am committed to addressing these costs openly and honestly. Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly 30 billion dollars for the military this year, and I will work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.

But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.

No matter what we do in Afghanistan it can't be emphasized enough that we can not just keep spending all this money for that war with no real way to pay for it. There are some jack asses who think we should cut domestic spending to pay for this war abroad. Exactly what kind of sense does that make? As President Obama said in that last line, we should ALL be more interested in building up America than we are about building up Afghanistan. Yeah I know we bombed the shit out of them and we can continue to give them aid. But don't act like they didn't have the option of handing over Bin Ladin and avoiding a lot of that. And rebuilding Afghanistan does not require our troops to be over there in harms way.

Now I for one have thoughts on how a time line might actually be beneficial in building momentum against the Taliban eventually but that is just my opinion and may or may not work out that way. But regardless of all that the one thing that is true is that we can't keep putting this war on a credit card. So unless these same hawks like John McCain who are against a withdrawal timeline are ready to impose a hefty tax increase to pay for these wars, please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up!

It might be nice if some of the outlets who rush to kiss McCain's ass every time there is a decision on foreign policy actually point out that he ALSO was against a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq and was wrong then too. But I know that is just wishful thinking...

President Obama Makes The Case For Escalation In Afghanistan

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That was a helluva speech from President Obama. Whether you agree or disagree with the escalation, at least he treated us like adults and explained the rationale. I was especially heartened to hear that we will start bringing troops home in 18 months.

The Case For The War Tax

Spencer Ackerman does the honors.

Here is the thing, its going to be awfully hard for President Obama and the Democrats to push an escalation in Afghanistan without a way to pay for it after they railed for years and years about President Bush and the Republicans doing the exact same thing in Iraq. If we can't pay for the escalation then, well, maybe we shouldn't be friggin doing it.

Something for folks to think about, especially those who CLAIM to give a shit about our deficit.

Do We Even Have 40 K Troops For Afghanistan???

Rachel Maddow hosts Spencer Ackerman to talk about how severely a troop increase will strain our troops worldwide.

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Spencer Breaks Some News

Want to know the latest on the Afghan strategy review by President Obama and his administration? Then check out this new piece by Spencer Ackerman about how Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, the deputy leader of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., are influencing the outcome.

Seriously, click the link dammit!

The Conundrum Of Afghanistan

Rachel Maddow hosted Matthew Hoh last night who recently resigned from the State Department over our plans for Afghanistan. His take on the situation was interesting to say the least.

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Sleeping With The Enemy?

Spencer Ackerman calls for congressional hearings into the revelations about Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a long suspected drug dealer, being on the CIA's payroll according to yesterday's New York Times piece.

CIA money funds a politically connected drug dealer. Opium funds the Taliban. We are in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. How much CIA money has indirectly funded the Taliban?

We definitely need to get some answers on this one.

Priorties

Another excellent post from Glenzilla about the Villager, in particular the Washington Post's, position that the deficit doesn't matter when talking about ramping up the war in Afghanistan but its a "major concern" when talking about health care reform.

The Appropriate Response

Gibby delivers some pretty sharp snark here to Dick Cheney and the members of the White House press corps trying to carry water for him.

Why Are People Surprised?

Dick Cheney is a loathsome, dishonest, war criminal who probably prays every day that we have a major failure in national security so that his policies will be vindicated or at least forgotten. I don't understand why people keep acting surprised at his irresponsible and unpatriotic speeches. The sooner we stop paying him any serious attention the sooner we can move on with fixing all the messes he helped to leave behind.

It is what it is.

Ho Sit Down

Senator John McCain stepped out of line in speaking to President Obama about Afghanistan and from all appearances he got smacked down for his trouble.

Somebody needs to clue this fool into the fact that he lost last fall.

More Context Needed

Spencer Ackerman provides some essential context to the New York Times story which implied a rift between President Obama and his General in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, over troop resources.

I revised and extended -- way extended -- some of the thoughts in this post over at the Washington Independent after John McCain's stunt to compel McChrystal to testify flopped. And I think they're worth recapitulating. The New York Times, I think, fucked this story up, even down to a slight misquotation.

While the Times quoted McChrystal saying, about his resource request, “I think if you don’t align the goals and the resources, you will have a significant problem. If we don’t do that, we will,” it left off the preceding part of his answer:

I think any decision to go forward will not just be based on resources, it will be based on what are our goals. And I know people are re-looking what our goals and objectives are and redefining and clarifying those, and I think that’s helpful. Once they do that, I think the resources, of course, are linked to that, because obviously you have to have a ways and means match. So, I don’t think that if we align our goals and our resources, we will have a significant problem. Our problem would be as — if we didn’t.

Still not convinced? Want another quote? OK: “This is a necessary process we go through so we come to a clear decision, and then move forward, and I think once we make that decision — once he makes that decision, in concert with our international partners — then I think we’ll be in a much stronger position.”

