The Glade 4.0

I'm sure it'll be accepted.

In case folks missed it: Rolling Stone Interview/Article

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Good, though he probably should have done that in the first place, before he spoke evilly of his boss. It makes it look more like taking a stand and less like petulance.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

He basically had no choice. MEmbers of the military do not cricticize the Commander-in-Chief pursuant to their official positions. Comissioned officers especially do not. General officers in the public spotlight... well you get the idea. This is the sort of crap (albiet far less) that got MacArthur canned, and rightly so.

I liked McChrystal's handling of the tactical aspects of the war, but politically his performance has not been stellar. He's been entirely too public in his views on troop levels.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I almost wonder if it was a calculated move. Perhaps he foresees a pull-out and doesn't want to be known as the "general who lost Afghanistan." This would be a way to step down without looking defeated.

I can't imagine a man of his rank just does something like this without it being a calculated move.

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The Dude abides.

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This, he's a general officer in the United States Army, he has commanded elite units, he is no dummy. He could not find a way to convince the President to do what is needed to win and is now forcing the President to fire him.

This is General's exit strategy. He is throwing himself under the bus to make an OMG huge point. I am amused at how Rolling Stone was used as the vehicle to deliver the message to the President and force him to react to it.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Weird paradigm that the "President of Open-ness" has such a problem with his commander speaking his mind.
More interesting to me though is that the chain is so dysfunctional that McChrystal didn't feel comfortable airing these concerns up the chain. We are talking about strategic decisions and implentation that saves or costs the lives of our soldiers. Open discourse (not insubordination) needs to be encouraged and fostered.

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What makes you think these concerns haven't been "aired up the chain"? This is the response to being ignored, and, likely, not wanting to be a part of it, as Mike and Screeling point out.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It doesn't matter if the President has a problem with it. Even if Obama were completely OK with it, it's still a violation of the UCMJ...

To be honest, from everything I know of the situation, Stanley McChrystal's biggest mistake was attempting to do the job the President tasked him with earnestly.

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That would be the problem Kaffis. If someone felt that their opinions had at least been given an honest review then there wouldn't be this ticky-tack whining going on.

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Maybe, maybe not. It's possible, even likely, that his views have been given an honest review and simply not been agreed with. Just because he hasn't gotten what he wanted doesn't mean he hasn't been listened to.

Ultimately time may prove McChrystal correct anyhow, but he and the President are looking at this from two different viewpoints. He is looking at it from the viewpoint of it being his job to win in Afghanistan; the President is looking at it from an overall national strategy standpoint and how much he's willing to commit to that.

The answer is "not much". Obama wants out of Afghanistan. About the time Iraq started seriously improving (early 2007) there was a sea change in Left attitudes towards the wars. Up to that point the mantra of the left had been how awful it was that we'd lost focus on Afghanistan for the mess in Iraq. Once it became less of a mess, and unfortunately about that time Afghanistan began deteriorating, Afghanistan took a sudden mysterious turn in portrayal to the same status of "why are we even there?" that Iraq did. The Left hoped that the public had forgotten why, in fact, we were in Afghanistan.

With the intervening economic problems, that wish seems to have largely come true. Of course it doesn' t help that Afghanistan is a tougher situation all the way around. Obama wants out, because deep down, it's a war and war is bad, mmmkay? He wants to use the war spending as a slush fund for his social spending and bailouts. We're talking about a guy here who weakens our strategic deterrent, ignores the actions of the Russians, then refuses to continue to fill the GBI silos that might make a smaller deterrent workable, and refuses to fund the upgrades to the programs that are supposed to fill GBIs role. Obama is simply a left idealogue on anything to do with strategy or foriegn policy. He honestly thinks the situation will improve if he's just nice enough to evveryone.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

An effective manager will listen to his people's concerns, ideas and suggestions and even if they are not implemented both parties will leave in agreement on the outcome (aka getting their buy-in). People ***** and moaning is a result of poor management and on the rare occasion can be the result of one individual but for the General's entire staff to express these feelings would indicate it is a systemic problem.

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People ***** and moaning is not necessarily the result of poor management. An effective manager will try to achieve those outcomes, but the fact that they weren't successful doesn't necessarily mean they aren't an effective manager. Some people still just ***** and moan, and that is especially true with matters that are of national importance; there are far more factors at play here than the manager-managee relationship, especially since McChrystal doesn't report directly to the President. As for the General's staff, they are staff. They are not commanders. It is the job of a staff to have the same opinion as their commander.

