(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The General & The Community Organizer

To think that men who are trained to be careful and deliberate in everything they do, could do something so careless and so unguarded is simply beyond comprehension. I would argue that McChrystal and his aides knew exactly what they were doing.

This is obviously an opinion piece, but it goes along with what I was thinking when I first heard about the brouhaha over the article. It didn't make any sense for the top general and his aides to be bad-mouthing Obama to some random reporter, military guys don't normally talk to the press unless they have to.

I think this guy might be over-exaggerating the effect, but the general gist of the opinion I think is reasonable. Any other opinions on this?

Comments

[qnetter]

Well, it's chock-full of inaccuracies, for one. The Courageous Restraint Medal is a NATO idea, not a US one, and it is just that: an idea, a proposal - it doesn't exist.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

More likely they will simply continue to award the "humanitarian service medal" with "V" device.

That would make sense but once politicians get involved who knows?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Sounds conspiratorial, but passes the duck test. This wasn't the first time McChrystal spoke up, and we was complaining about a lack of attention then, too.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Or maybe Gen.McChrystal just didn't think his [offensive] comments would be published. The journalist who published the article was on The Colbert Report and admitted that, before going to print, but after the article was done, he was contacted and asked to not include some of the Generals comments. But the comments weren't made off the record, so, he reported the article.

The journalist also said something like: "I didn't think his comments made him fireable" give or take

The video should be up on Colbert's website.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that. I wouldn't expect a journalist to know the repercussions of the article.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Why not?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Because he probably was never in the military.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Horseshit and the first steps to the Afghanistan version of the Dolchstosslegende. The reality is that as in Vietnam the US ways of waging war are not compatible with a guerrilla conflict that mixes in with a civil war. American soldiers can fight extremely well and even win battles but it does no good given the limited nature of the fighting and what happens if the war expands fully to shut off the Afghan version of the Ho Chih Minh trail.

McChrystal is simply like the Vietnam-era generals who were incapable of recognizing that there was anything the US military was doing improperly and chose to blame the civilians. Petraeus by contrast has a chance to win the war but an Anbar awakening would be difficult. Iraq and Afghanistan are flipped. Iraq has three religions and two ethnicities, Afghanistan has two religions and over 60 ethnic groups. It's akin to the Swedish attempts to turn the HREGN into a Swedish domain back in the 1640s.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You're not being coherent. If McChrystal is like the Vietnam-era generals then why wouldn't he try to get out of the untenable situation he's been put into by the civilian leadership since he hasn't been able to get them to change?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Vietnam era generals were long on talk and short on action with that themselves. If they did hate the "civilian restrictions" there was not one of them troubled enough to resign. McChrystal also has made no indication that this is problems with the way the war is conducted as all the 'Nam era generals indicated only after the fact with major issues of credibility, but it appears to be more contempt for a C-I-C for whatever reason he had not one whit of respect for and instead had only the crudest contempt for and Joe Biden. I'll give him Biden but the C-I-C is still his commander regardless of whether he likes it or not.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Interesting theory, but I don't buy it. It's too complicated a process by which to accomplish too little. And in the process he disparaged his own position, Obama came out of this looking like a confident commander, McChrystal looked like an incompetent fool who didn't even know how to deal with the press, not a very good way to draw attention to one's position. Surely, if he were so clever, he could have anticipated that too.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

So the theory is that McChrystal, in an effort to save his reputation rather than resigning in "defeat" in Afghanistan, made dumbass on-the-record comments to a reporter, who then reported it and got him fired in disgrace, with every aspect of his judgment questioned. Heck, even the article was pretty critical of his actual strategy (if anyone bothered to read past the gossip). And that's how he stepped down gracefully? By being tossed in disgrace?

Just doesn't make sense. He could've made a much bigger impact (on the war and his image) by stepping down, and releasing a massive tome the next day called "How Obama is Fucking Up Afghanistan."

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I think he and the reporter were sleeping together.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Ok, I don't care who you are, that's funny :)

Nothing to see here. Move along.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Generals often have a problem with foot-in-mouth syndrome. It's called "pride goeth before the fall". It is so tired, well-worn and cliched that there really is nothing more to know about it. The problem is, Generals live in an entirely different world than their soldiers (cue picture of General standing on a bank of computer servers). So while your average grunts gets hours and hours of media training, everyone just assumes the General knows what he is doing. But, he doesn't. He doesn't have any clothes.