He’s meeting with Obama and Biden tomorrow and offered to resign.
Barack Obama will confront General Stanley McChrystal at the White House tomorrow as he decides whether to sack the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan over disparaging and “contemptuous” remarks about senior administration officials, including the president himself.
The White House said “all options are on the table” after an “angry” Obama summoned McChrystal to Washington to explain quotes in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine in which the general and his senior aides accuse the US ambassador to Afghanistan of undermining the war, call the president’s national security adviser “a joke” and mock Joe Biden, the vice-president. There is also indirect criticism of the president as “uncomfortable and intimidated” by senior military officials.
Obama said he is considering McChrystal’s future. “I think it’s clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment. But I also want to make sure I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions,” he said.
Read the Rolling Stone article that started all this:
‘How’d I get screwed into going to this dinner?” demands Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It’s a Thursday night in mid-April, and the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Hôtel Westminster in Paris. He’s in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies – to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany’s president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him.
A separate question is assuming he has to go, should he be fired instead of being allowed to resign? Another one, of course, is McCrystal being impolitic, but right in his statements?
uMM,
this post dont say much about anything..i WILL READ The Main article to see whats there.
I’ve read the article, and I’m concerned.
Not so much about McChrystal, but concerned that what he is saying is right. And it’s not political. He hates McCain and Kerry equally. He LIKES Hillary. He thinks Biden is a buffoon (Who doesn’t?)
He speaks his mind.
After all:
Patton had a big mouth – but he was a good general.
McArthur had a big mouth – but he was a good general.
McChrystal has a big mouth. The question should be, can he get the job done? And if not, then who?
I see his resigning as a political move.
Politics. Isn’t that how we lost Vietnam??
The General is free to say whatever he wants. If O doesn’t like it, he’s free to get bitch slapped in the face by the General and sit the frack down and have some jello pudding, a coke and a smile, and STFU!
Weren’t people complaining that Shinseki was fired for asking for more troops?
Effectively, isn’t McChrystal doing his job to the best of his abilities?
1 GENERAL,
AND how many TELLING him how to do his job?
Can have kids and generals telling The Obama that he has no clothes
Can’t have kids and generals telling The Obama that he is wearing no clothes.
Ah Yea–thanks for posting. I feel like I won’t get much more out of it than what you conclude, but its a slow day, so I’ll give it a shot.
Big Difference between Patton and McCarthur==they were actually fighting real wars, not political actions like this farce in Afghan.
Given its a political job, and the Gen isn’t kissing ass==I’d fire him. Generals more than anyone else should be reality oriented. Poitical jobs are fought for the politicians, not for the troops or for the country.
Shit or shinola?
Ah Yea–tell the truth, did you really read that whole thing?
Actually, its easy to tell shit from shinola: just call everything shit and you win 99% of the time.
The first rule in an ass kissing job is to keep your lips on the ass–no ability to mouth off.
If Obama gave him direct orders right at the beginning not to make fun of Biden, then the guy is toast, aka=shit on a shingle. See, its all shit.
He is guilty of sedition. He should be tried, and if found guilty, hanged.
Another case of the Modern Media creating a story. Create a story, get the subject to say something wrong, jump to the other side of the aisle and cry foul…
Welcome to the military GENERAL McChrystal. You are now dishonorably discharged for negligence of your duty.
Love Obama or despise him. He is the Commander In Chief. You report to him.
The fact this article even happened says a lot of him. He cannot be so stupid for this to have been accident. He either wanted to embarrass Obama or save his own skin as history goes down in the AfPak region.
Can’t wait to see what Obama does. The professor in him will want to keep him in place to see the mission out. Logical. But as CIC, he needs to kick McChrystal’s ass out the door.
need to add “don’t care” on the vote list.
@#13 Problem is that while ordering Gen. McChrystal with his Military hand to do one thing Pres. Obama was using his political hand to undermine that very task.
If your Commander is doing that you have no other choice but to call him what he is – fake.
All honors to serious and honest General.
Despicable actions of President who does not know how to be Commander, only to talk and politically meddle. In this case resulting in undermining our own Military and through it both USA and Afghanistan … Incompetence on grand scale.
At this point his military career is effectively over. If he believes what he said is true than he should stand up in front of Obama and state that is what he believes. Obama can then fire him, demote him, relieve him, or ask him to retire. If he didn’t believe what he said than he should have STFU.
“just call everything shit and you win 99% of the time.”
LOL! I just love that! No truer words…
McChrystal is in a no-win situation.
What McChrystal said was essentially correct.
