McChrystal Madness — UPDATED, UPDATED AGAIN

Posted by Melissa Clouthier on Jun 22 2010 Filed under Asia, Featured, Nat'l Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

NOTE: Here is the article at Rolling Stone. Also, Memeorandum is covering this from all angles.

Stanley McChrystal should be fired for no other reason than for his utter lack of wisdom. Forget the content of the Rolling Stone exposé for a moment. The fact that he did it, is mind-boggling.

The man has legitimate beefs. Marc Ambimber does a nice job listing them. Everyone in his command has beefs. If they follow their General’s lead, will they have permission to air them publicly?

Maybe he thought the Rolling Stone would be fair. Then he is naive, too. And that should disqualify him for the role.

The content of the story is painful enough. Here at Politico is the text.

But the fact that the General on the most important battlefront is so indiscreet, frustrated and yet rather than resigns, complains to the Rolling Stone… Well. That demonstrates a gross judgment error.

Counterpoint: Jimmie Bise rightly notes via Twitter, “Or, we’d remember how General Shinsecki was a media and progressive darling for bucking the chain of command.” Legal Insurrection has more.

In addition, like GayPatriot notes, “If Bush were Prez, liberals new hero would be Gen. McChrystal for his “courage and honesty.” Liberals have zero principles. This proves it.”

McChrystal didn’t push back. He knew the article was coming out. Does he want a murder by suicide situation?

And Byron York just got this from a man who worked with McChrystal:

“Those of us who knew him would unanimously tell you that this was just a matter of time,” the man says. “He talks this way all the time. I’m surprised it took this long for it to rear its ugly head.”

“He had great disdain for anyone, as he said, ‘in a suit,’” the former military man continues. “I was shocked one day in a small group of people when he took [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld to task in front of all of us.”

“The other thing about him is that he is probably one of the more arrogant, cocksure military guys I have run across. That in itself is not necessarily a character flaw, but when you couple it with his great disdain for civilians, it’s a very volatile combination.”

As an aside, Afghanistan isn’t unwinnable with the will, morale and means to fight it. Also, define “win”. But it can be done. But this division and strife is a disaster.

It’s important to remember who is in charge here: President Obama. He’s the Commander In Chief and he sets policy and he chooses Generals.

UPDATED:

Blackfive says this:

1. GEN McChrystal should never have said he voted for anyone. In fact, I know General Officers who claim they don’t vote for Presidents at all to avoid ever taking political sides. He voted for Obama?!

2. GEN McChrystal fired a subordinate for giving the reporter access to the general (in essence, he did his job – albeit, naively).

3. It is against the UCMJ to criticize the President, Congress, etc. Period.

4. This event is what the anti-war lefties want (we lost). This event is what the take-the-gloves-off right want (less ROE restrictions). However, this makes things in AFPAK infinitely more difficult.

Jeff Dunetz believe that this *IS* Suicide by interview as I mentioned above. Maybe so.

Finally, Gibbs had a press conference. Take home:

1. The President hasn’t talked to McChrystal. Surprise!

2. The Administration believes McChrystal is “immature.”

3. No options, including firing McChrystal are off the table.

UPDATED AGAIN:

Josh Trevino talks about his own circumstances in the military:

When I was a bottom-of-the-barrel lieutenant in the 46th Engineer Battalion at Fort Polk, Louisiana, I kept a list of ridiculous and absurd things other soldiers said. It was a long list. No one outdid my immediate superior, a Major with fairly severe anger-management issues who was fond of deriding anything German. The “quotes file” became popular to pass around, and I made the error of putting it on the Internet. At the time, this seemed quite exotic and nigh undetectable. It was swiftly discovered, and the chain of command came down on me with all the fury of careerists mocked.

I was loathe to admit it, but they were right. There’s no room for that in the military, and however ridiculous your superiors are, their lawful authority is never anything but deadly serious. In my (weak) defense, I was 23, and not deeply invested in what was then a peacetime Army.

GEN Stanley McChrystal is 55, and a general officer in wartime. He knows better than this. His criticisms of the President, the President’s war leadership, and Eikenberry may have substantive merit demanding public debate. In fact, I’ll go a step further: they almost certainly do. Barack Obama has shown himself to be a war President who is at best detached and at worse deeply irresolute. The existing strategy in Afghanistan is, to be charitable, uncertain, with the July 2011 drawdown date looming in the Taliban and al Qaeda consciousness as the beginning of their victory. If I were the theater commander, I’d be frustrated too. Americans are dying, in a just cause for an end dimly perceived, under the command of the most feckless foreign-policy team since Henry Wallace was praising the slave camps of Madagan.

But I wouldn’t say anything, and Lord knows, not to Rolling Stone — Rolling Stone! — because it’s a violation of the UCMJ for one thing, prejudicial to the mission for another, and … well, take it away, Viper as played by Tom Skerritt in Top Gun:

“We are not policy. We don’t make policy. Elected officials … civilians do that. We are the instrument of policy.”

Go read the whole thing.

UPDATED AGAIN:

Jonah Goldberg doesn’t believe this rises to the level of a firing offense. He says:

As for the bad-mouthing of the civilian and diplomatic crowd, it’s unseemly but I don’t know if it rises to the level of scandalous. Still, Obama has every right to be angry, even if he shares some of the blame.

I should also say that I also came away liking McChrystal a lot more. He really is an impressive guy. Clearly arrogant and all that, but you need a healthy ego to do what he does

UPDATED AGAIN:

A liberal writes in defense of keeping McChrystal:

Simple question, simple answer: you’re winning instead of losing, soldier. And that’s the problem – McChrystal advocates restraint, and that is being spun by the usual armchair warmonger crowd as “unreasonable restrictions on rules of engagement”. Hence, conservative pundits are itching for Obama to fire McChrystal, hoping for a return to the kicking-ass, burn-the-village aggressive posture that was the signature of the neglected Afghan campaign under the Bush Administration. But that old strategy was a failure because it could not define victory by any metric other than body counts. Hearts and minds are harder to measure, and McChrystal seems to be the only one who understands that. Obama needs to listen to Hillary Clinton and just “if Stan wants it, give him what he needs.” Or withdraw from Afghanistan entirely.

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