McChrystal calls Marjah a 'bleeding ulcer' in Afghan campaign

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

McChrystal calls Marjah a 'bleeding ulcer' in Afghan campaign
By Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers 1 hr 7 mins ago

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top allied military commander in Afghanistan , sat gazing at maps of Marjah as a Marine battalion commander asked him for more time to oust Taliban fighters from a longtime stronghold in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province.

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The operation in Marjah is supposed to be the first blow in a decisive campaign to oust the Taliban from their spiritual homeland in adjacent Kandahar province, one that McChrystal had hoped would bring security and stability to Marjah and begin to convey an "irreversible sense of momentum" in the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan .

Instead, a tour last week of Marjah and the nearby Nad Ali district, during which McClatchy had rare access to meetings between McChrystal and top Western strategists, drove home the hard fact that President Barack Obama's plan to begin pulling American troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011 is colliding with the realities of the war.

There aren't enough U.S. and Afghan forces to provide the security that's needed to win the loyalty of wary locals. The Taliban have beheaded Afghans who cooperate with foreigners in a creeping intimidation campaign. The Afghan government hasn't dispatched enough local administrators or trained police to establish credible governance, and now the Taliban have begun their anticipated spring offensive.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100524/wl_mcclatchy/3514840

Currently, we are moving on to Kandahar to repeat these results.

I was just informed yesterday that the war is going well. Bleeding ulcers are typically incompatible with general well-being:--"fucks with your little worldview, doesn't it?"

Edited to remove the rest, not worth bothering.

There's no unity of purpose. There never was an end-game strategy. This 'war' has strange similarities to the BP oil spill....it shows a complete lack of vision. A disregard for contingencies. In-fighting and denunciations. All the hallmarks of a shit-storm in the mountains. If the little prototype strategy that was Marjah is failing, I fear the worst when American stubbornness bulls its way into the Kandahar region. Flail on brave Stanley. Flail on.

McChrystal Strategy Shifts to Raids - and Wali Karzai

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, May 24 (IPS) - Gen. Stanley McChrystal's team once talked openly about the need to remove Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and the most powerful man in Kandahar, from power.

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But by the end of March, Dexter Filkins was reporting in the New York Times that U.S. officials had decided that Wali Karzai "will be allowed to stay in place".

That complete reversal on Karzai was the result of a decision by the U.S. military to deemphasise the much-touted promise of governance reform in the Kandahar operation and focus instead on Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids targeted against suspected Taliban leaders living in Kandahar City - operations for which McChrystal needs intelligence being provided by Karzai.

McChrystal's shift in emphasis toward the targeted raids against the Taliban was undoubtedly accelerated by the message from the Barack Obama administration in March that he had to demonstrate progress in his counterinsurgency strategy by the end of December 2010 rather than the mid-2011 deadline for beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

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Karzai is widely believed to have used raids by security forces under his control to target a number of tribal opponents, according to the Institute's study. Karzai is deeply engaged in intervening in tribal politics across the province, creating new alliances and making new enemies, the analysis said.

The reaffirmation of ties between the U.S. and Karzai ensures that the whole military effort in the province is locked into Karzai's political strategy for maintaining his grip on power. But McChrystal, the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and Afghanistan, has made it clear he is ready to sacrifice the possibility for political change in order to be able to do what he does best.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51566

Posted on Wed, May. 26, 2010
U.S. military criticizes McClatchy story on McChrystal in Marjah

last updated: May 26, 2010 07:19:25 PM

WASHINGTON — The NATO International Security Assistance Force has criticized the headline on McClatchy's report Monday from Marjah, Afghanistan, "McChrystal calls Marjah a 'bleeding ulcer’ in Afghan campaign," as mischaracterizing the remarks of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of ISAF forces in Afghanistan.

Here's the full text of its e-mail Tuesday, addressed to Mark Seibel, McClatchy managing editor, online, and the response by Roy Gutman, McClatchy foreign editor:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/26/94881/us-military-criticizes-mcclatchy.html