Posted by
Always To The Right on Thursday, October 08, 2009 3:22:41 PM
If nothing up to this point convinced people of the amateurish and bungling nature of Barack Obama and his administration, this Washington Post story
makes the case all by itself. For two years, Obama campaigned on
changing the strategy in Afghanistan to a more effective
counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, claiming that the Bush
administration had dropped the ball in the Af-Pak theater in large part
by not committing the resources needed for an effective battle plan (an
assessment shared by John McCain). On taking office, Obama quickly
increased troop levels in Afghanistan and appointed COIN strategist
Gen. Stanley McChrystal to lead the mission.
However, the Post reports that Obama and his team never understood
the implications of his demand for the new strategy. McChrystal’s
assessment of the needs for his COIN plan sent them into “sticker
shock,” according to one Post source in the White House