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?
>He warned all American’s of the military industrial complex.
And of what do you think he was warning?
More specific please?
Here’s a hint, he says in the speech it is akin to another field. This part of the speech tends to be ignored. We’ve had analagous problems in both in recent times.
”
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite. =
Mike N==what your point?
So Eisenhower warned against the corruption of money as in military/industrial complex and in scientifictechnological elite.
And whats happened? Complete over involvement with the military/industrial complex and practically nothing in the scientifictechnological elite potential.
So, again, whats your point?
Obama should accept McChrystal’s resignation, as this will allow them both to save some face. Seems to me the incident is being handled appropriately.
As a civilian, McChrystal should NOT resign and he would be free to ridicule the overgrown children who are currently running the government.
But he’s not a civilian, he’s a senior military officer. And he has allowed, if not encouraged and participated in, open disparagement of his commander in chief within his staff.
This is NOT appropriate. It’s no way to run a chain of command.
If he can not retain or even feign proper respect, he should resign and make his issues with an incompetent President-in-training publicly and loudly and often.
Just got the word that McChrystal is out and Petraeus is now in charge of Afghanistan.
Wasn’t it the stupid liberals who called Petraeus “Betray-us”?
Here is my crackpot theory:
A) This is the first time in American HISTORY that two wartime generals have been removed from command.
B) McChrystal was in a no-win situation. He was fighting a White House which simply didn’t want to go along. He couldn’t fight two wars, Afghanistan and the White House.
C) So he uses a reporter to get himself fired.
D) Obama puts Petraeus into the position. Why? Who else has Obama got who knows the situation?
Now Petraeus has FULL CONTROL OF THE MIDDLE EAST, AND CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS.
What is Obama going to do, fire THREE wartime generals?
Yea, right. Impeachment time.
So, McChrystal is out and Petraeus has more influence on the war than the White House.
As far as I can tell, the General actually didn’t say much that was wrong. It was his aides who made the jokes, along with various comments either directly to the reporter, or in the presence of the reporter.
McChrystal made 2 mistakes:
1. Allowing the reporter to be present.
2. Not immediately correcting and disciplining the aides for making the comments.
Now that McChrystal has resigned (or was fired) the question is: will Obama appoint a replacement who is going to to the job properly, or simply someone who can say the right things politically?
He likes Hillary, she is a low life liar, so he must go.
Ah Yea–I’ve read the first 1-2 pages of the article and the last 3. The first pages are about BS lockerroom grunt bitching and the last pages are about how ineffective and contradictory the military mission/strategy is in Afghan.
Can you highlight what it is that McChrystol is so right about -or- what it is the Whitehouse is so wrong about?
I think Lincoln went thru 4-5 generals before finding Grant who was actually just a rapidly promoted Colonel? Afgh is not a war. A strategic/tactical genius in place would be actually a hindrance.
Its a political position. Just pin a few stars on any political hack who looks good in a suit and tell us he the smartest guy ever graduated from West Point. Works all the time. another great example of shit too, btw.
Good move by Obama. Funny that he is copying Bush’s playbook for Iraq, or at least what he thinks Bush’s playbook was.
More importantly, have you ever considered that The President has read “Where Men Will Glory”. It is the story of the fratricide of Pat Tillman.
It is quite clear that General McCrystal willfully hid the circumstances of his death. his death, told half truths, and punished the “honest” soldiers who wanted to reveal the cover-up.
NOTE: Biden Son serves, Hannity serve? Cheney serve, Limbaugh serve, Beck (He’s mormon they serve their church on mission’s. Utah has lowest rate of Military enlistment yet the most people for the war???)
BRING BACK THE DRAFT NO EXCEPIONS BOYS AND GIRLS 18 to 21. Getting rid of it got us Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity All Talk, All pussy.
Disclaimer: MY nephew is a squad leader in Marines in Afganistan.
UNFIT and NEEDING COURT MARTIAL FOR THAT ALONE.
McChrystal broke the chain of command and publicly trashed his superiors. In the military world this kind of conduct is unforgivable.
If he had serious issues with the civs he should have quit his job, take his uniform off and then speak freely.
I despise Obama, but on this one he is right to show McChrystal the door.
Putting Petraeus in is a very astute political move. He has obvious political ambitions and Obama all but neutralizes them with this move. If Afghanistan goes sideways Petraeus loses his luster. If he turns it around he is acting as Obama’s agent and can’t take full credit.
McChrystal now looks ineffective. He has put Obama into a more dominant position versus the military officer core.
Afghanistan is not central to the US in any way. Now it becomes more about political gamesmanship than military results.
“Decent Interval” covers the same period in the Vietnam war.
Fire his ass, demote him to corporal and set an example. He’s insubordinate to the president and that is not tolerable.
I don’t care how good he is or what job he’s suppose to do. The military reports to civilian government and he forgot that.
As a general, you get to fuck up once. He forgot that Cheney is no longer president.
And…he…is…outa here.
>Disclaimer: MY nephew is a squad leader in Marines in Afganistan.
>UNFIT and NEEDING COURT MARTIAL FOR THAT ALONE.
I hope you need work on sentence and paragraph structure.
Democrats complained when George Bush fired Adm Fallon for talking to Esquire.
#75–Mike==His meaning is clear. Ironically, yours is not. What do you mean you “hope?” That may be grammatically correct, but it doesn’t make any sense.
Same with your following post.
You are back to batting 500.
I was reading a NYTimes article today about the all-volunteer nature of our military causing an increasing divide between them and the civilian population, whom they increasingly feel resentment for.
#73, as proud as you must be that Obama looks to be in charge, remember that the Constitution only means anything because people choose to follow it.
Now that McChrystal is gone, Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan has no one to trust from the US. Let’s see if he just turns to the Taliban once again. Odumba really screwed the pooch with this one. I doubt Petraeus will make things any better.
McChrystal sure got what he wanted. Odumba got what he deserved.
It just occurred to me that good’ole Bushy Boy must be laughing his ass off right now.
The Dems wanted the White House sooo badly!
What’s that adage? “Beware what you wish for …”?
Well apparently Rolling Stone mag is not part of the Pentagon propaganda machine. I don’t believe Obama has much to do with outing the General. This ao-called article could just be an elaborate plant, to provide an excuse for a “sea change” of the Afghan war. Making it look like Obama really has control over what the Pentagon does, or wants to do. I believe this war in Afghanistan is really about the “recently” discovered rich mineral wealth. Which the native population there, is ill equipped to mine themselves. So some US entity like Halliburton will probably be brought in, to spirit all the valuable ore out of there. The change of military leadership could be a cover for a change of occupational policy. that McCrystal was ill equipped to handle. Or the Pentagon just wanted someone they trusted better, with Afghanistan’s mineral goodies. So they got the magazine to do their dirty work. Strange how normally, all the news sources coming out of these war zones is so censored and controlled. Why wasn’t Rolling Stone? This “leak” seems made to order.
Afghanistan is a shithole wasteland. Come on and let’s get the F out of there.
I have been saying this for YEARS. We went there for Osama, he wasn’t there … time to leave .. we have no vested interests in that craphole permanent police mission boondoggle.
resign for telling the truth? what have we become?
Why did MoveOn get rid of their page on Gen Petraeus and their ad?
We have just seen step 1 of McChrystal’s planned withdrawal to his next job. Reading republican talking points to Sarah Palin on Fox News.
I do love all these politicians standing up and proclaiming how McChrystal crossed some sort of sacred line, and that Obama was right in shit-canning him. Where I work, most of the officers talk shit about our genius political “leaders” every day. The only thing McChrystal did wrong was have it all published by some douchebag reporter.