McChrystal's Distress Signals
Stan McChrystal is in a tough position. He is a results-oriented guy, a success-oriented individual who is not a whiner or a quitter. He is accustomed to being handed a difficult problem set and delivering success. But he is obviously sending out the signal that he is not being allowed to do everything it takes to deliver results in Afghanistan.
The press seems to enjoy comparing every single military adventure to quagmire in Vietnam, which includes when we were winning in Vietnam by every measurable standard. The stakes were high in Vietnam, and our withdrawal cost millions of lives and took a decade to recover from. The stakes are even higher in Afghanistan, because the threat is even more sinister than global communism, if such a thing is imaginable.
Afghanistan - and for that matter Vietnam - are both winnable wars. The philosophy of Stormbringer states that any war is winnable, just as any war is losable, and just when either side believes they've got it won is when they are both on the verge of losing.
Right after the Taliban spring offensive, earlier this year, we were informed that they had lost tens of thousands of fighters; they had essentially shot their wad. That has not changed. We have them beat, we have them on the run, and it is necessary to give them hot pursuit and defeat them on the battlefield. None other than the great military expert Barry Obama himself declared that we must invade Pakistan, if necessary.
I would say that General McChrystal is expressing frustration, and rightly so. He must be unfettered from artificial constraints and be allowed to win his war.