The War Between Obama and McChrystal Is Over — Obama Lost
It was reported on June 22 that General Stanley McChrystal had tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama and that the White House was actively discussing a replacement who could be quickly confirmed by the Senate:
The source said that among the names being touted as possible successors are General James Mattis, the outgoing head of the US Joint Forces Command and due to retire after being passed over as US Marine Corps commander, and Lieutenant General William Caldwell, commander of Nato’s Training Mission in Afghanistan.
On June 23, en route to a meeting with Secretary Gates, General McChrystal denied that he had tendered his resignation but indicated that he was prepared to do so. More accurately, General McChrystal probably requested retirement instead of resigning his commission; he is certainly eligible for retirement and, like a resignation, acceptance of his retirement was optional with the president.
Following a thirty minute meeting with President Obama, General McChrystal departed the White House “before Obama convened a regularly scheduled war planning meeting there.” That was a pretty good indication of what was to come. An announcement that General McChrystal had been relieved of his command by President Obama was made later on June 23. General McChrystal is to be replaced by General Petraeus.
After offering to step down, it would have been unseemly for Obama to have fired him. Had General McChrystal not offered to go, he would most likely have been fired — more accurately, his retirement would have been demanded. Otherwise, he would have found it even more difficult than previously to perform his increasingly arduous duties in Afghanistan. Those duties have been all the more difficult due to dissension among others in the White House circle. Politico reports that there are divisions among Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Biden, Gen. David Petraeus, Richard Holbrooke, and others. According to Mike Brownfield:
Those divisions are of Obama’s own making, stemming from his lack of leadership and failure to make a firm commitment to victory in Afghanistan.
Be that as it may, there is one commander in chief of the United States military, and it is a civilian: the president of the United States. Adore him, tolerate him, or despise him, he is still the commander in chief and. He is entitled to the respect customarily shown to that office by military officers; to be disrespectful or insubordinate is highly inappropriate. Taking issue, publicly, with the commander in chief on war policy is grossly inappropriate for a high ranking serving officer and is no less troublesome than a company commander telling his troops that the battalion commander is an idiot. Both degrade the chain of command and neither leads to the enthusiastic obedience of lawful orders. A retired senior officer for whose views I have great respect has told me that:
Any senior officer I know anything about would never tolerate members of his staff making the kinds of remarks reported, and he certainly wouldn’t have said those kinds of things even among his close staff, much less in front of a reporter. If the report is accurate, the president shouldn’t relieve McChrystal; Gates should do it and do it quickly.
Although General McChrystal has apologized to various and sundry for his remarks, I have seen nothing to suggest that he has retracted them or those of his staff members. The only casualty besides General McChrystal thus far has been that Duncan Boothby, the special [civilian] assistant to McChrystal who organized the Rolling Stone journalist’s access to the commander, has resigned as a result of the article.
Surely, General McChrystal knew better than most people what conduct is expected of very senior officers. Had he wanted to comply with these principles, he should have sought retirement from the Army before giving a reporter for Rolling Stone what appears to have been extended access over a period of two months to himself and to his staff. He is not a callow child and cannot be assumed to have been blissfully ignorant of the form his “profile” would likely take. Earlier, he had been chastised by President Obama for going public with his demand for more troops for Afghanistan. His failure to submit his retirement papers before speaking out demonstrated either an abysmal lack of judgment or a desire to provoke the reaction which followed. I can’t find any sufficient basis for assuming the former and shall, therefore, assume the latter and that he got pretty much what he wanted. Now that he has it, what will he do with it?
Paul Mirengoff, writing in Power Line on June 22, observed:
[T]he airing of military grievances in Rolling Stone seems extraordinary enough to cry out for additional explanation. I assume that the conduct of Gen. McChrystal and his aides reflects deep frustration with the Obama administration over, among other things, (a) its inability for the better part of a year to formulate a plan for waging war in Afghanistan and, far more importantly, (b) the imposition of a July 2011 deadline or target date for beginning our withdrawal, along with (c) the decision to retain an ambassador to Afghanistan who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with McChrystal on key issues.
Add it all up, and it probably looks to McChrystal as if he has been dealt a losing hand. That’s hard to keep silent about, especially nowadays.
* * * *
The main consequence of this flap may be to provide various actors with an excuse for doing what they want to do anyway. President Obama should conclude that he needs to relax the July 2011 deadline that is weighing so heavily on McChrystal and others in the military. But he’s far more likely to conclude that the part of him (the main part, I think) that wants nothing to do with the military or with wars had it right all along. And if McChrystal is booted, President Karzai, who has a good relationship with the General, may find an additional rationale for tilting away from the U.S. and trying to cut some kind of deal.
