Gen. Martin Dempsey Appointed New Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman

What Better Person To Help Transition Our Proud Men & Women Currently Serving In Uniform From A War State Of Mind In Afghanistan To Serving In A Non-Combat Environment, Than General Martin Dempsey.

Like His Professional Predecessor Gen. Colin Powell, Gen. Dempsey Loves Being A Soldier, Loves Serving His Country, Loves Being A Leader.

Today President Barack Obama Once Again Made An Excellent Decision As It Relates To Keeping Our Nation Safe.

First He Appoints General Petraeus To Head The CIA, Next He Appoints Leon Panetta To Head The Pentagon & Now General Martin Dempsey Has Been Tapped As The New Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman.

I'd Say Such Intelligent Decisions Proves Pres. Obama Really Knows What He's Doing When It Comes To Selecting The Right Kind Of Leadership.

"Iron Sharpens Iron!"

i.e., Great Leaders Appoint & Associate With Great Leaders!

Congrats Gen. Dempsey!

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!

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Obama nominates Army head to serve as new Joint Chiefs chairman

President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Gen. Martin Dempsey, the relatively new Army chief of staff, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The term of the current chairman, Adm. Michael Mullen, ends in September.

Obama also nominated Adm. James Winnefeld, the current head of the U.S. Northern Command, to serve as vice chairman. He tapped Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Dempsey as the Army's chief of staff.

The president, speaking at the White House, urged the Senate to confirm the three men "as swiftly as possible" in order to help ensure a "seamless" Pentagon transition.

Obama praised Dempsey as one of the country's most "respected and combat-tested generals."

"I expect him to push all our forces to keep adapting and innovating," Obama said. "We will provide what it takes to achieve our objectives in the current fight."

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates released a statement praising Dempsey, Winnefeld, and Odierno for having "excelled in key command and staff roles" and possessing "the right mix of intellectual heft, moral courage, and strategic vision."

If confirmed by the Senate, Dempsey would be in the key position of being Obama's senior military adviser overseeing the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would also work with incoming Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, in establishing priorities for cutting defense spending.

Dempsey has extensive combat experience. He served as the commander of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in 2003, and then helped train Iraqi security forces in a subsequent tour of duty in Iraq. He also has served as acting commander of the U.S. Central Command overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

The selection of Dempsey is unusual partly because he took over as head of the Army only on April 11. In that brief period of time, Dempsey has earned strong praise for what is considered to be his outgoing personality. Among other things, the general receives a list of soldiers both in the United States and overseas every week and calls them to get their direct opinions on life in the Army.

He spent last Friday in Washington meeting with children who have lost parents and other relatives in war-time military service.

He has also gained attention for his long-standing habit of beginning some of his public speaking events by singing songs such as "New York, New York." On his Facebook page he recently asked troops to offer their suggestions for music he could play at events where he is speaking.

Dempsey's sense of humor has opened him up for some ribbing as well, like at the ceremony when he took command of the Army.

"His rise to this great height is yet another one of those classic American immigrant success stories," said Army Secretary John McHugh during official remarks. "One can only imagine how different his life might have been had his family not decided to leave New Jersey and move across the river to New York state."

Gen. James Cartwright, a four-star Marine who currently is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had been the perceived front runner to replace Mullen. But in a 30-minute meeting with Obama before the president left for his recent trip to Europe, Cartwright was told he would not get the job, according to a Defense Department official with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing White House personnel meetings involving the president.

Cartwright is now expected to submit his retirement papers and conclude his term as vice chairman as scheduled in early August.

Cartwright had long been considered a White House favorite, but had run afoul of other senior officers inside the Pentagon who felt he more than once went behind their backs in offering the president military recommendations and advice on a range of issues, including lower troop levels in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department official who is familiar with Cartwright's thinking says the general was aware of these criticisms, and only offered recommendations when asked by the president.

"There was an impression created he wasn't a team player," said the official, who was offering a defense of Cartwright's actions

"Gen. Cartwright never believed he was a deputy. He believed he had a legal and moral obligation to give the president his best military advice," the source said. "He is not obligated to provide the same advice as everybody else."

The official acknowledged the widespread view many had, however, that Cartwright plays his cards close to the vest inside the Pentagon and often shared little with colleagues about his real thinking.

The official also noted that neither Gates nor Mullen had recommended Cartwright for the job as chairman, which meant his nomination by the White House would have been difficult to justify to Congress.

Spokesmen for both declined to publicly comment on any aspect of the chairmanship issue.

