Military General Bashes Obama Administration

[MaggieMae]

Fired? Yeah, probably. Retire? Yeah, maybe. Lose rank? Based on what? I'm curious not criticizing why you think he should lose a star?

for the same reason Billy Mitchell did.

I like Patton styled Generals. I say give him his own show on FOX. Take the Star away????? I say add one.

Hell, why stop there? Doesn't Ollie North have his own channel? And he's only a colonel.

 

[Immanuel]

This guy didn't get to be a General because he's dumb. He's smart enough to know what a sack of shit looks like when he sees one. I think he's just calling them as he sees them.

Sorry, he has zero excuse for his and his staff's behavior. McChrystal has gotten EVERYTHING he asked for to proceed with the planned insurgency and it's no one's fault but his own if some of the missions have turned out badly. To me, they all sound like made a lame attempt at passing the buck by blaming the civilians, who are not on the ground acting as field officers. The blame game certainly is familiar these days.

If you ask me it seems more like it is the President and his staff are just a bunch of crybabies who have let the media dictate military personnel assignments.

Have you actually read the article?

Immie

 

[MaggieMae]

What an idiot.

I hope Obama fires him immediately but knowing him, he'll give him some latitude and a chance to redeem himself.

Firing him with a lot of public humiliation would be too good for the guy. These arrogant generals need to shut up and do their work.

I am certain that to you, this sounds like a good idea. However, what is being overlooked is why a decorated combat veteran who specializes in very unique warfare would have a rift with the civilian leadership. It's too easy to dismiss the general as being insubordinate but tougher to look at the substance of his comments.

Generals tend to look out for their troops. While I agree that this is probably not the best way to go about, it still remains that if the emperor has no clothes on, then someone has to call it.

By the way, I think Obama will either fire McChrystal or give McChrystal the opportunity to retire. Obama has shown on many previous occasions that he's thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.

It's my guess that McChrystal didn't like having to do liaison with the civilian leadership, like Holbrook and probably even Clinton whose mission is trying to figure our Karzai's next move without the military's possibly unintentional sabbotaging that.

 

[MaggieMae]

I wonder how many people have actually read the article.

Here it is:

The Runaway General | Rolling Stone Politics

Read it. I have and personally, I don't find anything all that bad in it.

Page one has some snide comments about VP Biden:

McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

And there was the comment about the President being unprepared in the meeting with McChrystal, by the way, that comment came from an adviser, not the General himself:

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

So the General was disappointed. Can you blame him?

Other than that the only thing I can find that might make the President angry was in the concluding paragraph of the story and it had nothing at all to do with anything said by the General. It was, in fact, a critique of the counterinsurgency tactics being used to fight this war and was made by the author himself:

So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word "victory" when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible. Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge.

Besides that it was pretty much six pages of biography of the man that is currently leading the war in Afghanistan and a discussion of the tactics being used.

By the way, don't tell anyone but there is actually an argument by the VP, that I actually agree with, although I am by no means qualified to give my opinion on such matters:

For the general, it was a crash course in Beltway politics – a battle that pitted him against experienced Washington insiders like Vice President Biden, who argued that a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan would plunge America into a military quagmire without weakening international terrorist networks. "The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people," says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. "The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

Having read The Runaway General, I must say I don't think this is as bad as it is being made out to be and quite frankly, I think the calls for the General's head are ridiculous.

Immie

I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet. I have to reinstall my printer and I'll read it tonight. But I've seen enough excerpts to know that McChrystal should have known the hole he was digging for himself when he allowed a reporter MONTHS of free access to any of his staff. That was piss-poor judgment on his part.

I still maintain that the worst part of this whole thing is the fact that the Afghan people themselves, the ones we are trying to woo away from the Taliban as being the sole purpose of our even being there so long, will see America as just using them for political gain and nothing else. Which, by the way, I believe to be true at this point. We should just add ourselves to the long list of other countries which have tried in vain to control Afghanistan for geopolitical purposes and continue with civilian nationbuilding, as promised, but get the military the hell out.

