It’s Enough to Make Me Long For the Days of Strategery
Obama’s Red Queen strategy first-resources later statement that I excoriated last week was not a mistake, a slip of the tongue. It is official administration policy:
The White House says it wants to review the entire strategy for the region before considering McChrystal’s request.
“Right now the focus is on the strategic assessment itself. It (the troop request) will be shelved until such time that the White House is ready,” a defense official said in Washington.
“It is not going to be addressed, or reviewed, or analyzed until the White House is ready to begin discussing it.”
Only a strategic boob, oaf, or knave–or somebody who just doesn’t give a damn–would say something so cosmically stupid.
Again: you cannot disconnect strategic decisions from considerations regarding the resources required to implement available alternatives. No how, no way. It is a logical impossibility. The “strategic assessment itself” does not reside in some vacuum, some clean room, isolated from messy realities about resources and costs. Strategy is all about trade-offs involving objectives and costs.
Read that last sentence again. The administration will not address, review, or analyze the request for resources to implement a strategic plan the administration allegedly approved in March until it completes a new strategic review. How can you possibly give something a “complete review” when you leave out a critical component of that review?
Mental image: Obama and his security team (heaven help us), with their fingers in their ears, yelling “I can’t hear you!”
The amazing thing is that the administration apparently thinks that this is a convincing story. Are they that stupid, or do they think we are?
Sadly, I think the answer to that last question is: “Both.”
Every day that passes I feel better about not voting for Obama. On the other hand, I see little in the way of buyers’ remorse from those who did vote for Obama.
Comment by Fred — September 27, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
Like the strategery of paying for aggressive wars by taking on debt during a false economic boom?
Comment by poluchi fashist granatu — September 27, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
Paying for Putin-mafias aggressive wars.
The neo-Stalinist poluchi fashist granatu are very happy about Putin-mafis wars ?
I think Saakashvili gave a very good speech i UN , he touched upon extermination of the Chechen people and how Russians have killed thousands of innocent civilians including women and children.
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=21504
( Those who unleashed war in my region and led ethnic cleansing campaigns in my country – said yesterday in this very hall, from this very rostrum – that they had to do it, I quote, “to implement the principle of indivisibility of security” – in order to, “step over the legacy of the past era”. La langue de bois – very classical la langue de bois from old times.
The only thing that they stepped over was our sovereign border.
They said they had to do it… as their predecessors had to invade Poland in 1939, Finland in 1940, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979.
And they had to erase a capital of 400,000 inhabitants – Grozny, to destroy and exterminate the proud Chechen nation and kill tens of thousands of innocent women and children. )
I think this is important, since Chechen people have been given very little to almost no voice in the UN. And lastly of course the bloody, unlawful Russian occupation of Abkhazia and Ossetia still continues as Saakashvili pointed out. also half a million Georgians remain displaced because of it. Abkhazia is a nation built on upon killing and some of the worst atrocities of the late 20th century were committed against Georgians there. i hope that the world will not once again turn a blind eye to this bloody, terrible occupation and will start doing something about it.
I think Poland in 1939, Finland in 1940, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979 says it all. The europeans have no leverage due to the EU-system of organizing things. And France, Germany and Italy is obviously willing to sacrifice Georgia for closer ties with russia. I didn’t hear much from those nations either during the extermination of the population in Grozny.
Comment by Peter — September 27, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
Every day that passes I feel better not having voted for Obama OR McCain. Beck is right, at the very least, McCain might be just as bad. If we’d elected him we might be at war with Iran and nearly at war with Russia on top of our economic problems. McCain voted for the bailout and is more or less a RINO.
Comment by Steve J. Nelson — September 28, 2009 @ 12:53 am
Every day that passes Steve J. Nelson feel better having voted for som bloody despot.
I am Very disappointed by fools like Steve J. Nelson.
I did some research and my friend from Germany a historian reminded me that it was Eduard Shevardnadze a Georgian who did all the dirty political work and made the German unification possible.
I have asked the same thing in Russia and they said that was the truth and that they where still pissed at Georgians and Shevardnadze because of this “mistake†and this was also a part why they wanted to punish Georgians all the way from 1991… Yet Germany was a country that has blocked Georgians from NATO in Bucharest, turning a green light for a Putins Nazi invasion! Shame on the Germans and shame on the neo-nazis useful idiots like Steve J. Nelson who start blaming Georgia for Oil and Gas money .
An explosion occurred on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in eastern Turkey late Aug. 5.
The non-person Steve J. Nelson (PKK or Ergenekon )and the proxys of the Putin-mafia .
PKK also has a desire to make a strong comeback after spending the last several months under pressure from Turkish forces, and striking the BTC pipeline would certainly be a coup for the group. The PKK also might look to its former allies in Moscow for support at a time when Russia is seizing upon every opportunity to use energy resources to apply political pressure on Europe.