Things are really screwed up in Afghanistan; they were screwed up before General McChrystal got there and they will be screwed up long after the United States exits. According to retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West, there are horrific problems in command and control as well as in other areas. Col. West’s address was delivered on September 11, 2009, and there appears to be little indication that General McChrystal — who had three months earlier assumed command in Afghanistan — did much to fix them. Indeed, it has been argued persuasively that he imposed unduly restrictive rules of engagement, which got some of our troops killed. I do not know whether he was trying to adhere to policy from above with which he did not agree or did it on his own; I suspect the former. If that was the case, he should have resigned his commission or retired in protest even earlier.
“To win this war, America, and its generals, need to be led by someone who really wants to win the war. Someone who believes his country is great, and extraordinary, and deserves to win its wars.”
This certainly is NOT Obama. He keeps running around the world making speeches that the United States is no better than any other country on the planet. There is no American exceptionalism mentioned in any of his speeches and certainly very little mention of America’s role as leader of the free world. If we are no better than France or Latvia, who are we to dictate to the world what is right and what is wrong? If we are no better than Germany or Italy, then who are we to say that democracies on this planet, such as Israel, have a “simple” right to exist, no matter what the Muslim world has to say about it? And if we are no better than Syria, Iran, or Libya, then who are we to scold the rest of the world on human rights violations?
We have a pathetic little boy as president, a teenager who was in love with the radical 1960s but just wasn’t old enough to take part in it. He was, however, able to surround himself with people who were there (like William Ayers and Reverand Wright) and he certainly took their horrific beliefs to heart. Our president also is a shallow, naive, and unapologetic European-style socialist and the stain he will leave on this country will certainly rival the stain that is still haunting America in the Gulf of Mexico. When McChrystal finally met with Obama at the White House, McChrystal certainly was the only adult in the room.
McChrystal has no place in public affairs: he’s a self-admitted Obama voter. I doubt anyone on the right of center will want anything to do with him or listen to him. On the left, he’s probably a pariah for embarrassing the Messiah. He has no future in American politics as a result.
He was a good warrior, though not one with an unmixed record in high command.
The best thing McChrystal can do for himself is get a few defense related board of directors gigs and write on COIN. He might or might not have anything useful to say.
I can understand General McChrystal’s decision to voice his dismay and to allow his subordinates to voice their’s in a magazine with a substantial circulation (I would not have picked Rolling Stone however)as the current administration does not nor will not listen to those with opposing views. I was in the Marine Corps, if we had a problem we took it up the chain of command and continued taking it to the top until the problem was solved. He had already took it as high as it could go, unfortunately the highest it could go was to a Commander in Chief that has no experience in anything military not to mention anything else such as foreign policy, etc. The General exhausted his resources within his chain of command and found that the only thing that the administration might consider is public outcry at the mishandling and short sighted decisions from a novice politician that realizes (I assume) that the public, will be the ones that votes him and his cronies out in the next several elections. It is unfortunate that General McChrystal had to do this in this manner. I do not know his mind, but believe he did it, as any good commander does, to protect his current troops,the future troops that will have to go back in after we leave this time without fully accomplishing the mission and the civilians that will be killed or injured after we leave and the terrorist training camps start back up and produce a new group of 911 and so called home grown terrorists. This is a mess, but look on the bright side we are getting General Patreus back in there, who I believe to be a very competent commander, instead of having the President apoint a WAR CZAR like he would probably like to.
SEMPER FI.
Lloyd
there are honorific problems in command and control as well as in other areas
—-
Did you mean to write horrific, instead of honorific?
Yep, it was my goof and I should have caught it before submitting the article.
McChrystal’s career has been smashed to smithereens (admittedly self-inflicted) and Obama lost?
Not to difficult to understand really. McChrystal lost his career but retired
an honorable man. Obama lost his honor, and will soon be degraded and disgraced
in the most humiliating ways. In fact I wonder if his fragile personality will
survive whats coming up. McChrystal walked away a man, Obama will crawl, or be
taken out in a straight jacket.
…Obama lost his honor…What are characteristics that add up to honor? Has Obama shown such characteristics?
The article tends to underplay the right ring firestorm which got aimed at Truman after he dismissed MacArthur, but overall it is a reasonable analysis of that situation. However, it is hard to see how Obama is losing on this one. The air has been somewhat cleared, Petraeus gets a new start, McChrystal certainly has a future at Fox, (I mean, if they hire Mark Fuhrman, what does that tell you? That they know their demographic, that’s what) but his chances for elected office take a beating with his apparent carelessness.
Afghanistan may eventually drag all of them down. Obama is making (or trying to make) the transition from campaign messiah to day-in, day-out President. The right is howling and throwing dust in the air. The left is grumbling and sniping about his moving toward the center. Hmmm, seems to be almost business as usual in US History since…(you pick the era.) How about Shay’s Rebellion?
McChrystal hates Fox and banned it from his headquarters.