 

[MaggieMae]

That's fine...but Bush was a leader of men....and his strategies proved correct....even Obama admitted as much.
A 50% approval rating will NOT earn you ONE IOTA of respect from the boots on the ground in A'stan and Iraq.....that's how shit happens. Giving your troops the tools they need to take the fight to the enemy are what earns respect...leading your men BY EXAMPLE is what earns you respect....not playing political bullshit games to suck up to the left wing Code Pink fucks.

No. Not initially. Not for a long time in fact, until "the surge" - his strategies (the idea that it would be a quick in and out), the fact that he did not supply enough troops or equipment despite requests from his generals, and a totally inadequate and antiquated hospital system for returning wounded - does not indicate to me a "leader of men" but somebody who planned very poorly and was damn lucky he didn't do worse.

When he and Rumsfeld not only ignored Shinseki's advice, I knew that we were headed for quagmire. The surge finally helped because there were about the same number of boots on the ground, including the mercs and hired gunman, that the general had called for.

Don't forget that they ignored Patreaus for far too long, also. He wrote the book on counterinsurgency. But the difference that I see between Patreaus and McChrystal is that Patreaus knew how to work well in partnership with the civilian security folks. McChristal obviously couldn't handle that.

 

[MaggieMae]

This guy didn't get to be a General because he's dumb. He's smart enough to know what a sack of shit looks like when he sees one. I think he's just calling them as he sees them.

Sorry, he has zero excuse for his and his staff's behavior. McChrystal has gotten EVERYTHING he asked for to proceed with the planned insurgency and it's no one's fault but his own if some of the missions have turned out badly. To me, they all sound like made a lame attempt at passing the buck by blaming the civilians, who are not on the ground acting as field officers. The blame game certainly is familiar these days.

If you ask me it seems more like it is the President and his staff are just a bunch of crybabies who have let the media dictate military personnel assignments.

Have you actually read the article?

Immie

As I said, the Afghanistan strategy is all McChrystal's. He got everything he asked for, even though he whined that the president only gave him a 10-minute photo op. How is that "dictating" assignments?

 

[Immanuel]

I wonder how many people have actually read the article.

Here it is:

The Runaway General | Rolling Stone Politics

Read it. I have and personally, I don't find anything all that bad in it.

Page one has some snide comments about VP Biden:

McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

And there was the comment about the President being unprepared in the meeting with McChrystal, by the way, that comment came from an adviser, not the General himself:



So the General was disappointed. Can you blame him?

Other than that the only thing I can find that might make the President angry was in the concluding paragraph of the story and it had nothing at all to do with anything said by the General. It was, in fact, a critique of the counterinsurgency tactics being used to fight this war and was made by the author himself:



Besides that it was pretty much six pages of biography of the man that is currently leading the war in Afghanistan and a discussion of the tactics being used.

By the way, don't tell anyone but there is actually an argument by the VP, that I actually agree with, although I am by no means qualified to give my opinion on such matters:

For the general, it was a crash course in Beltway politics – a battle that pitted him against experienced Washington insiders like Vice President Biden, who argued that a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan would plunge America into a military quagmire without weakening international terrorist networks. "The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people," says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. "The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

Having read The Runaway General, I must say I don't think this is as bad as it is being made out to be and quite frankly, I think the calls for the General's head are ridiculous.

Immie

I haven't had a chance to read the entire article yet. I have to reinstall my printer and I'll read it tonight. But I've seen enough excerpts to know that McChrystal should have known the hole he was digging for himself when he allowed a reporter MONTHS of free access to any of his staff. That was piss-poor judgment on his part.

I still maintain that the worst part of this whole thing is the fact that the Afghan people themselves, the ones we are trying to woo away from the Taliban as being the sole purpose of our even being there so long, will see America as just using them for political gain and nothing else. Which, by the way, I believe to be true at this point. We should just add ourselves to the long list of other countries which have tried in vain to control Afghanistan for geopolitical purposes and continue with civilian nationbuilding, as promised, but get the military the hell out.

Maggie,

I have read it. I can say that I think the President is letting the Media dictate the outcome of this issue. General McChrystal really did not do anything wrong from what I read, even his advisers did nothing wrong.

