Posts Tagged Secretary of Defense
The Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 – the Ghost that Keeps on Haunting the U.S.
Posted by Lance Haley in Media & Communication, Uncategorized, War in Afghanistan, foreign policy on December 11th, 2009
Where is the outrage?!?
If this blogs’ coverage of what happened in Tora Bora seems to be getting redundant, there will be no apologies. New information about the single worst foreign policy decision in American history is not something to sweep under the carpet when so many U.S. military soldiers have sacrificed their lives because of this blunder. The American press can ignore this . . . I refuse to let this go until someone is finally taken to the proverbial woodshed over this disaster.
And the hits on Dick Cheney’s credibility just keep on getting handed out on a silver platter . . .
Finally, after eight long years, somebody finally affirms what I have been saying all that time. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander of forces in Afghanistan, and the man who “urged the surge” that President Obama just accommodated, testified before Congress this week, stating that capturing Osama bin Laden is the lynchpin to defeating the al – Qaida terror network.
OK, one more time. Remember, Bush stood on the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center on 9/12, proclaiming through his bullhorn that ”the men who brought down these towers would be brought to justice”, and days later said he “wanted bin Laden, dead or alive.” Yet, it was Bush’s own Secretary of Defense – Donald Rumsfeld – who created the strategy that enabled bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora in December 2001.
Dick Cheney later downplayed the importance of capturing bin Laden in 2006, and his own outgoing Army Chief of Staff at the Pentagon, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, echoed that same sentiment in 2007, stating that “I don’t know that it’s all that important, frankly.” It should be noted that Shoomaker was previously the head of U.S. Special Operations Command – the unit that was searching for the previous six years for bin Laden after he escaped into the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Battle of Tora Bora. They never found him.
Finally, the biggest indictment of the failure of these men, and a rebuke of these impotent attempts to veil their incompetence by dismissing the primary objective of the U.S. military in Afghanistan , is the report by the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Before you blame this current Adminstration for ANYTHING that occurs in Afghanistan – have a nice fat plate of crow.
The War in Afghanistan could have been over – you know, “Mission Accomplished” – in December 2001. If it were not for so many lost U.S. lives, one could laugh at the irony. Now there will be more lives lost in pursuit of an objective that was within the grasp of our political and military leaders (I use the term loosely) eight years ago.
How pathetic and unconscionable.
Dick Cheney, I Have Been Patiently Waiting For This Day . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Uncategorized, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, foreign policy on October 22nd, 2009
Did you really just tell President Obama to stop “dithering”?
For years I have relished the day that Dick Cheney would step forward and comment about the war in Afghanistan – The Right War. You know, the war that was precipitated by 9/11 and the murder of approximately 3000 innocent Americans. The war that was declared as President Bush stood upon the rubble of the World Trade Center towers and emphatically stated that the men who tore those buildings down would be brought to justice (see post in screwedus.com – Sept 27, 2009, Conservatives have Audacity to be Critical of Obama regarding the War in Afghanistan?). The war that was “thrown under the bus” within a matter of months so you, Dick Cheney and Company, could go after those elusive WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Delusion, a.k.a OIL) in Iraq.
“Stop Dithering on Afghanistan Troops“? Really, Dick Cheney? “Dithering?”
You have a lot of audacity to criticize President Obama for giving careful consideration to send in more troops in a war YOU never finished eight years ago. Shame, Shame, Shame on you!
Let’s look at the facts:
You and your pathetic lackeys at the Pentagon had the opportunity in early December 2001 to finish the job in Tora Bora, and kill Osama bin Laden, as well as the remaining the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban. You know exactly what I am talking about. Operation Jawbreaker, led by CIA Operative Gary Berntsen. Rumors leaked out of the Pentagon that not only did you know about the decision by CentCom not to insert a team of American Special Forces at the top of that valley so bin Laden and the terrorists who orchestrated the attack on America could not escape, you were primarily responsible for making that decision “in order to limit American casualties”, along with Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense. But you failed to do so, because you did not know what you were doing. You never did.
And the U.S. lost the opportunity to kill bin Laden, and destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban eight years ago. Now that would have deserved the moniker of “Mission Accomplished”. But for you, in part, there would not be anymore than a modest U.S. military presence in Afghanistan today.
What a colossul failure.
All because you and your brethern, Dick Cheney, DITHERED in December 2001.
“In war, truth is the first casualty,”
– attributed to Greek writer/poet Aeschylus (525BC – 456BC).