His contest with President Obama, which I think he won, would give him significant pulling power with many voters and his outspoken lack of reverence for the powers that be would be far better employed in either of those venues than as a serving military officer.
After years of supporting the removal of Saddam Hussein, when the going got tough liberals successfully politicized the war in Iraq for their benefit. McChrystal is a liberal who voted for Obama and banned from his headquarters the only network, Fox News, that consistently supported the Afghan mission.
The conclusion that McChrystal won is silly. Liberals are not going to abandon Obama to support McChrystal. And it’s unlikely that someone as incoherent as McChrystal is going to convince the only people who support the military through thick and thin – conservatives.
But I am of two minds here. I don’t know if we have BECOME so partisan that every reaction to every thing is channeled through partisan lenses…or we have always been that way, or most likely have gone back and forth in cycles between uber-partisanship and troubled consensus. WWII and 9/11 got us one extended and one brief period of relative consensus.
The cash flows consistently to the right or the left, while (for arguments sake) centrists get money only if they manage to get elected. Both sides have made a concerted effort to keep Obama from moving to the center, but the hammering inevitably pushes and pulls any President in that direction. This site is financed by and caters to righties; God bless it. The extreme opinions expressed are part of its charm and make quick and easy responses possible. Heavy-lifting strategy talk, happens… where?
Obama believes his agenda is centrist and appears to be oblivious as to how much of the nation is to his right.
McChrystal sat at the poker table and was dealt an unwinnable hand. Yet, he tried to play it the best he could, all the while, his opponent, Obama, had his poker buddies continue to reveal McChrystal’s hand by constantly reminding the world that withdrawal from Afghanistan was imminent. It was a no win situation for any good career military officer. Much like trying to stop the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf with hardware store equipment, McChrystal was trying to win a victory in Afghanistan with even less.
What he did was unforgiveable for a military commander in a war situation. His actions constitute the most cardinal of all cardinal sins, he openly allowed public criticism of the commander-in-chief by his staff and at times, by his own words. Another point to consider. Rolling Stone is by no means a conservative, military friendly publication. The reporters must have thought it was Christmas in one of the hottest places in the world. Santa Claus delivering dissenting comments from aides, much to their delight, the same as a child seeing all of the bounty under the tree on Christmas morning.
This begs the question, what the hell was McChrystal and his aides thinking? Even the most hardened military person knows the history of insubordination, especially making disrespectful remarks about the commander-in-chief, even with the understanding and knowledge the C-I-C is a total incompetent in military matters and has an obvious disdain for anything military. If they were so out of touch and unaware of the potential harm their comments would be, the outcome was the best thing that could happen.
Now, we have a competent, politically aware, and respectful replacement for McChrystal. McChrystal and his aides were not wrong in their assessment, they just expressed their opinions to the wrong people, at the wrong time, and in the wrong venue. As the saying goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” The critcism should have stayed within the ranks, never repeated outside.
Just curious, what is this astute author doing living in rural Panama?
I’m still trying to figure out why Petraeus would accept a job McChrystal apparently found distasteful unless Petraeus negotiated a better ‘hand’ before accepting the assignment.
The Rules Of Engagement are too onerous for success. Come to think of it maybe its exactly why Obama has imposed those rules on the troops – does he really want success? Good question and few really know for sure. But perception is reality and my perception (I’m not alone on this one) is he just wishes this pesky war would just go away so he can slog on in his quest to ‘fundamentally change America’.
McChrystal had – according to multiple sources – voted for Obama in the 2008 elections. Based solely on that fact I find it difficult to believe he’d be successful in politics. Thats some heavy baggage to tote into an election cycle while running for office. Noted is the fact that Dan Miller doesn’t suggest he run for POTUS – congress/senate – I suggest McChrystal quietly retire with the shame of having voted for the most feckless Commander In Chief in my lifetime and let his wife nag the sh*t out of him for the rest of his life!
I’ve never understood why MacArthur is considered a genius or Truman a good President. Just not that impressed. MacArthur failed to train his army after WWII and he failed to heed all warnings of the Chinese invasion of Korea after Inchon. He should have been relieved for incompetence in 1950.
President Truman was an incompetent Commander-in-Chief. He fired a good Secretary of Defense (James Forrestal) and replaced him with a complete hack (Louis A. Johnson) who destroyed the readiness of U.S. conventional forces. Truman’s military cuts and unpreparedness almost lost us the Korean War. His plan was to use nukes instead of conventional forces against the communists. When the time came to do it, he lost his nerve. Instead, the Army had to scour scrap-yards to scrounge up enough tanks and artillery to prevent an outright loss in Korea.
Truman and MacArthur aren’t role models to be compared to; they are examples of what not to do.