Or how about this? When asked if he would “circumvent” some caveats placed by European parliaments on the use of their troops, he said, “I’m certainly not going to circumvent any political leadership, because at the end of the day, political leadership and the people are who I work for, and I’m proud to do that. I think the more deliberations we have, the more debate we have, the healthier this is gonna be. Because at the end of the day, we would be in much worse shape to have a decision made without that level of public debate.” You listening, Karl? Because McChrystal rebuked your old boss, not his current one.

With this added context its hard to draw any conclusion other than the one Spencer has already come to in that the New York Times DEFINITELY fucked this up. The problem of course is that in this point in our history our mainstream media sucks to the point where instead of other outlets rushing to fact check the Times' story, they just picked it up and ran with it. I am sure the added dimension of having a "juicy" military versus the President story was also a part of the motivation. Spencer is actually doing a public service here by pointing out the fallacy of the premise of the meme which has now become almost conventional wisdom My hat is off to him for that but the work he is doing, while outstanding, should be the rule and not the exception. At the least it should be what other media outlets strive for but I see no evidence of that anymore.

George Stephanopolous Clowns Himself

George Stephanopolous is once again having John McCain on his show this weekend to criticize President Obama's Afghanistan policy. He has been getting his ass kicked all over the blogosphere and twitter for having that crotchety old bastart on again after he lost last year. In a response to Greg Sargent he said among other things that:

McCain is the leading GOP voice on Afghanistan.

One of the people who has taken shots at Stephanopolous, Steve Benen, gets at how bogus that is of an argument.

But there's no reason to assume that McCain is the "leading GOP voice on Afghanistan." Not only are there plenty of other Republicans who approach the issue with the same perspective, but McCain has never demonstrated any particular expertise on Afghanistan -- on the contrary, he has a record of confusion on the war. During the presidential campaign, for example, McCain was both for and against sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. His most noteworthy contribution to the debate was arguing in 2003 that "we may muddle through in Afghanistan," whatever that means.

If McCain is a "leading" voice on the conflict, it's only because the media keeps calling on him to talk about it. It's entirely self-fulfilling -- the media gives McCain the stage, and justifies the decision by pointing to how often he's on the stage.

But you see, Stephanopolous will never have to address his faulty logic behind inviting McCain on again. People will just assume that because McCain was a prisoner of war that he actually speaks for the Republicans on any military issue. The truth is there are some Republicans (probably for shady reasons) who are against sending more troops which McCain is decidedly for. And McCain was a leading voice on getting us into the war in Iraq. How he maintains any credibility on military issues says a lot about pundits like Stephanopolous.

Rachel Talks Afghanistan

I have been meaning to post on the pissing match that is going on right now between President Obama and his White House and the Pentagon over our strategy and resources in Afghanistan but I got side tracked. Spencer Ackerman has a bunch of great posts at his blog on it starting with this one, and Rachel Maddow did a great job talking through it last night with Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

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Let Him Go Home

Mohammed Jawad might be going home after a judge threw out most of the evidence against him because it was gleaned from torture.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday said that it's willing to send a young Guantanamo detainee home to Afghanistan after military and civilian judges banned almost all evidence against him as tainted by torture.

In a court filing, government attorneys, however, reserved the right to file new charges against Mohammed Jawad if they find evidence against him before he is released.

The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle to grant them 22 days to release Jawad — seven days to notify Congress of the release plans, as current law requires, and then 15 days till a cooling off period mandated by law expires.

If no new charges are filed during that time, the government said it would promptly release Jawad and send him back to Afghanistan. Huvelle, who earlier had scheduled a hearing for Thursday in the case, did not immediately rule on the request.

The Justice Department filing came as another federal judge in Washington ordered the release of Kuwaiti detainee after concluding that the government did not have enough evidence to continue to hold him.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Khalid al Mutairi should be released as soon as arrangements can be made for him to travel to a third country and congressional notification requirements have been met.

Kollar-Kotelly's full opinion was classified, but she ordered that an unclassified version be released in two days.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the department's handling of the Jawad case showed that the administration has “made a dramatic break with the policies of the past by rejecting the use of torture without exception or equivocation.”

“It is clear that, in addition to serving as a recruiting tool for terrorists, the status quo left behind by the previous administration at Guantanamo is legally unsustainable,” she said. “We are working to close Guantanamo and develop a new legal framework to govern detention policy that is grounded in the rule of law and will strengthen our national security."

I sincerely hope the Obama administration just gets the hell out of the way and lets this kid go home. Reports say he may have been as young as 12 when he was first picked up and he was put through torture, literally, just to incriminate himself. He didn't help stop any attacks or lead anybody to al Qaeda leadership. Its a shame that it even took this long for us to order his release. Its time to do the right thing and send him back to Afghanistan so we can truly start a new day in this country.

