The armed forces are commanded by the president. Mullen, McChrystal and Petraeus and everyone else in the armed forces are the military subordinates of the president and not of anyone in the Congress nor of the Congress collectively.

During the Civil War there were disagreements between President Lincoln and generals, specifically General McClellan. Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and their friends in the Civil War Congress created a “Joint Committee on the War” in order to use the testimony of various Union Army generals against Lincoln.

What a disaster that was! What an inducement to the poltical vanities and ambitions of the brass. General McChrystal was wrong wrong wrong.

2. Of course our forces would not stay at WWII levels. Troop levels weren’t the issue – equipment and training were. I expected Truman, as Commander in Chief, to maintain an Army capable of fighting. Instead he hired a man who gleefully destroyed the ability of the ENTIRE army to fight a conventional war. Our men were recovering abandoned tanks and planes from WWII junk-yards, putting them back together, and shipping them to the battlefield as fast as possible to avert disaster. It was madness.

Truman and Johnson had adopted a defense posture that essentially said – we will use nukes to defend ourselves and our allies. When McArthur found himself outnumbered and outmaneuvered, he called on Truman to carry through with Truman’s own policy. Truman finally saw the stupidity of his own defense policy – at the cost of thousands of dead American soldiers.

He did the right thing by relieving McArthur and putting Ridgeway in charge to start rebuilding the American Army – just several years late.

Army officers gathered at a convention in Washington this week said senior White House officials should not have rebuked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, for saying publicly that a scaled-back war effort would not succeed.”

… so, Obama’s right and the brass is wrong…

2) “the police acted stupidly!” – this incident and its crappy handling by the White House time and again shows Obama’s warped view of the outside world, his arrogance and his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his own actions.

And while Jones’ duty is to serve his boss in the White House, he shouldn’t have deferred to Obama superficiality and step out and criticize McChrystal.

As the Washington Post piece I mentioned shows, a beer with Joe Biden and McChrystal won’t do it this time – Obama and Jones should squarely apologize to McChrystal and the entire US military force.

“Well, VIVO, it is not possible to exclude politics from war-making. The politicians get to decide the goals. The military gets to decide the means to accomplish them.”

You are correct.

My feeling is that the politicians are not setting the right goals. Their mindset is still WWII.

As for MacChrystal and Obama, along with General David P, it’s too bad Obama doesn’t remember LBJ and his famous comment about “I’d rather have him inside the tent P**sing out than outside P**sing in”

Those two Generals have made their plans for this war, according to their orders. They have every right to talk to anyone, as long as they do not violate security. They took an oath to defend the Constitution, they did not give up their citizenship. If Obambi goes against his Generals, like Bush was accused of ignoring his, he’s in real trouble. Those to can retire, draw their pensions and hit the lecture circiut. About fifteen minutes later they can announce for political office, say against Harry Reid and some other Donk in a mostly blue state. Then in 2012 they’d each have just as much national political experience as Obambi. Is Ol’ Barry smart enough to see this?

The real problem is in the Army. The Army still hasn’t recovered from the deep cuts Clinton made, and all too often the Marines have to clean up the Army’s messes for them, in addition to doing the job the Marine Corps is supposed to do. Personally, I think they’re granting waivers for all the wrong things- how do men who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder get deployed to Iraq, but they won’t allow autistics to serve, even if they can pass the entrance exams, basic, and MOS training? An autistic guy isn’t going to intentionally kill himself or his comrades; a bipolar patient very well may.