Cartwright had also been the subject of an investigation by the department's inspector general over whistleblower allegations of improper conduct with a junior female officer who fell asleep intoxicated in his hotel room during a business trip. He was cleared of wrongdoing by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, but the official said Cartwright felt he was the still the subject of a "whispering campaign" after that.


Sources: Army Tradoc, CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Youtube

Pres. Obama Weighs Alternative Options In Lieu Of Sending More U.S. Troops To Afghanistan

(How the Taliban made a comeback. NBC’s Richard Engel explains how the Taliban has become stronger in Afghanistan, despite how its members once fled to Pakistan after U.S. forces arrived to hunt al-Qaida in 2001.)

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(Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell to discuss Pakistan's role in the fight against the Taliban. Watch)

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Obama seeking options on forces

President Obama has asked the Pentagon's top generals to provide him with more options for troop levels in Afghanistan, two U.S. officials said late Friday, with one adding that some of the alternatives would allow Obama to send fewer new troops than the roughly 40,000 requested by his top commander.

Obama met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the White House on Friday, holding a 90-minute discussion that centered on the strain on the force after eight years of war in two countries. The meeting -- the first of its kind with the chiefs of the Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, who were not part of the president's war council meetings on Afghanistan in recent weeks -- prompted Obama to request another such meeting before he announces a decision on sending additional troops, the officials said.

The military chiefs have been largely supportive of a resource request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that would by one Pentagon estimate require the deployment of 44,000 additional troops. But opinion among members of Obama's national security team is divided, and he now appears to be seeking a compromise solution that would satisfy both his military and civilian advisers.

Obama is expected to receive several options from the Pentagon about troop levels next week, according to the two officials, who discussed the deliberations on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Before he can determine troop levels, his advisers have said, he must decide whether to embrace a strategy focused heavily on counterinsurgency, which would require additional forces to protect population centers, or one that makes counterterrorism the main focus of U.S. efforts in the country, which would rely on relatively fewer American troops.

One option under review involves a blend of the two approaches, featuring an emphasis on counterterrorism in the north and some parts of western Afghanistan as well as an expanded counterinsurgency effort in the south and east, one of the officials said. Obama has also asked for a province-by-province review of the country to determine which areas can by managed effectively by local leaders.

The president appears committed to adding at least 10,000 to 15,000 troops in Afghanistan in an effort to bolster the training of Afghan army and police officers in the country. Current plans call for the United States to double the size of the Afghan army and police forces to about 400,000 in the hope that they can take over security responsibilities.

In meeting with the military chiefs, Obama heard their assessment of the how prepared the services are to handle a new commitment. "Each chief discussed the state of their own service, how they are doing today and what the long-term consequences will be for each of their services," an administration official said. The military advisers also put the troop deployments in the context of the rest of their global deployments, including in Iraq.

It was not a "recommendations meeting," with concrete options of how to proceed, the official said. That will presumably come in the next such meeting, which has not been scheduled.

The timing of Obama's decision on Afghanistan remains up in the air. But his request for another meeting with the military chiefs -- and the expectation that he will meet again with his top national security advisers before reaching a conclusion -- may leave him too little time to decide the issue before he travels to Asia on Nov. 11. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to be overseas for much of that time, except for a brief stint at home from Wednesday to Friday. , giving Obama little opportunity to convene his war council in person. It appears increasingly likely that Obama will not announce his new Afghanistan strategy until after returning to the United States on Nov. 20.

Obama has come under criticism from Republicans, notably former vice president Richard B. Cheney, for deliberating so long, but his advisers have said he is determined to get the decision right rather than satisfy his critics.

In contrast to Iraq, where there was significant dissension on whether to deploy an additional 30,000 troops in 2007, the top brass has been mostly united in the support of McChrystal's call for more troops in Afghanistan.

Both Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the Middle East, have told the administration that they agree with McChrystal's dire assessment of the security situation and his call for more forces to wrest the initiative back from the Taliban.

The service chiefs have not publicly voiced either support or opposition. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps chief, had campaigned hard this year for the Marines to play a much larger role in the country. In internal meetings, Army chief Gen. George W. Casey Jr. has raised concerns about "dwell time" -- the periods that troops have at home between deployments.

The Army is particularly concerned that soldiers who spend less than 18 months at home between combat tours do not have enough time to train for high-intensity tank warfare.

A U.S.-Iraq security pact requires the United States to withdraw its forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, which would reduce some of the strain on the American military. But bombings this week in Baghdad, which killed more than 155 Iraqis, raise questions about whether Iraq is stable enough to allow for an accelerated drawdown in advance of that deadline, as some military officials had hoped.



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Sources: Washington Post, MSNBC, Google Maps