That being said, we are a country where the military serves politicians. Politicians do not care what is right or wrong, only what makes them look good in front of the cameras.
If McChrystal is the solder I hope he is, and believes in the Oath that he took (something Obama would know nothing of), then he will tell the president essentially what he said in the article, and hold his ground. If Obama wants him gone (and lets be honest, he does), make Obama fire him, none of this resignation BS.
Solders understand that sometimes doing the right thing means losing your job, or even your life.
Imagine you work in a ‘regular’ job and you are caught badmouthing your boss behind his back, and it gets published in the press. Just how long do you think that you would have your job? As a civilian, you would be fired. As a leader within the military, you could even be charge with subversion of the chain of command.
Things are not going well at all in Afghanistan, and the public backstabbing of the top leadership on the part of the leading general does not help matters one bit. At his level, politics and words matter… his is a political job more than a leadership job. Imagine a general going to the troops and telling them “this is what we are being told to do” while the troops know all along that he disagrees… great for morale isn’t it?
The simple fact is that if a general does not agree with his orders, he should not publicly denounce them and then expect to stay in a position of leadership. He can debate the orders as much as he can within the military system, but to his men, he MUST present a unified front with his leaders. You don’t go and say to your men “the president is an idiot, but these are his orders and we are going to follow them anyway.”
He should resign and so should all the troops.
I have heard, at his rank he may modify his uniform. I suggest he wear a crown and a large signet ring. He will have the president bowing and kissing him before you know it!
“Love Obama or despise him. He is the Commander In Chief. You report to him.”
That’s really all that needs to be said about the issue.
It doesn’t matter if the President and his clown/Biden are nincompoops who don’t have a clue how to do anything other than spend, spend, spend. The incompetent is the President and as long as he disgraces the office the military must treat him with the respect the office demands. If a General doesn’t fire him.
Of course I don’t have a clue who to replace the General with but that’s Obungles problem.
As a civilian I have the right, at least for now, to call them the way I see them when it comes to politicians. Once the General retires the General can write his book explaining how Biden and Obama combined don’t have the smarts of a gerbil if that is what he thinks but for now it yes sir, sir.
I think McChrystal is trying to get fired. He would very much like to have that mission taken off his plate, but there’s no honor in quitting, so his plan is to be fired.
Which fate would you rather suffer? Would you rather be fired for indiscreet, disrespectful comments about the administration to a journalist and seen by many as a hero for having spoken your mind, or would you rather stay on the job and be associated with the eventual failure of an impossible mission in the badlands of Afghanistan?
McChrystal doesn’t like losing.
Afghanistan is to Obama what Russia was to Hitler.
The generals should be smart enough to high tail it out of there based on any excuse.
#19–Awake==do you have any reference for your opinion? MUST a general show agreement with his leaders to his troops? What law/statute/article of military code says that?
Don’t confuse keeping your job or being effective at it with being a “requirement.”
Any general fired for speaking out of school is showing personal incompetency. You get fired up front for disagreeing, not for lack of personal control.
The idea that this interview was General McChrystal speaking up for the military against a wayward Pres Obama makes no sense. What is said in the interview that needed to be said?
McChrystal already did this insubordinate leaks to the media last year. It’s how he got Obama to go ahead with part of the troop surge that he had promised during the election and then reneged on after becoming president.
What purpose is served by this interview?
This interview serves
Right or not, there’s no way McChrystal could not have said those things without knowing that they would get him in trouble. He wanted this to happen.
The problems here, are many.
We havnt heard ALL that is going on or happening in Afghanistan.
Every time we turn around that are trying something Different.
The story line changes every time we look.
NOW,
for some reason, I get the idea, that WE ARNT LEAVING. 1 way or another, the Military or CORPS will want this country. I posted in the other area on BP, a corp lesson from the past history OF BP.
WASNT that we were going to PUMP the oil from BOTH Afghanistan and Iraq to PAY for these wars?
For a few reasons..
we WANT a better location in the middle east to MANAGE things.
WE FOUND MINERALS(we knew about them 15-20years ago)
WE want the OIL
So now McChrystyal goes with a resignation and Obama accepts it, looks weak for abandoning Afghanistan(McChrystal has, or had, the strong support of Afghan government), continues the meme of incompetence.
Or Obama refuses it and looks weak for letting a general get away with this stuff twice. Continues the meme of incompetence.
Patton got away with this sort of stuff several times.
I would say the first option is the better choice, but possibly option two with a strong speech that saves face.
Perhaps make or break point for Obama. Already he has lost the war with the flies.
http://tinyurl.com/obamafly2
What moron made obamafly link to that?