{"id":6258,"date":"2009-11-13T08:04:34","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T13:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=6258"},"modified":"2009-11-13T08:51:46","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T13:51:46","slug":"our-mcclellan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=6258","title":{"rendered":"Our McClellan"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the early years of the US Civil War, after some initial disasters, Lincoln appointed George McClellan as the commander of the Army of the Potomac (which was to the main front of the Civil War as CENTCOM is to the main front of the War On Man-Made Disaster<\/span> War On Terror today.<\/p>\n

McClellan was a popular general with a\u00a0long track record of military excellence, first as an engineer, then as a logistician – both of them vital jobs.\u00a0 He also did something very few other Union Generals managed to do in the early years of the Civil War – won some victories.\u00a0 His invasion of the Union-leaning parts of Virginia (which created what we call West Virginia today) was one of the very few successes the Union could point to in the early years of the war.<\/p>\n

And so Lincoln appointed him commander first of the Army of the Potomac,and then of the entire Union Army.<\/p>\n

He then spent his entire time in command “polishing the cannonball” – seeing to training and logistics (which were, to be fair, vitally important to the Union’s eventual success, in a long-term kind of way).\u00a0 But his actual job – engaging and defeating Robert E. Lee – was another matter altogether. Terrified of the consquences of defeat, he spent months dithering, seemingly avoiding battle, overestimating Lee’s force to the point where it paralyzed him.<\/p>\n

It came to a head at the Battle of Antietam, where Union forces stemmed Lee’s first attempt at invading the North.\u00a0 Indeed, they perched at the verge of defeating him…<\/p>\n

…but McClellan dithered again.\u00a0 The situation called for aggressiveness, for taking the battle to Lee.\u00a0 McClellan instead hesitated, afraid that Lee’s force was vastly larger than it really was.\u00a0 And so Lee escaped – turning what could have been a crushing defeat into\u00a0bloody tactical draw.<\/p>\n

Antietam has kept armchair generals busy for over a century, now.\u00a0\u00a0 But the lesson was fairly clear; there is a time to think, and a time to act.\u00a0 Exactly what <\/em>that time is isn’t always clear to theman on the ground, but it exists.<\/p>\n

President Obama’s decision not to decide yet on what to do in Afghanistan<\/a> is such a situation, and some people know it:<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s long decision-making process has led to accusations of \u201cdithering\u201d by his Republican opponents. The White House says the decision is too important to hurry, but the wait is causing growing exasperation in London and other European capitals.<\/p>\n

One British source said that the absence of a clear strategy from the US, the largest troop contributor in Afghanistan, is hampering the British Government\u2019s attempts to maintain public support for an increasingly unpopular conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that until we have some clarity from Obama, it\u2019s going to be hard for us to explain to people what we\u2019re doing there,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

Britain is urging Hamid Karzai to send more Afghan forces to Helmand province to support British troops there.<\/p>\n

Mr Karzai was returned for second term this week after an election widely agreed to have been flawed and corrupt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the Americans to have a clear message for Karzai about what he has to do, but that\u2019s just not there at the moment,\u201d said the British source.<\/p>\n

The private frustrations of British ministers and commanders were echoed by General Lord Guthrie, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, who said the American deliberations had brought the Afghan mission to a pivotal moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tipping point because of President Obama\u2019s delayed decision on whether to send more troops,\u201d Lord Guthrie said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McClellan was terrified of defeat; Obama is terrified of the political ramifications of defeat (on his watch) or pursuing victory (among his base).<\/p>\n

I’m no general.\u00a0 I’ve never even served in the military.\u00a0 But you don’t have to be <\/em>George Patton to read <\/em>George Patton; when your troops are in harm’s way, you either get them out <\/em>of harm’s way, or you commit to win the war. <\/em>You either do what it takes to make the sacrifice in blood and treasure worthwhile, or you get out of it.<\/p>\n

Bush did the former in Iraq – while the Administration botched the Iraq War from 2004 through 2006, he risked the political capital it took to win the war afterwards (allowing that defining “victory” in a counterinsurgency is a bit of a moving target – something that the American left has always had trouble with<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Obama’s definition of “win” seems to be a different thing altogether.<\/p>\n

The left is going to try <\/a>to spin this…:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for me to imagine the right calling Obama a coward over this, or an America-hater, or any one of the sundry attacks reserved for our President. But to me, this is Obama doing exactly what we hired him for\u2009\u2014\u2009weighing all of the options with a critical eye, and demanding that his advisors give him some outside-the-box\u00a0solutions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…as a sign of “intelligence”, as if second-guessing McChrystal for purely political reasons is a sign of military genius, or – as Jeff Rosenberg did above – paint Obama as a victim.<\/p>\n

But the real decision is fairly binary; win, or leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early years of the US Civil War, after some initial disasters, Lincoln appointed George McClellan as the commander of the Army of the Potomac (which was to the main front of the Civil War as CENTCOM is to the main front of the War On Man-Made Disaster War On Terror today. McClellan was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}