In any case, this is not a "management" situation in the way that the buisness world is. It is a basic principle of the military that, after having raised your concerns, you carry out your superiors orders as if they were your own. This is actually more important at the highest levels that General McChrystal is at because it goes to the basic issue of civilian control of the military. MacArthur, by failing to adhere to this principle, dragged the U.S. into an unnecessary extension of the Korean War by provoking the Chinese to enter; Mao's own combination of paranoia and overconfidence notwithstanding.

Soldiers, even generals, are supposed to salute and carry out orders once they have expressed their concerns. The President is responsible for national success or failure in foriegn matters including warfare and cannot delegate that responsibility.

Khross has a good point that McChrystal's basic mistake is trying to win a war Obama would prefer to lose in order to pursue his policy of nonretaliation if the U.S. is attacked, and so that he can use it as a political tool to claim he was forced into an unwinnable war by the previous administration in the next election, but that doesn't change the basic obligation McChrystal has as a soldier to tow the party line. It's not his job to cricticize the President's mistakes; that is the job of Obama's political opposition.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The military is not open. The military follows orders. The General's job is to inform the exec of his opinions and proposed strategy, then following that, do as he's told. Grievances do not get aired to reporters. Now, my understanding is that this was McChrystal's aides, primarily, but even so - he's responsible.

Obama must maintain discipline within the military, but also accomplish the mission goals. He must weigh this out. McChrystal is not the only one who can get this job down, and in fact, his relationship with other key civilians is not stellar.

So far, I agree with how Obama is handling this.

Obama +2

Except, the last incident was used to politically setup McChrystal for failure in the first place. So, Obama -10.

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Honestly, if you look closely at the citations in the quotes in the source article, he only bad-mouths Biden, not Obama. Staffers bad-mouth Obama.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You sure about this? I thought Mao entered in support of North Korea so as to support other Communist states and he was getting miffed about how close the war was to reaching his turf? I thought the U.S. was on relatively neutral terms with China until they pushed down into North Korea, which we responded to by recognizing Chiang Kaishek and the Chinese Nationalist Party as the head of China instead of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party.

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The Dude abides.

The orders that dragged China into the war were given by Truman. The invasion of NK did it.

What you are not taking into account is that the Presidency is a civilian post, not a military one. Perhaps I am an idealogue but if someone with battlefield military experience tells me what they think needs to be done to save lives and win a war its going to supercede my political agenda.


By ignoring the situations unfolding on the ground and focusing on what is politically expedient? As DE and Khross pointed out above the new objective seems to be GTFO ASAP.

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Generals are responsible for their subordinates.

I'm not ignoring that point. Fact is, the military is led by a civilian. This is intentional. This civilian is required to answer to the people. These are all good things. Now, military plans are always developed around a political agenda (otherwise, why are we fighting), whether it's regime change, sphere of influence, or even maintaining your own political borders. But, I agree, wars should not be fought in specific terms based on politics (ie presidents calling bombing targets). But ultimately, the president can call bombing targets if he wants, and the generals should follow their orders. If this occurs, WE need to replace our commander in chief, not modify the code of conduct for the military. Military should follow orders. People should hold politicians responsible for those orders.



I'm not giving him points for his objectives. I'm giving him points for handling his Generals who are not conducting themselves properly.

Yet, you aren't taking points away for setting the man up to hang in the first place. You see, Obama chose McChrystal because McChrystal would make a politically expedient target in the first place. This is internal brinkmanship that has nothing to do with the military, social, or political realities in Afghanistan. It has to do with our President's willingness to politically assassinate members of his own military for agenda gains.

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So?

It doesn't change the fact that people are saying that McChrystal said these things, when he didn't.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

What is your basis for this conclusion, Khross? How has Obama set McChrystal up for failure?

Because this incident isn't isolated in any way, shape, or form from an Obama appointed Ambassador telling the world McChrystal was going to fail when he assumed command? You know, the whole leaked State Department memo trash talking McChrystal's plan for Afghanistan from the get go? Oh, right, that has nothing to do with this? Bullshit. This is all about politics and making someone they can identify with the Bush presidency a politically expedient target.

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