Greetings Old Soldier,
I’m reading a book called Honor, A History, by James Bowman that discusses this. Bowman believes MacArthur was on the losing side of the debate about the then new concept of “limited warfare.” To quote Bowman quoting MacArthur in testimony before Congress, p. 196: “. . . after being relieved of his command . . . he said that “there are only three ways” to wage war: “Either pursue it to victory; to surrender to the enemy and end it on their terms; or what I think is the worst of all choices – to go on indefinitely and indefinitely, neither to win or lose, in that stalemate; because what we are doing is sacrificing thousands of men while we are doing it.”
Incompetent or not, he seems to Bowman to have wanted to uphold his responsibility to his troops’ morale and honor.
I think Mac was only worried about his own honor. If he was worried about his troops morale or honor, he would have taken an interest in training and equipping them. And he wouldn’t have ignored the warnings of Chinese troops in Korea – throwing his army into Northern Korea like a poker bluff bet.
All very well and good to respect the office of the president during normal times but we have a traitor to America in the Winter Palace. We are at war. Here. At home. How are patriotic citizens who believe in the Constitution supposed to behave?
Agree with Old Solder. MacArthur was hardly a genius. No genius would have let his air force get destroyed on the ground in the Phillipines, having known about the Pearl Harbor attack for 12 hours or so! With the loss of his air force, the Phillipines could not be held. MacArthur should have been relieved like Kimmel and Short in Hawaii. I suspect the Americans who participated in the Bataan Death March would not have considered him a genius.
Jim, MacArthur scared the whole world = except maybe the Chinese.
I’m glad you’re out, Jim. Your old cell at the station is empty now. The wife and I miss you for those impromptu barbecues. The Lieutenant is now running a retirement home bingo game up in the mountains.
Jim, if you’re still driving the Firebird, you old fool…never mind, Jim.
My father-in-law was there, so I’ve read about it. the planes had been in the air, but they can only stay aloft so long without refueling.
McCrystal was derilect in his duty, he should of started a coup against the constitution hating and ripping apart Obama. Obama needs to be removed, Obama is taking down the USA. Obama is a blatant marxist. I fell for the con man, I voted for him, now I am embarrassed. I hated those birthers and those people that said Obama was inelgible, but now that I see Obama is taking down our country I started reading those inelgible articles in WND.COM, and you know
they have the proof, 100% proof, Obama is not eglible to be President of the USA.
Did the “birthers” say Obama was ineligible. In my reading of their resesrvations, they questioned his constitutional eligibility BECAUSE OF HIS REFUSAL to present “legitimate” PROOF of NATURAL BORN CITIZENSHIP OF THE USA, given his self described past history. As a reputed ” constitutional scholar” and “Professor” he is certainly aware of this Constitutional requirement AND that it has NEVER been amended. In itself strange behaviour. When added to his freely taken oath on accepting the Presidency, to UPHOLD AND DEFEND a document HE SAID was “defctive” and “flawed”, what meanings are to be ascribed to these behaviours? Ask YOURSELF the question: if considering someone for a job with crucial responsibility for a company’s continuing safety and existence WOULD YOU hire someone of whom you knew only what he/she told you in interview? OR would you REQUIRE proofs of his eligibility. Which must surely include qualified evidence of his /her background relevant to the job, with assessments to character and probity. In other words that he/she meets all the requirements of competence and character for the job. What then is different for this case of Obama or anyone else, as President of the USA.
Good Generals are very hard to replace, just like good ship’s Captains, you can’t beat their experience. He lost good 75 men in that God Forsaken land of rocks and heat just this month alone! You don’t know who the enemy is, they get their weapons from Iran, who get them from Communist Red China, and we say or do nothing to control Red China. “Know your enemy” and watch them carefully. They don’t want peace, they want to kill and maim our young men and women one by one and in turn it wounds the families also. What a drastic toll it has taken so far, just think about it, the costs, the heartaches, tears and the resentment of the leaders. The arrogance of the higher echelon is “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely”! The air of WAR is in the breeze, it will not be pretty. “Mama” get your baggy pants boys ready to be drafted because it’s going to happen & soon!
They will hide underground and we will have to defend for ourselves,
Enjoy life while you can and God have mercy on us all!
It’s unfortunate that the general did not better than butting heads with the boss. It’s even worse that the boss did not act on the dissent between his diplomats and his own hand-picked general. When the guy at the top does not pay attention, how can anything good come out? Only by the utter dedication of the underlings, luck and the grace of God. This self-centered white house is pointing the finger at Karzai, basically accusing him of wishing to stay alive after the trumpeted American departure from the Taliban’s coveted territory.
