Why is Gates Delaying Troop Request?

Afghan Troop Request Simmers

By Yochi J. Dreazen
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, is expected to formally ask the Pentagon for up to 40,000 additional U.S. troops this weekend, military officials said, despite a plan to delay the request.

Gen. McChrystal has held off on the request for several weeks at the! direction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon's civilian leadership, while the Obama administration conducts a broad reassessment of its strategy in Afghanistan.

Aides to Mr. Gates say the defense chief won't forward the request to the White House until that review has been completed -- and if its conclusion is to maintain the current war strategy.

On Friday, Gen. McChrystal flew to Germany to deliver a briefing on the request to Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other senior military commanders.

Adm. Mullen, the nation's top military officer, requested the half-day meeting at an American base at Ramstein, "to gain a better understanding of the pending resource requirements," according to a military official familiar with the meeting. "He wanted to talk about it face to face with Gen. McChrystal, to really hear him out."

Another military! official said Gen. McChrystal used the session to detail the numbers of additional troops he wants and his overall plans for using them to beat back the resurgent Taliban.

Military officials familiar with the matter say Gen. McChrystal's written report lays out several options for additional forces, including one that would ask for more than 40,000 reinforcements. About 65,000 American troops are now in Afghanistan, the most since the war began in 2001.

It is far from clear that Gen. McChrystal will get the additional troops, which the commander says are vital to turning around the flagging U.S.-led war.

The Obama administration announced a new Afghanistan strategy in March that focused on protecting Afghan civilians from Taliban attack rather than hunting individual militants. It is now weighing whether to modify or jettison that approach in the wake of a lingering controversy over the country's flawed presidential elections and a wave of Taliban violence.

Gen. McChrystal also faces hurdles in Congress, where many Dem! ocrats have expressed resistance to a troop increase and have been pressing for an exit strategy.

Five U.S. troops were killed in volatile southern Afghanistan Thursday, part of a surge of American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troop fatalities that is sapping public support for the war in the U.S. and Europe.

Thursday's casualties pushed the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan to 218 this year, including 36 this month, a sharp increase over last year's record toll of 155. Britain, which maintains the second-largest troop contingent, has lost 80 soldiers this year.

In a sign of the growing doubts about the war on both sides of the Atlantic, a British military commander who had led its forces in Afghanistan resigned suddenly after reportedly accusing the government of failing to provide its troops with the proper protective equipment and vehicles.

Maj. Gen. Andrew Mackay, who led the British forces in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province in 200! 7 and 2008, submitted his resignation Thursday. An American officer wh o served with him in Afghanistan said Gen. Mackay had come to believe British troops there were being exposed to unnecessary risk.

Osama bin Laden, the fugitive head of al Qaeda, apparently sought to seize on the war's unpopularity in Europe by releasing a recording Friday demanding that European nations withdraw troops and threatening attacks against European targets. U.S. officials said they believed the recording to be authentic.

The five-minute monologue by the terrorist mastermind made specific mention of a recent airstrike ordered by German forces and was part of a video that featured German subtitles, a still photo of Mr. bin Laden and a map of Europe.

New Marine Recruiting Program Begins Tomorrow !

QUANTICO, Va. (September 18, 2009) – The United States Marine Corps is launching a new multimedia campaign, America’s Few, to challenge America’s youth to prove they have what it takes to become a Marine.

The America’s Few campaign includes national TV, print and online advertising, in addition to digital mall signage, in-school TV, and social media websites. The TV advertisement airs on Saturday, September 19, during the University of Florida vs. University of Tennessee college football game on CBS at 3:30 p.m. ET. The TV advertisement will air again on September 20 during the NFL Today Show at 12:00 p.m. ET and again during the NFL Regional and National football games. The TV advertisement will also run September 21 on ESPN during Monday Night Football’s coverage of the Indianapolis Colts vs. Miami Dolphins game at 8:30 p.m. ET.

The Marine Corps aims to recruit the best in each generation, focusing on young Americans who hear the call to become a Marine and decide to make the life-changing decision to answer it. The America’s Few campaign features three Marines who answered that call and earned the title Marine after completing the most demanding recruit training our nation offers. The three Marines, LCpl Oscar Franquez, Jr. of Canyon Country, Calif., LCpl Benjamin Lee of Tulsa, Okla., and LCpl Martin McCallum of Freeport, N.Y., are all members of the USMC Silent Drill Platoon, based at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C.

“The calling to become a United States Marine has always been answered by the best and brightest of each generation,” said Major General Robert E. Milstead, Jr., Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruiting Command.

The America’s Few campaign comes at a juncture when the Marine Corps is focusing not only on enlistment numbers, but on the quality of new Marine recruits when more and more young men and women are considering military service as an option.
“There is only one reason to put yourself through the toughest 12 weeks of your life – and that is to become a United States Marine,” said LCpl Franquez. “Becoming a Marine has allowed me to defend my country and become part of a centuries old tradition of service and sacrifice.

For generations, the Marine Corps has taken young Americans who have answered the call and forged them into Marines through a time-tested crucible known as recruit training.

“Recruit training was the greatest challenge of my life,” said LCpl Lee. “Our title is earned, never given.

Marine Corps recruit training transforms the many into the few. It is an unwavering and relentless process that presents the ultimate challenge: an epic test of mind, body and character that molds our Nation’s greatest warriors.

“The training pushed me far beyond my perceived limits and inspired me to be my best. In the end, I demonstrated to myself and my family that I have what it takes to be a Marine,” said LCpl McCallum.

America’s Few is a prequel to America’s Marines, launched in January 2008, to strengthen America’s understanding of what the Marine Corps stands for. The America’s Marines campaign consisted of a nationwide tour, a new Web site and a TV advertisement that featured a symbolic line of Marines standing ready to defend our nation. It was filmed at iconic landmarks and picturesque small towns across the United States. America’s Few was filmed this summer at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., and on location at Point Judith, R.I.

Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace, Facebook

Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace, Facebook
Danger Room (Wired.com)
August 3, 2009

The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, effective immediately.

“These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,” reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday. “The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel… at an elevated risk of compromise.”

The Marines’ ban will last a year. It was drawn up in response to a late July warning from U.S. Strategic Command, which told the rest of the military it was considering a Defense Department-wide ban on the Web 2.0 sites, due to network security concerns. Scams, worms, and Trojans often spread unchecked throughout social media sites, passed along from one online friend to the next. “The mechanisms for social networking were never designed for security and filtering. They make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users,” a Stratcom source told Danger Room.

Yet many within the Pentagon’s highest ranks find value in the Web 2.0 tools. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has 4,000 followers on Twitter. The Department of Defense is getting ready to unveil a new home page, packed with social media tools. The Army recently ordered all U.S. bases to provide access to Facebook. Top generals now blog from the battlefield.

“OPSEC is paramount. We will have procedures in place to deal with that,” Price Floyd, the Pentagon’s newly-appointed social media czar, told Danger Room. “What we can’t do is let security concerns trump doing business. We have to do business… We need to be everywhere men and women in uniform are and the public is. If that’s MySpace and YouTube, that’s where we need to be, too.”

The Marines say they will issue waivers to the Web 2.0 blockade, if a “mission critical need” can be proven. And they will continue to allow access to the military’s internal “SNS-like services.” But for most members of the Corps, access to the real, public social networks is now shut off for the next year.