Obama surpasses W...in rounds of golf played

[Para_Frog 1]

Awesome. Wasn't it Dr. K. who made fun of W for golfing while troops died? That was child's play.

Fore!

How about since you won't give us any help in Afghanistan, you get us the fuck out?

I would love to have a leader that can make a goddamn decision. Without focus grouping it for 2 months first.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[Amazon 7]

Quote

Awesome. Wasn't it Dr. K. who made fun of W for golfing while troops died? That was child's play.

Fore!

How about since you won't give us any help in Afghanistan, you get us the fuck out?

I would love to have a leader that can make a goddamn decision. Without focus grouping it for 2 months first.

DUUUUUDE get back to work.. you dont need distractions like this.

Obviously you don't know how much work actually gets done on the golf course.

So quit whining and go shoot somebody already.

[Para_Frog 1]

Are you kidding? I'm a staff weenie now - OF COURSE I DO!

Just pointing out a little hypocracy...ya know...like bible thumpers blowing alter boys that you point out.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[Amazon 7]

Ah so you play golf????

[kbordson 8]

Quote

Awesome. Wasn't it Dr. K. who made fun of W for golfing while troops died?

Nope. I did a search of all my posts with "golf" and there were only 5 (four in the bonfire and one in SC... none of those about former President Bush and golf)

24 rounds of golf in 10 months. That's only 2.4 rounds/month. I know that as a President that he's busy with much more important things to do, but so he takes 2.4 days to destress in nature. So what.

[Para_Frog 1]

Wow.

#1 - You're missing the point.

#2 - You suck at the search function. I found 2 pages. However - none were Dr. K. So you get a 5%.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[Amazon 7]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


DUDE.. its to early for this much fun...



eyes watering from laughter.

[Para_Frog 1]

Quote

Ah so you play golf????

You bet your ass. Poorly. But I drink well...and Patron on ice is like buttuh for my golf game.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[Para_Frog 1]

In this forum you're the wrong Dr K.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[wayneflorida 0]

Quote

Quote

Awesome. Wasn't it Dr. K. who made fun of W for golfing while troops died?

Nope. I did a search of all my posts with "golf" and there were only 5 (four in the bonfire and one in SC... none of those about former President Bush and golf)

24 rounds of golf in 10 months. That's only 2.4 rounds/month. I know that as a President that he's busy with much more important things to do, but so he takes 2.4 days to destress in nature. So what.

--------------------------------------------------------
9 months six days = 2.61 games per month.
Not to be picky

[Amazon 7]

Quote

Quote

Ah so you play golf????

You bet your ass. Poorly. But I drink well...and Patron on ice is like buttuh for my golf game.

I have not played in YEARS... When my mother married my stepfather it was expected that mom and I learn to play. I hated golf.... till I beat my stepbrothers consistently. It was fun rubbing their noses in it. There was no more pressure to go after I beat the old man a couple times

I found other more "interesting" distractions after that.

[kbordson 8]

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Wow.

#1 - You're missing the point.

#2 - You suck at the search function. I found 2 pages. However - none were Dr. K. So you get a 5%.

#1: What is your point? So he took 2.4 days off a month. Several of those were probably with visiting dignitaries. There are many things that he is doing that I don't agree with. This isn't one of them.

#2: I "suck" at search function?! Read above on my post again:

Quote

I did a search of all my posts with "golf" and there were only 5

all of MY POSTS... which means that in the section "Only show posts made by:" I put MY name. and there were only 5 posts where "golf" was mentioned. So... explain how I get a 5% and WTF that even means?

[kbordson 8]

Quote

In this forum you're the wrong Dr K.

Oh. Sorry.

Yes... he might have made that many (but it's not worth the effort to support or refute that argument) I only cared when I thought you were putting words in my mouth

But I still don't think that getting upset about his golf stats is worth it.

[Para_Frog 1]

Yeah, sorry for the confusion. You can't swing a dead cat wiothout hitting a last name K, (M.Ph.Psy.Ed)D in this crowd.

Point:
"Holy crap! W is GOLFING ALL THE TIME while Rome is burning! Oh my God he's terrible! Aaaaah! He's somehow killing babies and causing global warming that way!" - Liberals on this board, circa the last 8 years.

Obama has played as much golf as W did in 2.5 years in just 9 months. - Politico, today.

It would be nice to see the same folks bitch about it. Just makes me mad because, ahem, It would be nice to have a couple of brigades to help us play whack-a-mole...or ahem, get us the fuck out.

/Point

The fastest way to lose respect in my business is not fear, but an inability to make timely decisions.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[Amazon 7]

Fer chissake... get out of the staff position already and go get some trigger time... just for some stress relief.

[Andy9o8 0]

Amazing, since so many golf clubs don't admit people with abundant melanin. They must have been 9-hole rounds.

[Para_Frog 1]

They dragged me away from the line kicking and screaming...trust me. I held out 18 years!

THIS is what I call a waste of government resources -Harvey in the TOC.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member

[skinnay 0]

The only reason bush didn't play so much golf was because of the outrage after this in 02.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3p9y_OEAdc

He still found plenty of time to sit on his ass not playing golf, and guess what, every president will.

[rushmc 18]

Many would find this very understandable. When someone is a smart as Obama. And then they take the time to think soooooooo hard to make (politically) correct decisions that would benefit the troops and the country, he would NEED more time to relax that over worked brain of his.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

"Holy crap! W is GOLFING ALL THE TIME while Rome is burning! Oh my God he's terrible! Aaaaah! He's somehow killing babies and causing global warming that way!" - Liberals on this board, circa the last 8 years.

I don't recall the complaint being about golf in particular, but the larger question of how much time he spent at the Texas home.