General Patraeus will know how to deal with the boss because he will negotiate with him instead of wasting energy by challenging him at the personal level. He might even be able to get the president to appoint diplomats who can work with the military instead of against it. We are darn lucky to have General Patraeus to repair the morale of our soldiers and allow them to win, assuming the president has the good sense not to alienate his new general. In that sense, McChystal wins, and we all win, because the boss is now paying attention, and can no longer afford to treat the military as a political nuisance.
obama will not negotiate. He doesn’t want success. the left HATES Petraeus with a passion. If anything, I wouldn’t put it past obama and his puppetiers to be setting him up for a fall.
the taliban’s getting guns from the chinese – who own’s lots of US debt? the chinese.
Harry Truman led men in battle in World War I. Aside from a brief, unsuccessful stint in the Cub Scouts, Obama has never worn a uniform, although he would have us believe that he once considered it (but he was pretty high at the time). Harry Truman dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, and claimed to have not lost a minute’s sleep over the decision. Obama never tires of placing American troops and America herself in ever greater mortal risk at the hands of a global suicide death cult (Islam) that has openly declared war on us. The first time our enemies strike Obama hard in the nose (and that day is surely coming), he will fold like a cheap t.v. tray.
Obama bears no comparison whatsoever to Truman, And comparing Obama to Abe Lincoln, in any positive sense, should be a criminal offense. Obama has the egotistical pride of a zeppelin, but no backbone. None.
But anyways, great article.
After sending the article off to Pajamas Media, I thought a bit more about my position that General McChrystal had won and that President Obama had lost. By the time that I did so, it was probably too late to change the article, but here’s what I probably should have said. Many of the thoughts are in the article, but there are other things to be said and I should have said them:
I have seen lots of comments to the effect that General McChrystal is an incompetent leftist idiot because he voted for then Senator Obama. I don’t share those views; I wrote several articles favorable to then Senator Obama before he was nominated. I feared Senator Clinton more than I feared Senator Obama, and had modest hopes that were Senator Obama to become President Obama, there might be some healing of the racial divide in the United States. That didn’t happen and, I think, the divide has if anything become worse. I voted for Senator McCain, but my enthusiasm in doing so was rather dilute.
Perhaps the 2012 election will provide a conserative presidential candidate about whom there can be more enthusiasm.
Do you still fear Sen. Clinton more? Obama has done more to destroy this country in his short time in office, than even Hillary could dream of. . . .
You’re kidding yourself if you think Hillary is less dangerous for the nation than Obama. They are philosophical twins, with essentially the same goals and methods. They both hate America and her people. I’m sure there are many cocktail party psychologists of all political factions ready to explain her “deeper motivations”. I prefer to decide on her public behaviours since the Clintons came from Arkansas as Democrats’ clones for the unelectable Edward Kennedy. Whose character flaws could no longer be discounted/dismissed after Chappaquiddick. As “First Lady” and “card-carrying feminist”, she often behaved as if she already held political office, e.g. reports of her behaviour after discovery of Vincent Forster’s body. And as “feminist” her sneering at women “who stand by their man”. Despite her swallowing the public dieu et mon droit behaviours of her own husband. AND AS A FEMINIST, who one supposes did not want to succeed on the coat-tails of her husband, agreed, despite never having held elected office in her own right, the position of US Senator for New York. Another copy-cat behaviour of the Kennedy’s, this time Robert. And there’s WhiteWater. AND her comments, as Secretary of State,USA representative to other nations, whose royal progress is paid for by the citizens of the USA, to an African audience in early 2009. That the US election of 2000, DESPITE judicial ruling to the contrary, was “Stolen” from the Democrats. Appalling discourtesy to the audence and to the people of the nation she “represents”. TWINS: Hillary/Obama.
Keep in mind as well that according to RS editors, SM and his aides frequently did say to the reporter that certain comments and information were off the record. In other words he was not an invisible fly on the wall – they decided what he could and could not write about and they had to have known exactly what he would do. In fact, the RS editors have also said they fact checked the story in advance with SM personally.
When Stanley Met Barry, Part One
We’ll never know exactly what went down when President Barack Hussein Obama met with General Stanley Allen McChrystal on Wednesday in the White House. All we do know is that the president was “furious” over the general’s comments in the article to be published this week in Rolling Stone, “The Runaway General.”
We do know that it wasn’t a beer summit comparable to the one the president hosted last year to heal the damage he caused in the Crowley-Gates-Cambridge brouhaha. This-sit down ended up with the abstemious general submitting his resignation which is code for being threatened with a sacking unless he faded away quietly.
I have to concede that Obama was between that proverbial rock and hard place over the situation in which McChrystal bad mouthed the president and members of the administration. He was sort of damned if he did fire him and damned if he didn’t.
If he didn’t fire him, aka accept his resignation, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1751)
“Between a rock & a hard place.” Oh yeah. I’m sure Obama had his Depends on tho.
Now, you see, THIS is what happens when you place a college lecturer (with no known publications to his name, aside from his memoirS) in the Oval Office — the highest office in the land, and indeed, the world.
