Ray McGovern: Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/27

Published on Friday, August 27, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan

by Ray McGovern

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference Tuesday to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.

<snip>

Obama tried to have it both ways, giving the hawks in his administration the escalation they wanted while offering the doves in his political base a fixed date for beginning a troop withdrawal. Such cleverness can work sometimes in politics, but it won't work in a difficult war like the one in Afghanistan.

However much Obama may have resented it, by last fall he had to admit to himself that he had been thoroughly outmaneuvered by high-profile generals. Take McChrystal, for example, who was well known to have run special operations assassination squads for five years in Iraq under the aegis of Vice President Dick Cheney. McChrystal also demonstrably lied about who killed football-star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

And yet, Obama couldn't say no, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon's most famous "water-walker," Gen. Petraeus, told the President to put McChrystal in charge of the war in Afghanistan.




..more..

[seafan]

1. Seymour Hersh and Ray McGovern agree.

Seymour Hersh: Army is “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in.”, October, 2009


Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for nearly 30 years, agrees.



While America burns down.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Fire Conway!!