W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38837.html W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line President Barack Obama declared Gen. Stanley McChrystal guilty of “poor judgment” Tuesday but said he won’t make a decision on the commander’s fate until he talks with him first. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was summoned to Washington today for a face-to-face meeting with the president tomorrow – a meeting where he’ll have to explain why he and his aides made disparaging remarks Vice President Joe Biden, special envoy Richard Holbrooke, ambassador Karl Eikenberry and others in the presence of a reporter for Rolling Stone. “Gen. McChrystal is on his way here, and I am going to meet with him. Secretary Gates will meet with him as well,” Obama said Tuesday evening. “I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment, but I also want to talk to him directly before I make any final decisions." Asked earlier in the day whether McChrystal’s job is on the line, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that “everything is on the table.” McChrystal apologized for the article Tuesday morning. “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened,” McChrystal said. “Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard. I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war, and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome.” But the apology wasn’t enough to counter a flood of criticism from Washington – including harsh words from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. "I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine," Gates said in a statement. "I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case. We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world. "Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions. Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person." McChrystal has been instructed to fly from Kabul to Washington to attend Obama’s regular monthly security team meeting tomorrow at the White House. An administration official said McChrystal was asked to attend in person rather than by secure video teleconference to “explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes about his colleagues in the piece.” Both Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with McChrystal about the Rolling Stone piece. A spokesman for Mullen said Mullen had called McChyrstal to express “his deep disappointment with the article and with the comments expressed therein.” (more at the link)
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GGH9H00&show_article=1 Analysis: Gen.'s remarks echo troubled Afghan war Jun 22 03:53 PM US/Eastern By STEVEN R. HURST Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The war in Afghanistan appears in disarray. The commanding general's disrespectful remarks about President Barack Obama and his team are the latest setback for a nine-year war rocked by rising casualties, declining public support, growing doubts among allies and feuding between Washington and Kabul. Whether he fires Gen. Stanley McChrystal or lets him survive with a harsh scolding, Obama opens himself to further political attack as he struggles to keep his balance in the midst of the nation's economic woes and the environmental devastation from the Gulf oil spill. The Republican opposition will likely seize on the McChrystal flap as evidence of Obama's weakness as commander in chief, even though the party supports the president's Afghan policy. Liberal Democrats were already disenchanted with Obama for continuing to fight the war against daunting odds and at huge cost. The White House would not say on Tuesday if McChrystal will be fired, but declared he had made an "enormous mistake" in the unflattering Rolling Stone magazine article and that "all options are on the table." McChrystal's immediate boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, called the commanding general's remarks a "distraction" from the United States' "singular focus" of "fighting a war against al-Qaida and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world." McChrystal's troubles with Obama are not new and began shortly after he was named commander in May 2009. The general sent Gates a report that concluded the Afghan mission required 40,000 more troops or the United States faced mission failure. The assessment was leaked and deeply angered the White House that was in the midst of a protracted study of how to prosecute the war. Some said McChrystal was bullying the administration. In the end, Obama agreed to send 30,000 additional troops, giving McChrystal nearly all the resources he wanted. (more at the link)
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line There's several things at play here. First, Obama (like Bush) may have to fire a few generals before he hires the right one to win his war. I have no beef with that. Second, Obama didn't give McChrystal what he asked for (40K troops, he got 30K), but the blame for the war not going as well as the SURGE in Iraq is shared between the two (Obama, McChrystal). Third, Obama isn't looking like he commands a lot of respect from the military. Fourth, my take is McChrystal deserves to be fired for his comments. BrianFromWA, what do you think?
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line It's odd to me, how yes, Bush 'served' but he served like a puss, yet he got the respect. I wonder how this would've gone over had it been during Bush's time? I ask partly because it's a loaded question, but also because I don't remember if he had generals saying shit like that. If the right crucified the Dixie Chicks as much as they did, I can only imagine they'd do the same to a General in the military.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line And Obama is the chickenhawk, as the left liked to call Cheney (who was Secy. of Defense, he did serve). If all the rain drops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a life it would be. (It didn't happen, the military seemed to outright love Bush)
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line When you openly question your commander-in-chief, you get canned. I'd fire him.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line Denny instead of posting links to politico and breitbart you should read the article that caused the uproar, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236 Great read! My thoughts after reading it, 1. You can't help but really like McChrystal and his staff. 2. Not the right man to be leading us in Afghanistan (but is anyone?) 3. Like I said it's hard not to like him but what he did in the Pat Tillman case is unforgivable. 4. WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF AFGHANISTAN. TODAY!