I don't know much about General McChrystal and have no reason to support him, but I think this whole thing looks utterly ridiculous. This is like benching your star hitter because he said the owner of the team doesn't even know his name.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Sorry, he has zero excuse for his and his staff's behavior. McChrystal has gotten EVERYTHING he asked for to proceed with the planned insurgency and it's no one's fault but his own if some of the missions have turned out badly. To me, they all sound like made a lame attempt at passing the buck by blaming the civilians, who are not on the ground acting as field officers. The blame game certainly is familiar these days.

If you ask me it seems more like it is the President and his staff are just a bunch of crybabies who have let the media dictate military personnel assignments.

Have you actually read the article?

Immie

As I said, the Afghanistan strategy is all McChrystal's. He got everything he asked for, even though he whined that the president only gave him a 10-minute photo op. How is that "dictating" assignments?

Dictating assignments TODAY not two years ago.

The "photo op" was fourteen months ago, I believe AND General McChrystal did not complain about the 10 minute photo op. That was someone else. We don't even know that the General ever said anything about the meeting to anyone at all. This so called adviser may simply have been spouting shit he knew nothing at all about.

From the article, we don't even know that General McChrystal has any problems at all with the administration. Because he didn't say anything bad about them at all. People that work for him did and it looks like to me that he is taking the fall for it.

Of course, since he has only seen his wife 30 days in the last 18 months (I think is what it said) maybe he just wants to have a vacation.

Maybe he is doing the ethical thing and taking the responsibility for things he had no control over, something that the last two CinC's would never dream of doing.

Immie

 

[Foxfyre]

I was watcing some of the more obscure news a couple of days ago, and somebody commented that this whole flap would not have occurred if the Iceland volcano had not erupted and grounded all the flights in the area for several days. It was during those several days that Gen McChrystal and his staff were grounded in the same place where the Rolling Stone reporters were and that's why they were in close proximity, dining and drinking together for an extended period.

One of those quirks of fate I guess.

Gen Petraeus is probably a good choice for replacement despite the bashing he took from Moveon.org and other leftwing extremists groups. But I really hoped for once President Obama would have done the right thing instead of the politically motivated thing. Gen McChrystal is respected by the troops and, more importantly, by the Afghani leadership.

It would have been presidential if Obama had announced that he had an audience with Gen McChrystal, was satisfied with the outcome of that discussion, and believed that he and the general had sufficient confidence in each other to continue to work together.

Of course if McChrystal wanted out, that would have been moot. And though nobody wants to quit under fire, sometimes things have become so intolerable that it just isn't worth continuing.

Petraeus is Obama's third general to command in seventeen months.

We'll see how this one works out.

 

[hortysir]

By "relieving him of command", is he *out* of the military or just shuffled off someplace else?
I thought it meant the latter....

 

[Foxfyre]

By "relieving him of command", is he *out* of the military or just shuffled off someplace else?
I thought it meant the latter....

Being relieved of command does not necessarily mean being out of the military or reduction of rank. Remember when Patton slapped the soldier? It cost him his command, but he was eventually reassigned and went on to do great things. McChrystal may be reassigned too. Or he may chose to just take retirement.

 

[hortysir]

I just wanted to make sure that was out there for the ones that are saying he was fired or he resigned.
TY

 

[Foxfyre]

I just wanted to make sure that was out there for the ones that are saying he was fired or he resigned.
TY

Well now that you mention it, I don't know whether the resignation was from the command or from the military. And I can't find anything that addresses that. Does anybody else have anything?

This AP story is the harshest account I have seen of the affair though:

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sacked his loose-lipped Afghanistan commander Wednesday, a seismic shift for the military order in wartime, and chose the familiar, admired — and tightly disciplined — Gen. David Petraeus to replace him. Petraeus, architect of the Iraq war turnaround, was once again to take hands-on leadership of a troubled war effort.

Obama said bluntly that Gen. Stanley McChrystal's scornful remarks about administration officials represent conduct that "undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system."

He fired the commander after summoning him from Afghanistan for a face to face meeting in the Oval Office and named Petraeus, the Central Command chief who was McChrystal's direct boss, to step in. Obama had offered the job to Petraeus during a private White House meeting earlier Wednesday, said a senior military official.

