After telling McChrystal to “Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population”, the NSC staff were surprised he took it seriously. I kid you not.
Go read Ace’s post, and the WaPo‘s article.
Boggles the mind.
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And who says the WH administration is not literate. That little bit of depressing news could have been an updated version of 1984.
If you aren’t used to working with the military, I can see how easily this could happen. The Obama team clearly does not have the experience to have prevented the mis-communication or even to think about the Afghan war in the proper context. Until they got the chance to learn from a mistake, they were doomed to make that mistake. The really sad thing about this is that Mr. Obama’s National Security Adviser, James Jones, is a retired general. What’s the point of having military officers as advisers if they don’t actually guide you in your relationship with your serving generals? Did NSA Jones spend his military career on a college campus like the rest of Mr. Obama’s advisers?
It’s easy to chalk this up to a rookie mistake, claiming naivete yet again for our president. I hope Mr. Obama ratchets up the quality of his advisers.