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line I don't disagree with any of this, but Truman did fire MacArthur.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line I thought the political take here was pretty on the money: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/06/dont_blame_mcchrys... General McChrystal certainly deserved to be fired for taking a bad situation and making it worse, but the real food for thought ought to be what would lead him down this path. If he's the best we've got (or anywhere close), and he's trying out the military career equivalent of suicide by cop, then the ultimate blame needs to fall on the administration for failing at the politics of the war. I've pretty long thought that the politicians weren't holding up their end of the bargain when it came to the post-911 wars. When we say war is a the continuation of politics by other means, the conclusion we should reach is that our military should be an extension of our political and diplomatic force. Unfortunately, our political and diplomatic capabilities are so non-existent that our military force has been increasingly asked to become a political and diplomatic force itself. This problem seemed evident in Iraq, where the military somewhat succeeded in creating political reconciliation in addition to winning battles, but it seems even more evident in Afghanistan. In Iraq, we had inadequate political and diplomatic elements, but they certainly appeared to be hard at work and to some effect. Look at the roles and efforts of Khalizad and Crocker in Iraq and compare them to the role and efforts of Wood and Eikenberry in Afghanistan. To put it simply, the diplomats chosen for the key periods in Afghanistan aren't even close to our diplomatic A-Team. Wood was a latin American hand and Eikenberry wasn't even a foreign service guy, he was a general... with a narrow view of Afghanistan from his military tenure that's led to him saying disastrous stuff. In short, if you want to get anywhere close to "winning" a COIN war, aren't you going to need all the political muscle you can get, and isn't it going to have to work extremely closely with the military. Ultimately, the leadership of such an effort needs to be political, and here you've got no strategic leadership, no real diplomats on the ground, and the shitty ones that are are not on the same page with a military trying and failing to do it all themselves. So I guess in summary, I think the President needs to replace McChrystal, but he also needs to replace Eikenberry, get Holbrooke's head in the game, and get the career heavy hitting diplomats very involved. Really, he needed to do this from day one and now might be too late.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line Nice post, DC, but I would differ with the "increasingly asked" bit about the military. Ike was military governor of Germany when we occupied it, and MacArthur was military governor of Japan.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line The military always warms to the most obviously ignorant when it comes to leaders. Intelligence frightens the average grunt.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line What have you done in your life that has made you so intelligent? Maybe you should make yourself part of a human shield over there when they go into Kandahar. Just saying.......
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line Linky no worky! From what I've read, it doesn't sound like McChrystal did this on purpose at all. He was just dumb enough to let a RS reporter hang around with him and his aides and wasn't careful what he/they said. It doesn't have any of the hallmarks of sending a message. "Biden? Bite me" is not a carefully scripted message. So I'd conclude that the problem here is that the general aint too smart. He might know war but he doesn't know people or politics. Which means he shouldn't have been in that position to start with, and that does reflect badly on Obama. Hopefully he will correct that mistake now. barfo
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line As someone who served 8 years in the military... I can't fathom a military person not respecting their chain of command.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line Yea and nobody here can fathom what McChrystal and Obama are actually going through, no matter what the politico's think they know
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line Just like the strength of character of the military scares liberals into wetting their undies.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line I can't take a stand on whether Obama should fire McChrystal or accept his resignation - in fact I oppose the war, period, so I'm not the one to ask. I think they should all be fired and the troops brought home; if Afghanistan can't stand on its own after 10 years, will 11 make a difference? What the hell are the aims of the war anyway? Al-Qaeda is no longer there. The country is no closer to stability, etc. But McChrystal did not simply have a few too many at some party and flap his lips. He knew he was with a reporter and was on the record. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which he surely knew, says any officer in wartime who ridicules the President, Vice President, various others including head of state of wartime ally, is subject to court martial. All I can say is, what was this guy thinking? If he had policy issues, there are channels to go through.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line bad move by obama. if any negatives happen in afghanistan now, this resignation would seem petty in the scope of things. if he had refused and put the country over his ego or some kind of "chain of command", it probably would have put him in a better position.
Re: W.H. signals Gen. McChrystal's job on the line http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/06/dont_blame_mcchrystal_blame_ob.html#more I think this is it, although it seems to be changed. I don't agree with the part that McChrystal shouldn't get fired... he should, but I think the rest of the mess needs to be looked at too, which the article gets at. If you're smart enough to conclude a guy like that isn't very smart, you're smarter than anyone else. If it wasn't intentional, what it more likely shows is how limited the benefits of being smart are when you get into group dynamics. Generally speaking the problem here isn't the comments themselves (the comment on Biden, for example, isn't even obviously disrespectful of Biden, it could simply be a joke). The problem is it shows either a lack of discipline (can't/won't keep their mouths shut) or competence (didn't have the sense to tell the reporter what was off the record and what wasn't) or both on the part of his staff. His public affairs officer (who was the first guy who got fired) could have prevented everything, probably, by simply pointing out anything said at certain events was understood to be off the record. Maybe he thought it went without saying after this much fighting. I dunno...