Is this all really happening?
General McChrystal asked for troops (Aug 30, 2009). Obama agreed 89 days (29 Nov 2009) later to dispatch an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan only after months of study. It took Obama one day to relieve General McChrystal with no study. Obama is the kind of leader that makes me/you proud!
It is impossible to exceed my loathing of Obama, but McChrystal violated Article 88 of the UCMJ and should have been subject to a court martial. The rest doesn’t matter. The only honorable course for him was to demand what he needed to win, or resign.
His having voted for Obama does make his judgement suspect.
this is not about obama winning or losing, nor is about Bush, regan, carter
or any other president. this is about our demecracy.. the authority of civilians over military is the foundation of democracy… then agai
all of you neo cons try to solve everything with guns
ummm, no. try again in 24 hours.
I like how the term “civilian control over the military” just started being used in regards to McCrystal, and I’ve heard it repeated by multiple Liberal posters, Obama, and the liberal media. What are you guys afraid of? You control everything in this county other than the internet. Are you trying to remind your left base that you “control” the military?
And to Deano: Obama is a Communist, not a socialist. “Big tent Opportunist”… right. We’ll be lucky to have a tent left once he’s done dividing this country.
November can’t come sooner.
If you accept that McChrystal knew what he was doing, and orchestrated his own firing, then it is likely that he knew that our present strategy in Afghanistan was a disaster in the making; a diktat of the White House, with rules of engagement designed to assure our defeat. Following this line of reasoning, he was being set up as the fall guy when our policy failed. He has now succeeded in extracting himself from that untenable position, and warning us of the approaching danger. He’s warned us without disobeying any direct orders or revealing any classified information. Thus his warning lacks specificity. Obviously, our operation against Kandahar has been delayed for a reason, and it’s a reason which thus far has not been made public, although we may speculate about it. A campaign of counter-insurgency can’t succeed when we are pledged to withdraw on a date certain. I’ll leave the rest of the argument as an exercise for the class. But it is by no means impossible that an accomplished strategist has just succeeded in extracting himself from a nasty trap in an honorable manner.
I believe someone once asked ‘Chesty’ Puller what his strategy was. “March to the sould of the guns and destroy the enemy.” MacArthur was right. Whatever the cost at the time, to have the existence of Red China, North Korea, and Vietnam voided ab initio would have been well worth it. The crucial point that civilians often seem to overlook is the ‘destroy’ part. To live again to fight another day is an option that we should never leave to any enemy. MacArthur most likely didn’t know exactly who he was staring in the face when he met with Truman. In the late 40s, Truman found out that the charges made by HUAC and Sen McCarthy of massive infiltration of the Fed govt by Soviet spies, agents-of-influence, and fellow-travelors were true and then some. Rather than give the GOP an issue in forthcoming elections, Truman orchestrated a complete stonewall of all loyalty investigations. Some individuals were quietly fired or reassigned, but many were left in place. I don’t think McArthur could have known about this, but I expect that he had correctly judged that ultra-party-hack Truman was fully capable of such behavior and adjusted his respect-level accordingly. The Left’s attack on friendly (i.e., loyal to the US) witnesses was run exactly as those from today’s playbook are. Hey, maybe there are Commies in the State Department, but MacCarthy is a drunk and a Republican and Edward R. Murrow doesn’t like him. Hey, maybe Alger Hiss is a Commie, but Chambers is overweight and weird. Might as well be reading today’s WaPo.
This presidency is effectively over.
Period…
1. Obama’s a pretty good president.
2. McChrystal got what he deserved.
Sorry Adrian, but what exactly is he “pretty good” at?
By the way, yes, the General got what he deserved. Now, that being said, what was your opinion of generals grandstanding against Bush? Were they ‘speaking truth to power?” Or were they insubordinate?
We already know what the media thinks.
>1. Obama’s a pretty good president.
As was James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter.
>2. McChrystal got what he deserved.
That’s what Obama sez. Meanwhile, we now have a gaping vacancy at the head of Centcom; McChrystal’s uniformly-acknowledged TALENTS as commander of US forces in Afghanistan are out the window; and the general moral of US forces in Afghanistan & elsewhere have been delivered a swift kick to the groin. … But, hey, Obama was right to make a statement as to who is truly in charge here. (That would be Michelle.)
AFVet: They were insubordinate. Oops! Weren’t expecting that one! Zing!
Dr. Frank: James Buchanan? How old are you, exactly? And I’m not sure what you’re driving at exactly, but if you liked Jimmy Carter and James Buchanan, then I guess that’s cool.
Haha Michelle? What are you talking about? Oh, the crazy things people like you say.
