What a weird take. I did not say Fallon should not go . I said he was being forced out for daring to have disagreements with Bush’s aims and Patraeus’s tactics. Where did I say he should not be forced out?
McChrstal had a whole ambiance of aides and soldiers who were disrespectful of not only Obama but practically the whole administrations appointees. They may have just been acting like kids but it is on record. That can not be tolerated. The general also admits the war is at a standstill. That is really the saddest part of the story. After all that time and money,we have nothing to show for it.
I’m not so sure about the depth of the military’s top command strength, after Cheney’s continual purge of non-yes-men among their ranks. Maybe there aren’t many, or even any, capabile of stepping into a conflict that is both military and political with any hope of completing the mission. It doesn’t help that the mission goals are still so vague after all these years, or that it is still possible to think of this war in military terms of victory and defeat.
In military terms, that fact alone requires a change in command, and discredits the disruption argument against it.
Well, we do have something to show for it, besides our own war dead.
We have a hundred thousand or more dead Taliban and a proven ability to take out any one of them (except Bin Laden*) anywhere, anytime, worldwide. The proven ability to go into just about any country, anywhere in the world, fuck it over big time, hunt down it’s military and government, and turn it into a civil war hellhole.
We didn’t “win” and turn it into a real country? It never was one to begin with.
- Who is almost certainly dead at this point.
Who’s the guy in all those videos, then?
Ben Ladin. He’s the chinese knockoff of Bin Laden.
McChrystal seems so self-contradictory in his own statements in the Rolling Stone article that I found myself questioning his sanity as I read the article. But maybe that is an automatic result of trying to run the quagmire that is the US’s involvement in Afghanistan. I can really understand how someone could express six different (and mutually contradictory) opinions before breakfast, depending on what aspect of this disaster s/he was focusing on at the moment. The thing about McChrystal is that he’s so vehement in expressing each opinion, so certain that he’s right and everyone around him (except his own staff) is an idiot.
I can’t think of any way to make this situation right, for us or the Afghani people. The only thing I can think of to make it better is never going to happen: the legalization of narcotics, which would get the huge amounts of money out of the hands of the war lords. Ideally, that would still leave the poppy farmers with a decent income, as narcotics would become a normal cash crop, a little more valuable than most agricultural products, but not hugely. But the war lords would still be around, even though they’d have less money to play with. They’re already armed to the teeth.
We actually may have had a shot at success in Afghanistan, back in 2003. But we blew it, if in fact the shot ever really existed. Now what do we do? Withdraw, and the Taliban comes back, opressing the Afghani people and providing material support for Al Qaeda. Stay, and we kill more civilians, lose more of our own soldiers, and make the local population hate us more, while Al Qaeda continues to flourish in Pakistan. Pour funds into local infrastructure instead of the military? We can’t do that without military support, as Afghani irregulars have a tendency to blow up or shoot first, ask questions later.
There don’t seem to be any good choices here. And while I agree that Obama did the right thing in firing McChrystal, I don’t see that Petraeus has much better chances of success, especially since we don’t know how to define success.
Are you even looking at the implications for civilian control of the military here? There is no way he could have kept him on without damaging the relationship between the civilian executive branch and military officers. A public tongue-lashing is a tickle if it’s not accompanied by discipline. That discipline, in the case of a general who’s already shot his mouth off before, has to be relief of duties. Obama did the right thing here, in the context of military/civilian relations.
Thinking of it in terms of mitigating negative PR from McChrystal is shortsighted and way too political.
Plus, I’d be surprised if Obama and Gates don’t consider this a temporary solution. Get someone in there who can be effective today, and then take your time to figure out who’s going to take over in the long term. They’re right in the middle of a major offensive, and can’t afford to miss a beat.
Petraeus’s job is to put a smiley face on things till after the 2012 election at which point if Obama wins we can declare victory and stampede for the exits. None of those people, Petraeus and Obama included, seriously think we can win any kind of victory there. The longer we stay there the stronger the insurgency will get, all we can do is negotiate with them, buy them off in some way and call it victory. We’ll claim the Taliban are banished and replaced by “moderate Taliban”, something like that. If the GOP win in 2012 we may be there even longer depending on how much of a nutjob the next prez is.
Obama is using the soldiers under his command as cannon fodder so he can get re-elected? That’s your take on this?
Yes, that’s right. Remember George W Bush starting to “bring home” troops before the 2004 election only to send them (and more) back soon after he got reelected? The same kind ofdynamic is going on here. I’m sure Obama wishes he could draw down troops before the his reelection November too as his anti-war base is the reason he and not Hitlery is in the White House right now. He’ll need them to get reelected. But it’s going to be really difficult for a Democratic prez to do something like that in the face of a growing insurgency without a widespread backlash against him.
I served for over 10 years on active duty, and managed to never publicly criticize the President, even though I disagreed with him at times. I was always keenly aware that to do so could get me in serious trouble.
Hell, military service members aren’t even allowed to put campaign bumper stickers on their cars.
Anybody who makes it as high as McChrystal and thinks that he can bitch about the civilian leadership is a dangerous idiot. President Obama was absolutely correct to fire him.
A lone (or perhaps two) political bumper stickers are explicitly allowed, but any large signs, banners, or posters on a private vehicle are not. This would likely include a large collection of bumper stickers.
My mistake. I wonder if this has changed from when I got out, or if service personnel were simply discouraged from displaying political bumper stickers on their vehicles to avoid crossing the line into prohibited displays.
I’m pretty sure that I was simply told “no political bumper stickers on your car or political signs in your yard” in briefings when I was in the service, but this may have been more restrictive guidance that was actually mandated in the official directive.
I see that the current directive does indeed prohibit the display of “a large political sign, banner, or poster (as distinguished from a bumper sticker) on a private vehicle.” Active duty personnel are also prohibited from the display of “a partisan political sign, poster, banner, or similar device visible to the public at one’s residence on a military installation, even if that residence is part of a privatized housing development.”
Who?
Bill Clinton’s wife, Hitlery*. She supported the Iraq war and the Kenyan Arab didn’t and that one thing cost her the Democratic nomination. In 2012 the Kenyan will need the same people to turn out and vote for him to get reelected, so he’d really like to start withdrawl from Afghanistan before then. What Petraeus will almost certainly do is announce a year or so before the 2012 election date that although nobody else can see it and everybody else thinks it’s getting worse, Petraeus can see improvements out there and with negotiations between the government and “moderate Taliban” going well, he forsees that a drawdown of troops will be able to start early 2013. Ha.
*The conservative freak show used to call her Hitlery back in the days when the Clintons were destroying America in the 1990s.
And if one reads the comments to NY Times article one would see that most disagree with Brooks.
Brooks is now another member of “elite” cast of journalists (if we can call them journalists anymore?!) who showed his true colors - for the one who did it too just head over Huffington Post - Matt Taibbi's Lara Logan Takedown: 'Lara Logan, You Suck' | HuffPost Latest News
It’s actually amazing that it took this event for all to see where US journalism is headed and for all the media cronies to come out from their holes.
McChrystal is officially retired. A shame I’d say, but I’m sure he’ll find a position in the Defense industry. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/us/24mcchrystal.html?th&emc=th