Redstate

Are what they seem. I would like to know the source. Pace does not seem like the type who would do this, but the lefties need something because the deadline is looming. So Democrats can be expected to generate as much BS as they can to support surrender, it's what you expect from the Democrats and their drive by compatriots.

One of the many mistake I consider that has pledged this administration is bad advice from the JCS. I've been around too many good military leaders to know these guys were not leading by examples. Include past and present.

What do we really know based on the quotes from this article.

Pace is "expected" to advise Bush that keeping high levels of troops in Iraq for another year will put a strain on the military. Apparently this is to be privately delivered and not a public statement.

This is pretty slim factual pickins which is surrounded by all manner of negative connotation and speculation. We don't even know if it is true. And if it is, it seems a rather obvious obvservation.

All it tells me is that the Iraq Tet offensive has begun the in media.

P.

So a General gives advice to the President that he does not want to hear, based on the General's 30+ years serving on active duty of the armed forces of this country as a professional officer. That's what we pay him to do by the way, not be a political stooge of any elected politician, we don't do Military stooges in this country thank goodness, leave that to the French.

What's the reward for the 30+ years of service and speaking truth to power? Another term as CJCS, nope too hard, not enough political capital, too many awkward questions about Iraq will be asked. Cut him loose, push him aside.

No instead as a reward, could it be... do I hear the Whitehouse spindle staple fold and smear machine cranking up? Yes I think I hear that now. How disgusting.

Pace will tell the truth as he sees it, based on his 30 years of active duty service, that is his job. Pace has got nothing else to loose now that he's been cut loose by the "Decider In Chief".

_______________________________
None of the Above !

troops. It is critical that any reductions be seen to be this way.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

although, I do admit, it's catchy.

From my reading of the article excerpt above, I don't necessarily see this as a Petraeus VS Pace cage match.

Some observations:

1) GEN Petraeus commands the military forces in one theater of operations. Pace advises the President and the National Command Authority on how to handle ALL theaters worldwide. Their focii are different. Their jobs are the same in the following respects:
a) They both advise the President, propose different Courses of Action (COA), lay out the pros/cons of those COAs and answer the National Command Authority's questions.
b) Once the President picks a COA, they faithfully execute it.

2) Pace is talking about reducing US forces by half "next year." December 2008 counts as next year, and that's sixteen months away. A LOT can happen in 16 months. Plus, IIRC, Petraeus has left open the possibility of reducing US forces by then, assuming things go well enough.

3) I'm glad the JCS was skeptical about the surge plan, for it entails risks. We are surging an already overtapped and undermanned Army and Marine Corps. The only real fighting-worthy expeditionary divisions the free world has are ours. If we end up breaking them, there aren't any replacements in the near-term.

But, most any worthwhile combat plan entails SOME risk. If the President, as CINC, decided that it was worth risking the short/medium-term health of America's ground combat forces in order to win in Iraq, that's his call to make. And, while it's the duty of the JCS to point out the risks inherent in any COA, it's ultimately the commander's choice what risks he can afford to accept, and which ones he cannot.

General Pace is not being disloyal or undermining by pointing out the risks to President Bush of sustaining the Iraq surge past the spring of 2008. No, he's actually doing his duty. General Petraeus would not be picking a fight with the Pentagon by recommending sustaining the surge past the spring of 2008---even if he felt that would make it VERY hard for the US military to meet its obligations worldwide---if he felt that was the right thing to do for MNF-I. No, he's be doing his duty.

And, it would then be up to President Bush to do his duty, weigh the risks, choose which ones he could accept and which ones he couldn't, and act.

Seems to me that both Pace and Petraeus are doing their jobs. I'm not worried if the two disagree, because I'm confident that, in the end, President Bush will do his job.

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

Much of what is in the media and has been for the last few months as to plans by Bush to reduce troops etc are fantasies, hype, or as I like to say, lies, in service of the defeatist agenda.

Now appears a story in tomorrow's Washington Post, admitting that actually, after all, in reality, there are no plans to reduce troops or indeed to change the posture and makeup of our troops in Iraq before, during, or after the Petraeus report.

The sound you hear is many flatulent defeatist egos slowly deflating in the light of that pesky reality. Here's the story, headlined:

**No Big Shifts Planned After Report on Iraq
**White House Senses Recent Political Gains

"CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 24 -- Despite political pressure for a change of course in Iraq, the White House hopes to keep in place its existing military strategy and troop levels there after the mid-September report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, administration officials said.

Even as the administration faced a new call this week from Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a leading ally, to begin at least a symbolic withdrawal of troops by Christmas, White House officials said privately that they are not contemplating making major shifts before early next year. They said that next month's report is likely to highlight what they see as significant improvements in security over the past year and that they expect the president to assert that now is not the time to dramatically change approaches."