In a statement expressing praise for McChrystal yet certainty he had to go, Obama said he did not make the decision over any disagreement in policy or "out of any sense of personal insult." Flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Rose Garden, he said: "War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president."
MORE HERE:
McChrystal out; Petraeus picked for Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

 

[hortysir]

"did not fight to keep his job. Instead he offered his immediate resignation"
I just heard a soundbyte on the radidio...

 

[JakeStarkey]

Edit: What I wrote in this box here was out of line, and I apologize.

Having written the above, I can say, Yes, I have known several senior officers who seemingly cannot keep their mouths shut around the press and bristle at working with civilian seniors.

 

[Foxfyre]

"did not fight to keep his job. Instead he offered his immediate resignation"
I just heard a soundbyte on the radidio...

Listening to a local call in show. Speculation is that McChrystal wasn't getting the attention to the dire situation in Afghanistan that he needed from the administraton and Congressional oversight committees and this is the way he got it. And though he definitely has our attention now, that strikes me as a bit far fetched.

But I can believe that if he felt betrayed by the Administration and Congress, he might not have wanted to continue in the position. He was losing people and I'm guess he knew that much of that loss wasn't necessary, but he was not allowed to do what was necessary to prevent it. And if he opposed the Kandahar initiative as was planned from Washington. . . .well you get my drift. But the speculation continues among the civilian populations.

We probably won't know until he writes his book.

But one thing everybody, civilian and ex-military agree on, once he is retired, he will be free to express his opinion freely uniless it is something classified. And some are looking forward to that a lot.

Some are looking forward to drafting him to run for President in 2012.

 

[hortysir]

"did not fight to keep his job. Instead he offered his immediate resignation"
I just heard a soundbyte on the radidio...

Listening to a local call in show. Speculation is that McChrystal wasn't getting the attention to the dire situation in Afghanistan that he needed from the administraton and Congressional oversight committees and this is the way he got it. And though he definitely has our attention now, that strikes me as a bit far fetched.

But I can believe that if he felt betrayed by the Administration and Congress, he might not have wanted to continue in the position. He was losing people and I'm guess he knew that much of that loss wasn't necessary, but he was not allowed to do what was necessary to prevent it. And if he opposed the Kandahar initiative as was planned from Washington. . . .well you get my drift. But the speculation continues among the civilian populations.

We probably won't know until he writes his book.

But one thing everybody, civilian and ex-military agree on, once he is retired, he will be free to express his opinion freely uniless it is something classified. And some are looking forward to that a lot.

Some are looking forward to drafting him to run for President in 2012.

Ask Ollie North how that worked out for him

 

[JakeStarkey]

McChrystal is a replay of MacArthur without MacArthur star power. Little Mac will be forgotten by Christmas.

 

[Foxfyre]

"did not fight to keep his job. Instead he offered his immediate resignation"
I just heard a soundbyte on the radidio...

Listening to a local call in show. Speculation is that McChrystal wasn't getting the attention to the dire situation in Afghanistan that he needed from the administraton and Congressional oversight committees and this is the way he got it. And though he definitely has our attention now, that strikes me as a bit far fetched.

But I can believe that if he felt betrayed by the Administration and Congress, he might not have wanted to continue in the position. He was losing people and I'm guess he knew that much of that loss wasn't necessary, but he was not allowed to do what was necessary to prevent it. And if he opposed the Kandahar initiative as was planned from Washington. . . .well you get my drift. But the speculation continues among the civilian populations.

We probably won't know until he writes his book.

But one thing everybody, civilian and ex-military agree on, once he is retired, he will be free to express his opinion freely uniless it is something classified. And some are looking forward to that a lot.

Some are looking forward to drafting him to run for President in 2012.

Ask Ollie North how that worked out for him

Ollie is doing great though. Since he retired from the Marines, he wrote a best seller, he has a documentary style history program on Fox News that he dearly loves, and has all kinds of free time to pursue other interests.

His situation and McChrystal's situations were entirely different, however. Ollie was betrayed by people he trusted, falsely accused of crimes he did not commit, convicted on flimsy evidence during testimony for which he had been given immunity, and subsequently had that conviction overturned by a judge who knew it. He absolutely shredded the Congress who tried to hang him in those hearings.

Did Ollie ever run for public office? I don't recall that he did.

 

[hortysir]

"he did not resign from the military, but he and his staff are definitely out of Afghanistan"