Update: It looks like he is going home after all!

A judge ruled today that one of the youngest detainees brought to Guantánamo Bay is being held illegally and must be released.

US district judge Ellen Huvelle's order does not end the case of Mohammed Jawad, however. Deputy assistant attorney general Ian Gershengorn told the judge that as the United States negotiates with the detainee's home country of Afghanistan for his return next month, the US justice department also is pursuing a criminal investigation.

Gershengorn said Eric Holder, the US attorney general, has not yet decided whether to indict Jawad, who allegedly threw a grenade that wounded two US soldiers and their interpreter in December 2002. That means it's possible he could be brought to the United States for a criminal trial.

Huvelle said she had no authority to prevent an indictment, but she encouraged prosecutors to think hard about problems with the case, including Jawad's mental competency to stand trial and the fact that he's already been incarcerated for six and a half years. "After this horrible, long, tortured history, I hope the government will succeed in getting him back home," she said. "Enough has been imposed on this young man to date."

Huvelle gave the government three weeks to fulfil legal requirements to report to Congress about any national security risks and diplomatic agreements for Jawad's release. She ordered the government to report back to her by 24 August and said she hoped by then he was on a trans-Atlantic flight.

Finally The Truth About KBR Is Exposed.

Senator Byron Dorgan has posted about the investigation into KBR and their shitty work in Iraq that led to the death of several of our servicemen over at firedoglake.

There’s a new and damning report (PDF) from the Department of Defense Inspector General on its investigation into the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth. The report concludes that Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death was the result of shoddy electrical work, electrical work performed by U.S. military contractor KBR.

It also concludes that the Army failed to properly oversee KBR’s work, allowing the danger to U.S. troops from KBR’s work to continue and persist not only on Ryan Maseth’s base, but throughout Iraq (PDF) and Afghanistan (PDF).

Up to now, KBR has denied any link between its work and the electric shocks and electrocutions of soldiers on U.S. Army bases in Iraq. This report should make it impossible for the company to continue to deny the facts.

snip

Staff Sgt. Maseth was a 24-year-old Green Beret from Pennsylvania. In January 2008, he was electrocuted as he showered in his barracks on a U.S. military base in Iraq. The Army first told his family that he died because he took an electrical appliance into the shower. His courageous mother, Cheryl Harris, rejected that explanation.

Mrs. Harris appeared at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing I chaired on July 11, 2008 as we investigated shoddy electrical work by KBR in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also heard from whistleblowers that day, some of them former KBR employees who had first-hand, on site experience with KBR’s electrical work. We found evidence of widespread failure by KBR to take even the most basic steps to ensure its electrical work was safe. Whistleblowers told us KBR routinely hired non-electricians to perform electrical work, and that non-electricians were routinely hired to supervise their work.

They told us that even the most basic work – proper grounding, for example – was either not done at all, or performed so haphazardly it was a clear, obvious and immediate danger.
Meanwhile, KBR continued to deny any connection between its electrical work and the electrical shocks and even deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army continued to churn out excuses like the one initially given to Cheryl Harris.

Following the hearing, I immediately asked for a complete review of KBR’s electrical work in Iraq and Afghanistan and for a new investigation into Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death.

The results are now in.

The Inspector General concludes that KBR failed to ground equipment which contributed to the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Maseth. The IG also found that KBR failed to: employ personnel with adequate electrical training and expertise; report improperly grounded equipment the company had identified; and perform its work in the ‘skillful and workmanlike manner’ required by the contract.

The IG also reports that prior to Sgt. Maseth’s electrocution, there were 230 incidents of electric shocks in KBR-maintained facilities in Iraq from September 2006 to July 2008 – far more than should have necessary to alert KBR or Army officials that there was a major problem that needed urgent attention.

According to the IG, KBR’s shoddy and dangerous electrical work is a widespread, not isolated, problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Inspector General reports that so far, that review has found more than 53,000 sites at U.S. Army bases in those countries that needed urgent, major repairs.

snip

It is astounding that KBR continues to receive contracts for work in Iraq. Its many failures are now obvious, massive and cover a wide-range of activities.

It is unbelievable that KBR actually received an $83.4 million bonus for its contract for electrical work in Iraq, even though according to the Department of Defense’sInspector General, KBR’s work endangered and even killed U.S. troops.

I am renewing my call for the Pentagon to recoup the $83.4 million in bonuses paid to KBR under LOGCAP III Task Order 139 for its shoddy electrical work.

I also want to know what the Army is doing to improve its selection and oversight of military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The safety and very lives of U.S. soldiers depends on prompt, corrective action

I certainly hope that KBR is both made to pay the bonus money back and never given another contract from our government. And maybe even someone should be held criminally accountable for negligence.