The PKK is not the only group in Turkey with a motive to target the BTC pipeline. Ergenekon, a shadowy, staunchly secular and nationalist organization that is believed to have ties with Turkey’s “deep state†security apparatus, has a running agenda to enflame the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and plunge the ruling government into chaos.
Comment by Peter — September 28, 2009 @ 4:05 am
SWP’s nightmare II
Comment by poluchi fashist granatu — September 28, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Sublime fascist granatu ’s nightmare III
http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2009/09/do_not_awake_the_partisans_of_belarus_mr_medvedev.htm#comment-5323
Comment by Sublime Bastard — September 28, 2009 @ 2:47 pm
The Steve J is an American citizen living in Brighton Beach. He does not vote in Russian elections. Peter and SB are just part of the La Russo troll swarm.
Comment by Steve J. Nelson — September 28, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
La Putotroll Exposed
Steve J. Nelson is not using his real name, but collecting bits and pieces from others. For a real person using their real name to wrestle with a cartoon character attacking them online is to give in to the rule of trolls.
Trolls are not living in Brighton Beach and they ( Steve J. Nelson )can play a role as the Putin-mafias useful idiot without voting in Russian elections
Comment by Sublime Bastard — September 28, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
The Putin-mafia Steve J is an American citizen living in Brighton Beach
The shrewdness of the new Russian immigrants has a dark side. While the vast majority are law-abiding, a few continue to maneuver as if they’re still in Odessa, a Ukranian port city known for its gangsters, con men, and thriving black market. Indeed, the Soviet authorities encouraged gangsterism in the New World, by allowing some career criminals to emigrate as Jewish refuseniks and limiting the amount of money émigrés could take out of the country. “We could bring only five rubles,†Lobas remembers. “So everybody [smuggled] things to sell abroad—cans of caviar, gold, small diamonds, whatever.â€
In Brighton Beach, members of Organizatsiya, the so-called Russian Mafia, sell phony driver’s licenses, credit cards, gold coins, food stamps, and Social Security cards. They engage in a variety of swindles, mostly victimizing their fellow Russians. For example, counterfeiters are known to approach aspiring entrepreneurs with two legitimate $100 bills and the challenge, “I bet you can’t tell which of these is fake.†When the victim admits that he cannot, he is sold on purchasing a hundred amateurishly printed counterfeits for the “special rate†of $18 a bill. In another scam, a gangster will take over a gas station and immediately put it up for sale. The buyer is shown fake tax forms and ledger books, suggesting that business is booming. After making a $70,000 down payment, the victim discovers that he can’t cover expenses, and the mobster reclaims the business and again advertises its availability.
http://www.city-journal.org/article02.php?aid=1542
Comment by Oleg — September 28, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
Yes Oleg, every child of Russian immigrants in New York is Red mafiya…LOL. And every old fart Cold Warrior or Russophobe is paid by the CIA…
Apparently Oleg doesn’t know what the term “troll” means or why someone would create an anti-troll troll. While I’ve poked some fun at the Professor, I don’t hide behind anonymity to smear others, unlike La Russophobe. And I have no idea what the Steve J. has to do with Turkey, other than planning his next vacation there.
Comment by Steve J. Nelson — September 29, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
Njet anti-troll troll Steve , every child of Russian immigrants in New York is not Red mafiya .
And every old fart Cold Warrior Putin supporter Red mafia son of a bitch is not paid by the FSB .
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=2617#comment-70039
I am more interested in understanding why anti-troll troll Steve is not woting in USA ?
If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it is a rat.
Comment by Oleg — September 29, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
Whether Steve J. lives in Brighton Beach or Texas can be easily verified by the IP address from his Comments. It’s quite obvious to all that Steve J. sounds more like Charles Ganske from Russia Blog than Yuri Mamchar with his native english skills. Looks like the anti-troll troll Steve J. (er… Charles) has started to become confused by all the pseudo biographical details he wants us to believe. Rat, indeed!!!
Comment by La Russophobe — September 29, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
“It’s Enough to Make Me Long For the Days of Strategery”
A quick search of SWP shows no criticism at all of the “Strategery”. Ever. To the extent that there’s criticism of a politician, it’s directed at Obama, even before the elections last November.
So, the Shrub Administration can bring things in Afghanistan to the point where Our Side is clearly losing, and SWP breathes not a word of criticism of the Shrub Administration strategery. But even before Obama is even elected, SWP is all over him for his approach to Afghanistan.
Looks to me like SWP trades in politicized spleen-venting rather than actual analysis. Good to know.
Comment by rkka — October 4, 2009 @ 8:18 pm