You all need to look outside the box on this one! this was set up by both Obama and the General. The war with Iran is to start within one or two weeks! Read all the intel from around the world where we and other countrys are rushing troops and positioning troops and carrier battle groups! General McChrystal is being sent to Kakastan with the other Black ops and special ops personel. Ask yourself who is better qualified to run this Operation! So you ask yourself how do you get him from Afgainstan to this operation without alerting the enemy! He resigns and comes in the backdoor! Blackops style!
I like the way you think.
Something is a foot.
Assuming you are right, and you may be, you should have refrained from posting that.
Sounds intriguing, but this would assume that Obama gives a crap about the military positioning of the United States.
We generally debate whether Obama and his inner circle are malicious or just plain incompetent. And wimpy towards anyone they can’t fire or blackmail.
Now I a supposed to believe they are brilliant, able to keep a secret, and bold enough to start a war without a couple hundred UN Resolutions. Please.
I doubt Obama would order a military retaliation if a couple hundred nuclear ICBM’s were inbound. We obviously would have brought in on ourselves.
Allow me to posit this: Who is more important to the welfare of America?: Barack Obama, holding the reins of office at the White House? Or General Patraeus commanding American operations at Centcom?
Okay, granted, Obama seems to be destroying America at a dizzying rate, but which of these two men represents the greatest protector of all we hold dear?
By skilled Generals are not scattered. Extreme provocation takes place. The journalist has been used to discredit the commander. For dismissal have found weak enough occasion. Have literally inflated from a fly of an elephant. It is necessary to regret only that heads of the USA use dishonest methods for realisation of the purposes. Such acts are rather appreciable. Analysts abroad will find in such decision enough bases to believe that affairs of military men in Afghanistan go not so well. At the international forums actions of a military contingent in Afghanistan exclusively through a prism of maintenance of stable deliveries of drugs in the countries of Europe and Asia are discussed. Any scandals in sphere of presence of an illegal military contingent in Afghanistan only strengthen confidence of bloggers of the assumptions.
We would be a better and safer country if Obama had reassigned McChrystal to protect our southern border (yes, I’m dreaming). The Pakistan/Afgan border will never be secured but it serves as a “good war” distraction. Obama is going to sue Arizona for protecting itself – he has essentially declared war against his own country. Do you need to know more as to the real Obama agenda ? Will he next engage the military to prevent Arizona from protecting its borders from Mexico ? Perhaps, if it could result in increasing his voter pool. Don’t we all feel safer now to have a “little boy” president firing a seasoned warrior who loves his country. What a shame.
“During the Second World War, General MacArthur demonstrated a high level of military genius. There were few in the allied countries who were unfamiliar with his name and fame; for the most part, he was revered. Later, in 1950, when he was the “viceroy of Japan,” he was absolutely unprepared for the June 25, 1950, North Korean invasion of South Korea (not technically within his areas of command but still his responsibility as the closest military presence) which he had failed to anticipate despite signs that it was a possibility. He was not alone in that lack of prescience, even though Secretary of State Dean Acheson had practically invited an invasion during a speech on January 12, 1950, listing those countries which were vital to the interests of the United States and on whose behalf the United States would intervene if attacked; South Korea was conspicuously absent from the list. [...]
Although a brilliant general, perhaps the greatest in recent memory, MacArthur had some fatal flaws.”
You accurately state MacArthur’s media presence but vastly overstate his military abilities. His failure to anticipate the North Korean invasion was hardly his first, nor even his worst, military sin.
The Allied defense of the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia in early 1942 was doomed from the start by an almost complete lack of air power. Much of that deficiency was due to the loss of the USAAF Far Eastern Air Force. In the hours after Pearl Harbor, MacArthur allowed the Far Eastern Air Force to be caught on the ground by Japanese air attack at the Clark Field complex and destroyed. The loss of the Far Eastern Air Force allowed subsequent Japanese air attacks to, quite literally, turn the US Navy’s Cavite base into molten slag. With no base, thanks to Douglas MacArthur, the US Asiatic Fleet was forced to retreat to Indonesia, for which they were called “cowards” by MacArthur.
MacArthur was very, very overrated as a general; one can argue he hurt the Allies as much as he helped them. His media presence was greater than McChrystal’s, but the only appropriate comparison between the two is their acts of insubordination, not military abilities.
“I’ve never understood why MacArthur is considered a genius or Truman a good President.”
You ain’t the only one.
“1. Obama’s a pretty good president.”
So far, he’s not too bad IF you compare him to Democrat morons like Woodrow Wilson, FDR or Jack Kennedy. Compared to any Republican…he’s a freaking disaster.
First calling this a “win” for McCrystal is asine, sorry Dan, but it is. The man had what was undoubtedly the pinnicle opportunity of his career – running the war in Afghanistan – and people genuinely believe he would throw that away for political positioning? The man is a career professional, he wasn’t thinking about a future political career or making a political “statement” by dissing the CIC in an article. If he wanted or needed to fall on his sword for political purposes, you can bet it would have been a whole lot better managed than this. This bears all the markings of a journalistic sideswipe.