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

Point: Just makes me mad because, ahem, It would be nice to have a couple of brigades to help us play whack-a-mole...or ahem, get us the fuck out.

/Point

The fastest way to lose respect in my business is not fear, but an inability to make timely decisions.

I’ve been thinking about/speculating on why Pres Obama has not announced, even if to reject, a response to recommendations included in GEN McChrystal’s report for a bit now, as I wrote in this post.
I don’t think it has to do with inability to make decisions, even if that is an opinion expressed, although I'm open to arguments to that end.

Since taking office, President Obama has made quite a few decisions regarding Afghanistan, e.g., authorizing increases in combat and support troops (>34k) since February; expanding targets to include major narco-traffickers, i.e., combatting what’s keeping the Taliban flush; authorizing increasing number of drone missions into Pakistan, something about which I have mixed opinions; and the change in leadership from GEN McKiernan to GEN McChrystal. A lot of that, especially the increases in troop numbers, hasn’t gotten much of attention, particularly by the media. If indecision is the explanation, one would have to explain how all of those were anomalies.

Until mid-September or so, Pres Obama has, im-ever-ho, been making strategic decisions and forward-looking (rather than just reactionary) w/r/t Afghanistan and supportive of COIN approaches being brought to him by his military and national security advisors. Strategic decisions … not operational and not tactical.

Since mid-September, I agree that there has been a lack of publicly-announced major policy decisions … at least ones in public. I’m asking myself, what’s the explanation for the delay *now*? Why? Is it indecision or is it a strategic delay? Domestic politics or something else? Giving current operations the opportunity play out? Re-organizing too often doesn’t solve a problem, it just re-arranges the problems (& ya have to print new business cards ).

First-order explanation, imo: decision-making and intra-agency coordination, much more so inter-agency coordination, takes time. There’s more to consider than just GEN McChrystal’s recommendations regarding military force structure for US foreign policy … especially if the intent is not to replicate earlier efforts, i.e., “a whole of government approach is required, one that integrates all tools available international and interagency partners.”

If one puts that aside and sets aside allowing current operations time to establish a vector of success or lack thereof, however, on whom is the delay putting pressure?

My working hypothesis is that it’s putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The ‘fighting season’ is drawing to a close in Afghanistan. Large numbers of additional troops would not be likely to deploy until late winter/early spring.

Who is or what is the single biggest obstacle to implementing a successful counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan at the moment? Imo, President Karzai. Fundamental COIN theory: got to have a vague ‘semblence of credible government. The current legal structure of the Afghan government puts the President as the head and gives him tremendous power, including the naming of provincial governors. If it's just a counterterrorism strategy, one can (more easily) ignore the head of a foreign state.

Afghanistan had a presidential election in August. Karazi had to get greater than 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off election. He’s been insisting that he had greater than 50% of the vote basically since 21 August. Final results were only released 7 days ago, showing Karzai with less than 50%. Altho’ there was a fair bit of concern that that he might reject the election committee’s findings, Karzai reluctantly (to put it diplomatically) agreed to a run-off election, which is now scheduled for 7 November. Not releasing the official US strategy and intentions put pressure on Karzai.

I also suspect that violence targeting international actors, not just the military, in Afghanistan & Pakistan, will increase between now & 7 November.

That's my current speculation ... who wants to poke holes in it?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kallend 1,649]

Quote

Awesome. Wasn't it Dr. K. who made fun of W for golfing while troops died? That was child's play.

.

If you refer to me, please provide a link to the post where I wrote that.

To help you, here are all the posts I've made where the word "golf" is mentioned at all (even if I didn't write it).

www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=search_results&search_forum=forum_35&search_string=golf&search_type=AND&search_fields=sb&search_time=&search_user_username=kallend&sb=post_time&mh=25

have fun.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[jcd11235 0]

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My working hypothesis is that it’s putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

I think that's part of it. There needs to be a government that is viewed as legitimate by the Afghanis, not just by the US and UN. Karzai's government has thus far demonstrated to be corrupt, while the Taliban's shadow government has been making efforts to be seen as more legitimate by the population.

It might be a wise move to wait to see what happens in the runoff election. If fraud is as rampant as it was in the original election, then it will be much more difficult to make a case for the new government with the people. Without the support of the people, successfully implementing COIN strategy is going to be, at very best, extremely difficult.

Quote

The ‘fighting season’ is drawing to a close in Afghanistan. Large numbers of additional troops would not be likely to deploy until late winter/early spring.

Further, it seems prudent to see how Pakistan's offensive plays out, since the results could (and probably will) have significant effects on the insurgents' in Afghanistan. The offensive seems like it will be a game changer, but it remains to be seen which parties will benefit most.

Quote

Who is or what the single biggest obstacle to implementing a successful counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan at the moment? Imo, President Karzai.

Agreed that Karzai is a big obstacle. Another big (perhaps bigger) obstacle is the lack of popular support among the Afghan people for increased US troop levels. Some estimate that as many as 600,000 troops will be required to successfully implement a counter insurgency strategy. If increased troop levels further decrease Afghani support for US troop presence, that will work against the COIN effort, even if McChrystal has all the troops he needs.

McChrystal doesn't seem (to me) to be convinced that the war can be won, only that if it is possible, COIN strategy offers the best chance, even if it's still a long shot.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[jcd11235 0]

I don't remember who was criticizing Bush for playing golf, but I remember the reason. Bush had publicly stated that he had given up playing golf while the troops were deployed in Iraq and/or Afghanistan (don't remember which) in support of the troops, but was found to have played after he made that statement.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Para_Frog 1]

Read past the OP there doc.

- Harvey, BASE 1232
TAN-I, IAD-I, S&TA

BLiNC Magazine Team Member