By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch, 27 May 2010
For the past several years Americans have been inundated by reams of journalistic puff pieces extolling the virtues of the new US Counterinsurgency (COIN) Strategy documented by General Petraeus in his much ballyhooed COIN manual — which for the most part was a merely regurgitation of the failed thinking of French Marshal Lyautey's ink spot strategy (that counterinsurgent forces should aim to secure an ever expanding geographic zone of security with each new area secured providing a basis for further spreading, and so on.)
It is becoming clear, however, the showpiece of this new strategy, the Marjah operation, has failed to deliver on the promised security improvements to the people, and in the words of the theater commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has become a “bleeding ulcer.”
Coupled with the deadlines imposed by President President Obama, when he approved McChrystal's ill-thought out plan last Fall, notwithstanding the cogent misgivings expressed by Ambassador Eikenberry, it is now clear that McChrystal is under mounting pressure to deliver some progress by the end of the year.
Indeed, hair may be on fire at McChrystal's Bagram headquarters. Rumors are circulating in military circles of backbiting and finger pointing, as well as complaints that MacChrystal is being set up as a fall guy, while his boss, General Petraeus, skates to a Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Phi Beta Iota: Worth a full read. That Petraeus should even think about a Presidential nomination is both a sign of the insanity that seems to prevail among the senior flag officer ranks of the Pentagon; and also a sign of the moral and intellectual decrepitude of the Republican Party. It is time for all eligible voters to break with the two-party tyranny and restore the Constitutional foundation for the Republic. It is time to cut the Pentagon budget in half, while building the four forces after next and redirecting the savings to creating peace and prosperity for all Americans, not just those sponsored by Wall Street banks and their corrupt cronies in Washingtom. It is time to get a grip on reality and to restore the centrality of truth to all government policies, programs, and budgets. It is time to refresh the tree of liberty.
