How To Lose A War….Micromanage It

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susanrice

Obama’s answer on how to win a war? Have Susan Rice and other non-military staff micromanage the whole thing:

Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army.

As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters will do when they return to Syria. Most of the rebels to be trained by the U.S. will never be sent to fight against ISIS.

Making matters worse, military officers and civilian Pentagon leaders tell The Daily Beast, is the ISIS war’s decision-making process, run by National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s been manic and obsessed with the tiniest of details. Officials talk of sudden and frequent meetings of the National Security Council and the so-called “Principals Committee” of top defense, intelligence, and foreign policy officials (an NSC and three PCs in one week this month); a barrage of questions from the NSC to the agencies that create mountains of paperwork for overworked staffers; and NSC insistence on deciding minor issues even at the operational level.

“We are getting a lot of micromanagement from the White House. Basic decisions that should take hours are taking days sometimes,” one senior defense official told The Daily Beast.

The result? Lets let Joint Chiefs chair General Martin Dempsey answer that:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/N-qzL4VMuek[/youtube]

Meanwhile the micromanaged war is failing miserably:

More than 1,000 foreign fighters are streaming into Syria each month, a rate that has so far been unchanged by airstrikes against the Islamic State and efforts by other countries to stem the flow of departures, according to U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

The magnitude of the ongoing migration suggests that the U.S.-led air campaign has neither deterred significant numbers of militants from traveling to the region nor triggered such outrage that even more are flocking to the fight because of American intervention.

“The flow of fighters making their way to Syria remains constant, so the overall number continues to rise,” a U.S. intelligence official said. U.S. officials cautioned, however, that there is a lag in the intelligence being examined by the CIA and other spy agencies, meaning it could be weeks before a change becomes apparent.

The trend line established over the past year would mean that the total number of foreign fighters in Syria exceeds 16,000, and the pace eclipses that of any comparable conflict in recent decades, including the 1980s war in Afghanistan.

In the end its all about politics with this group. Obama and pals don’t care if we degrade and destroy ISIS. All they care about is that it LOOKS like they are destroying them. And now they are even failing in that objective.

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When “senior pentagon officials ” give publicly state thei names or offer their resignations. I will believe it
“Senior pentagon officials” if uniformed. Are breaking military protocol and etiquette and are running close to insubordination for questioning the decisions made by the chain of command
Chatter like that gives aid and comfort to the enemy making the USA look divided
Shame on them!!!

Obama’s Watch: 90% of 20K Total U.S. Warriors Wounded in Afghanistan War

Overall, according to the Pentagon, 20,017 United State troops have been wounded in action (WIA) since Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) began 13 years ago today.

OEF is the official name of the Afghanistan war theater, which also involves military operations in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

Most, just about all, OEF-related activity has taken place in Afghanistan.

An estimated 90 percent of all the soldiers who have been wounded in the Afghanistan theater received their injuries after Obama was sworn into office for his first term on January 20, 2009.

Restrictive Rules of Engagement (ROA) in combination with other aspects of Obama’s military strategy have been accused of fueling a rise in fatalities and injuries in Afghanistan since the president took office.

The number of troops wounded in action has increased dramatically in the time that Obama has been president — from 2,701 during the eight years of the previous administration to 20,017 now.

@John:

When “senior pentagon officials ” give publicly state thei names or offer their resignations. I will believe it
“Senior pentagon officials” if uniformed. Are breaking military protocol and etiquette and are running close to insubordination for questioning the decisions made by the chain of command
Chatter like that gives aid and comfort to the enemy making the USA look divided
Shame on them!!!

Military people can abide stupidity for just so long. Many of them are historians of warfare and are well aware of how political interference in the conduct of a war is a sure way to lose that war. That was just one of the elements that did Hitler in.

Whether the military people say it out loud or not, John, it is no secret that we are squandering precious moments and opportunities to inflict severe harm on ISIS. Either that, or it is Obama’s grand scheme to allow as many radical militants as possible in the area so we can commit ground forces to round them up and annihilate them (NOTE: I doubt that is Obama’s plan).

I don’t know which is worse.
The US says it is fighting ISIS but is not aiming so as to win.
ISIS threatens the lives of foreign-born soldiers who wish to leave the battlefield before ”the Caliphate” is established.
There is no one holding the high ground here.

John is correct-the story is bovine fecal matter till we get names.

There is no honor any more in this nation. Just a pack of cowards who are more interested in their pensions than their oaths.

@Bill: Remember it was Johnson and McNamara that lost Viet Nam with their micro management. Leftist just can’t help themselves, they need to be in control.

What if obama wants the OTHER side to win? Does what he is doing make since then?

@Smorgasbord: Well, there IS THAT LITTLE DETAIL. But I doubt Little Barry is a student of war. Now Valerie, that evil bitch is. It’ll be interesting to learn how she gets instructions from Iran.

@Smorgasbord:

I don’t think he wants ISIS to win, I think the region wants ISIS to win. First of all, who is ISIS really targeting? The Jews, The Christians, The Kurds, The Syrian government, the Yazidis , various Shiite factions and Sunnis that support the Shiite Iraq government. These happen to be the group that the majority of Sunnis and many Shiites want dead. To do it, the Sunnis are transplanting terrorists (such as the PKK in Turkey) to fight the war on somebody else’s soil.

@UpChuck.Liberals: #8

But I doubt Little Barry is a student of war.

Keep in mind that obama is a marionette, and can’t do or say anything without the puppeteers pulling his strings, and he has many puppeteers. What is interesting is when he speaks without a speech, then his people have to tell us what he MEANT to say.

@Gregory_Dittman: #9
I admit that I can’t keep track of all that is going on in the middle east, but obama has said several times that ISIS isn’t Muslim. As I have mentioned different times, you defend the ones you want to win.

Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda.
Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) have surrendered to al-Qaeda.
For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles. …..
Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. …..
Harakat Hazm gave up their positions to Jabhat al-Nusra “without firing a shot”, and some of the men even defected to the jihadists. …..
For the United States, the weapons they supplied falling into the hands of al-Qaeda is a realisation of a nightmare. …..

Gee, who didn’t see this coming?

@John:

“Senior pentagon officials” if uniformed. Are breaking military protocol and etiquette and are running close to insubordination for questioning the decisions made by the chain of command
Chatter like that gives aid and comfort to the enemy making the USA look divided
Shame on them!!!

Except the ones that did it when Bush was president, right? Those guys were heroes.
Liberals….hypocrisy is thy name.