There is no question that the strategy Obama will layout tomorrow night will resound for years to come. I can tell you, without doubt, he is adopting COIN as the theater strategy. He has decided that preserving Afghan civilian lives is of paramount importance, so much so that he has lost sight of the fact that it is not in fact a strategy and that it is deadly to our own Warriors and his fellow citizens. COIN as a part of the urban portion of the overall operation is a no-brainer. Once inside the villages and cities of an occupied battle space, you need to exploit every advantage - terrain, materiel and human. There has never been an instance in our history when we have not considered all of those in the prosecution of a war. Narrowing your vision to one of these is a manifestation of a complete lack of understanding of warfare or its intent. It also suggests a twisted understanding of the responsibilities of the Presidency. Obama is not a 'world leader', rather he is the President of the United States and has sworn to defend these shores and our citizenry. He doesn't have the Constitutional or Moral right to choose to place sovereign American Warriors at the disposal of a foreign entity. They exist to preserve our freedom, property, life, existence. He clearly doesn't understand this and Congress clearly doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to hold him to task, or worse, they agree with him.
Giving General McChrystal the benefit of the doubt (and it hurts to do so), one has to assume he is only formulating a battle strategy that mirrors the 'commander's intent'. Even if that is the case, he is not exhonerated for he should possess the moral courage to tell the commander in chief that this plan places our sons and daughters - the best of their generation at unacceptable risk for an unreliable resource; the Afghan population. Let us remember they are Islamic and follow the Koranic mandate of Jihad. Jihad is a core tenet of the faith that requires war with the 'Infidel'. For those of you who have been asleep your entire lives, the Infidel is us. There are no 'friendly hearts and minds to win'. They are ideologically opposed to our sharing the earth with them. In an actual face to face, our only hope of a peaceful solution is submission to Allah. Short of that we are Dhimmi, or Dead.
It is time this once great country start acting like we had a right and duty to preserve ourselves from the forces that would destroy us. It is high time for the traitors in DC to repent and demand correct action from this country's commander in chief. It is time we showed the least amount of love and respect for our Warriors by allowing them at least timely Air and Artillery support, when requested - not 30 minutes after called for! Wake up!! http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/
John Bernard, 1stsgt, USMC ret.