McCrystal made a mistake. The fact is that he and his staff allowed the RS journalist inside but the story that they wanted/hoped to have come out didn’t happen, mainly because the journalist probably smelled a better angle in the whole “embattled with the Taliban on one side and the White House on the other” ethos that he and his aides allowed to be perceived. McCrystal and his aides got comfortable or distracted and allowed this crap to come out. To their detriment. Pretending it must have a “greater purpose” is illusionary and specious reasoning.
Second, slamming Obama relentlessly for firing McCrystal (and you don’t do that in your article Dan, you made some very good points, but some of the commenters really need to take off their tinfoil hats once in a while) is stupid. While the CIC could have kept McCrystal, it was probably smarter to shift him offstage and bring in Petreus, demonstrating that the administration is still committed to a COIN-oriented strategy while removing the commander responsible for the problem…and it is a problem. You can’t have the man responsible for the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and his staff publicly at odds with the strategic and political counterparts. It was McCrystal’s command and his responsibility, is it somewhat overblown and probably unnecessary – hell yes – but that’s what happens when you critique your superiors within earshot of the Rolling Stone magazine. If you don’t want it reported, then don’t say it to him.
Lastly for everyone screaming “the sky is falling over America” and “its all Obama’s fault because he’s a SOCIALIST”…grow up or get a pair. He’s a slightly left of centre politician with a strong communications technique and a lot of rhetoric. He’s not a socialist, he’s a “big tent” opportunist who will, when necessary drift right or left ( with grand rhetorical florishes each time) dependent on the political issues – a fact the GOP better get their heads around if they are going to field a strong opponent in the future or Obama will be eating their lunch for a second term….
Yeah, but it FEELS so good to call him a commie; elections aren’t that important. Plus the tin foil hats are either going to impeach him or get him declared ineligible.
Great article and I agree with much of your analysis. However, regarding general MacArthur. I am in my sixth decade of life, and I was a very small child at the time that Truman fired MacArthur. I know today Truman is loved and respected by most Americans because he called it as he saw it. In the fifties he was absolutely despised by the average Joe on the street. The entire time I was growing up my parents never forget how Truman had botched Korea nor how he had treated MacArthur. Whether his treatment was correct or not is wrecked his Presidency. It is to early to know how much damage this firing is going to do to Obama, but I can already tell you the next General is going to do as he pleases and Obama is going to like it. I can’t see Obama firing another General certainly not one of the status of Petraeus. Second, Afghanistan is a morass that Obama has gotten into and now he won’t be able to get us out. Third, McChrystal is most certainly will write a book and go on the lecture circuit and what he will say will be critical of Obama. The amazing thing is McChrystal was a Democrat trying to install policies that would please Obama and other Democrats. In the process it angered Republicans, his military solidiers, and those in the Obama administration didn’t appreciate the fact he was one of them. Finally, why should a General have to deal with a civilian leadership that doesn’t support the Presidents policies. That is psychotic.
The world would certainly be a different place, and not necessarily a better one, if MacArthur’s desire to challenge the Chinese with atomic weapons had been followed during the Korean conflict.
Obama has not endeared himself to the American Armed Forces by his “About Face and In Self-Defense” re-positioning after his election. Many service men and women were supporting a venue of “Hope and Change” as much as McChrystal voiced his voting preference.
Andrew Bacevich, West Point graduate, retired-Colonel and Professor of International Relations has written about “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”
International frustrations, stalemated political and military agendas, and Rules of Engagement hardly a resignation or retirement make: a rolling stone gathers no moss.
The two-faced constituency of arrogance: “Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, and Unequal.”
I tried posting this several days ago…
I am going with Michael Yon on this guy. Great killer, but in over his head on the COIN strategy.
There is no way Obama wins here. McCrystal was his hand picked guy, a true believer in the hopey changiness, as witness his alleged vote for the Maestro, and willing to accept and enforce rules of engagement worse than anything LBJ ever came up with in Viet Nam, as an apparent condition of the command.
Now the feckless left has tapped the man they absolutely villified in the Iraq Surge to bail their sorry asses out. And that is how they see it. They will do anything to keep power and there is no apparent thought to consequence to the nation or anyone else. It is for this only that they turn to Petraeus.
McCrystal did wrong, and in the doing brought dishonor upon himself and the Armed Services. Rolling effing Stone, for God’s sake. WTF was this loon thinking?
General Petraeus is made from different cloth, however. Duty. Honor. Country. Who would take the job he has unless that person was willing to sacrifice even more on behalf of his countrymen. While thankful, I am really very sorry that the General is in this position.
We can help him. This November 2nd. By turning the traitors out of Congress and out of the Senate that we can. Let’s do that.