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| Afghanistan |
| Defense shuffle: U.S. set to name new Afghanistan commanders |
| 2011-04-02 |
| David Petraeus, perhaps the most celebrated American general of his generation, is likely to leave his job as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan this summer, multiple defense officials say. Petraeus, who stepped into the post last summer after President Barack Obama fired Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal for comments his aides made to Rolling Stone magazine, is likely to be succeeded by Deputy CENTCOM commander, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen, defense sources told The Envoy. Meantime, the deputy U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, was nominated this week for a fourth star and to take charge of Army Force Command, moving to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. He is likely to be succeeded in Afghanistan by Lt. Gen. Curtis "Mike" Scaparrotti, currently commander of the I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in Washington State, defense sources said. |
| Posted by:Zebulon Thranter9685 |
| #5 A thought, Besoeker, as I continue to ponder the issue: are the riots and murders (mostly of Afghans by other Afghans, as far as I can tell from this Reuters article, which is well worth reading) exclusively a Pashtun affair, or are are the Tajiks and such also running amok, incited by their imams and President Karzai? How we understand this depends on whether it is only the Pashtuns who are a millennium behind the rest of the world, culturally, or all Afghans. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-04-02 17:05 |
| #4 These buggers are rioting like crazy over here. Something about a holy book being torched. That'd be that Rev. Jones in Florida, Besoeker, the one President Obama persuaded not to burn a Qoran some months ago. He and his little congregation held a trial a few weeks ago, and voted that the punishment should be ceremonial burning instead of dumping in a rubbish bin. Apparently President Karzai decided to make this his "Mohammed cartoons" moment, and announced his outrage the other day. It seems to me that General Napier's response to complaints about the prohibition of the local custom of suttee is appropriate: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; [then] beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours." It is, after all, because guests of the Afghans followed their custom of jihad against unbelievers that we followed the American custom of conquering those who threaten us... and now we are engaging in another American custom, of rebuilding those we had to conquer to get the message across. If we have not got across the message that they don't get to try to make us submit to their rules, then perhaps we need to go back to our first custom and engage in another round of conquering until they give it up. Because clearly, staying quietly at home, as we did before 9/11, doesn't work. (Yes, Besoeker, I know it's easy for me to say. But then, if it were up to me, the ROEs would be very, very different.) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-04-02 15:37 |
| #3 Gotta find a moderate Mooslim US Army General, or or order one converted. These buggers are rioting like crazy over here. Something about a holy book being torched. These ignorant phuechs deserve the Taliban. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2011-04-02 10:10 |
| #2 The rank will have to be Czar since commissioned officer appointments require an act of Congress [another little legacy of the English experience with Cromwell carried over to the Constitution]. Not that these people seem to have an issue with ignoring the Constitution, but there's that little thingy in the small print about obeying 'legal orders'. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-04-02 09:55 |
| #1 Maybe Obama will commission, then appoint one of his radical buddies to be commanding general. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-04-02 09:00 |