Posted by
Corthell on Monday, November 30, 2009 5:52:49 PM
Alas, after nearly three months of military deliberations, our commander in chief is finally coming out of the closet with his Afghan strategy. But is his plan based more upon politics than national security?
In September, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested 40,000 additional troops on top of the 68,000 already there. This increase would allow the military flexibility to deploy 15,000 forces to the Taliban stronghold in the south, 5,000 to the eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for Afghan security forces. The other 10,000 would be deployed across the country in various overt and covert operations.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen suggested a plan deploying roughly 30,000 more forces. Vice President Joe Biden advocated a plan of only 10,000 to 15,000 more. And President Obama appears to be landing on roughly 30,000 more troops (with hopefully 10,000 more from the 41-country international alliance).
And one of the big questions that keeps coming to our minds is: How is it that Obama fast-tracks borrowing, bailouts or Obamacare, but he's slower than molasses when it comes to decisions like this one for the military, especially when he basically is returning to Gen. McChrystal's three-month-old request?
Some answer that military decisions are more complicated – more life and death at stake – and warrant the delay. But I genuinely believe Obama's nearly three-month delay reflects both his leadership deficiencies and a quandary that he cannot appease the left and simultaneously fulfill his campaign promise, "I will make the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban the top priority that it should be."
As I shared more than a year ago while Obama was still on the campaign trail, a professional leadership and personality profile was completed on him that revealed that he implodes when in jams that require quick or solo decisions under pressure. St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics in the Department of Psychology, did this test "for anticipating Obama's likely leadership style as chief executive, thereby providing a basis for inferring the character and tenor of a prospective Obama presidency." The study concluded:
The combination of Ambitious, Accommodating, and Outgoing patterns in Obama's profile suggests a confident conciliator personality composite. Leaders with this personality prototype, though self-assured and ambitious, are characteristically gracious, considerate, and benevolent. They are energetic, charming, and agreeable, with a special knack for settling differences, favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict. They are driven primarily by a need for achievement and also have strong affiliation needs, but a low need for power.
Did you catch the part, "favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict"? An "accommodating agreeable conciliator favoring compromise" type of personality might be good for mending relations, conveying the warm fuzzies and closing a used-car deal, but it is absolutely not a positive trait for a commander in chief. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=117449