Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Ryan Crocker to Kabul?

Reuters is reporting that:

President Barack Obama is likely to nominate veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker as the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, a source familiar with the pending appointment said on Tuesday.

-- snip --

The move would pair Crocker again with General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan who had served in Iraq at the same time as Crocker.


Associated Press is saying the same:

The diplomatic heft Crocker may be able to bring to the post and his experience running the civilian side of a war alongside Petraeus could help Obama cement recent military gains ahead of the planned withdrawal. But bringing back the duo that helped salvage former President George W. Bush's political fortunes in Iraq also risks making Obama look desperate or lacking new ideas for the war he said was more important than Iraq.

5 comments:

GWB said...

TSB: Petreaus to CIA reminds me again of Richard Holbrook's final words:
"You've got to get us out of Afghanistan!" Does this move indicate
Af-Pak breakdown? gwb

TSB said...

It indicates that Petreaus will be getting out of Afghanistan, anyway. The rest of us, I'm not so sure.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I say give Ryan Crocker a break and send in The Green Lantern instead. Holbrook would love it! gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Started Woodward's "Veil":1987
He spent 5 yrs talking to Casey (CIA) and 250 others.
I just got to the part where they hired a young Robert Gates to help keep track of things in the new regime. (1981) It's fun to go back to a time when real reporting actually produced more than -snips- I wonder if Gates will ever write a book?
gwb

TSB said...

Gates wrote a memoir in the 90s (From The Shadows). I'm sure he'll write another one soonest.

Watch out for the big finish in Veil. It's a notoriously phony scene in which Woodward sneaks into Casey's hospital room for a secret interview with him a day or two before he died of a brain tumor.

Casey was physically incapable of speech at the time, his wife and daughter were with him continuously (and they deny Woodward's story), and he was protected 24/7 by a CIA security detail. Woodward insisted the deathbed interview really happened despite all that, but no one believes him. The Washington Post never ran a news story about that interview (but they never fired Woodward as an editor, either).

Woodward was challenged by Ted Koppel on Nightline to prove he was really in the hospital room. Koppel had obtained photos of the room, and he asked Woodward to describe the room to a sketch artist so he could show the TV audience how the sketch compared to the photos. Woodward refused.

Several times in his career Woodward has released interviews with persons recently deceased and asked us to take his word for the astounding revelations they provided him. His nickname around DC is "Mortuary Bob."