Right. So much for the WH planning troop cuts in the face of Levin, Warner, et al. Pace's alleged troop cuts are also bogus. Of course he is looking at troop levels -- that's his job.

One very interesting factoid in this piece -- well worth reading for the corrective info it presents -- is the following:

"...several (administration officials)said they have not heard even privately from Petraeus about the contents of his report. They said they expect the top U.S. commander in Iraq to give the White House some preliminary idea of his thinking sometime in the next week."

But, but -- how can this be? I have read many a post here on redstate (see above)(to say nothing of more fevered reaches of the blogosphere) confidently claiming to know exactly what Petraeus will say. These posts usually start out: "We know what Petraeus is going to say..."
to which my silent reaction has been "We do?"

Gosh, apparently the blogosphere is full of individuals who have heard from petraeus and know exactly what he is going to say, while this info has been witheld from the White House.

I suspect that the General, who understands what leadership entails far better than many of our pols, will keep much of his report to himself till he delivers it, thus ensuring maximum effect. I expect it will contain some surprises and quite a lot of drama and excitement.

If Gen. Pace is recommending a drawdown because of the strain on the US Military, that's an actual problem (blame it on Clinton's reduction of the armed forces if you want to) that needs to be solved -- we may have the "will" to complete the mission in Iraq (let's not delude ourselves by thinking that there exists such thing as victory in this case), but if we don't have the resources, well, it's reduce numbers or the draft, unless someone has a better idea for getting the public to support the war enough to fight in it. There's nothing pessimistic about that; perhaps in the opinion of Gen. Pace we will simply have more important things to worry about, like a broken military that is unprepared for possible disasters and attacks -- if any of America's enemies really want to destroy us, we'd be giving them a perfect window of opportunity if the current troop levels are actually too much. This is all hypothetical, of course, but as Gen. Pace is indeed high in the control of the US military, I think it would be a mistake to not trust his judgment if we can be sure that he has not been "politicized" by ideologies.

We have a non-invincible, finite military, along with actual, mistake-making humans leading it, and this combination may actually require a retreat, non-ideologically. I'm no military historian, but there have been many wars that have been "lost" not because the "losing" side didn't feel like fighting but because it physically couldn't continue the battle. A particularly silly example is the cession of Louisiana by Napoleon; as much as he had the "will" to keep it, realities told him that he didn't have the resources to secure it. And in an even sillier example, moving out too quickly in a game of Risk leaves you extremely vulnerable to a clean one-turn sweep, regardless of how much you want to win. I'm not saying we currently have this problem -- I'm not one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and do not have access to the knowledge and information required to make such a judgment -- but IF we do have this problem, all the complaining in the world won't unstretch the volunteer military corps.

This "victory" and "defeat" rhetoric is seriously clouding our perception of reality! Given that we're not actually at war with anyone, no army will kneel at our feet and give up their guns. We're nominally at war with an underground terrorist organization, as is clear from almost every singly candidate, called Al-Qaeda, and since that organization is underground, there's no way we can actually eradicate it, only make its potential threat negligible. Most of the people we're fighting, whom I don't even think we can call insurgents anymore, are not part of this particular terrorist organization, and they're either part of some other terrorist organization like the al Sadr militia or are just upset about losing their entire family. What's more, we're technically supposed to be fighting terrorism, not just one terrorist group. And no matter how much we try, hell, we can turn the whole world into the surveillance state of 1984, we'll still have someone somewhere mad enough to be plotting a terrorist activity. There is no "victory" possible, period. Again, no group of terrorists will throw down their weapons and submit to punitive treaties. Similarly, there is no "defeat", since we won't throw down our weapons to a set of "terrorists" because this is asymmetrical warfare; the "terrorists" are regular, radicalized people who can just fade back into the woodwork at will. We're fighting an ideology, not a nation. We can't eradicate them, and there's no way they could possibly eradicate us. There's no "victory" or "defeat" possible.

There are, however, mission objectives which can be accomplished or abandoned, and if we rewrite those objectives, we will never fail one. If it looks like one particular objective is impossibly out of reach, then we can strike that objective from the list -- it's not pessimism; it's realism. It's not defeat; it's rethinking our strategy. If we do not have the resources to accomplish one particular objective, it isn't "defeat" to suggest that we use our resources more effectively by accomplishing a different objective. WE CANNOT LOSE THIS WAR -- not that we SHOULDN'T, but that we actually CAN'T. We can only complete or not complete a list of objectives. There's no place for silly things like honor and glory in real affairs involving real people in real countries. We're not in this to win something; we're in this to bring peace back to a destroyed country, and if it's impossible without a draft, then there's nothing we can do about it without a draft.

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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan