A few tidbits to the McChrystal situation

Old 06-27-2010, 04:14 AM
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Default A few tidbits to the McChrystal situation

Great article, especially comments at bottom



General McChrystal and Rolling Stone: Suicide by Interview? Posted By Jeff Dunetz On June 22, 2010 (10:07 am) In Defense, News, Obama, Politics

“I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. 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.”
-General Stanley McChrystal, 6/22/2010

The interview of General McChrystal and his in Rolling Stone was not an accident, it’s a perfect example of suicide by interview. The General knew that every criticism would be “on the record.” He also knew that the President will have no choice but to relieve the General of his command after their meeting tomorrow. The Military Code of Justice provides that a General does not criticize the Commander-in-Chief publicly however, the General criticized Obama in a major way and even picked the perfect vehicle to do it in the most visible of ways.

McChrystal’s statements clearly point to the fact that he believes the war cannot be won under the President’s parameters, a tepid escalation to protect the president from his political supports. McChrystal is clearly frustrated by Barack Obama and his administration and finds it necessary to protect his men. He finds himself having to take radical steps to protect his troops in the face of an administration trying to fight a war on a half-assed basis.

According to Fox, Some of the highlights of the up-coming article include:

Although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama called McChrystal on the carpet last fall for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops. The President did not want to hear his advice. “I found that time painful,” McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. “I was selling an unsellable position.”
It quoted an adviser to McChrystal dismissing the early meeting with Obama as a “10-minute photo op.Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. The boss was pretty disappointed,” the adviser told the magazine.
The military is clearly unhappy about Obama’s arbitrary deadline of July of next year. The White House’s troop commitment was toed a pledge to begin bringing them home in July 2011. Counterinsurgency strategists advising McChrystal regarded as an arbitrary deadline.
The article list of administration figures said to back McChrystal, including Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and puts the SCHMOTUS (Schmo of the United States), Vice President Joe Biden at the top of a list of those who don’t. The article says McChrystal has seized control of the war “by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House.”
Asked by the Rolling Stone reporter about what he now feels of the war strategy advocated by the SHMOTUS last fall (fewer troops, more drone attacks), McChrystal and his aides attempted to come up with a good one-liner to dismiss the question. “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal joked. “Who’s that?” “Biden?” one aide was quoted as saying. “Did you say: Bite me?”
Another aide called White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones, a retired four star general, a “clown” who was “stuck in 1985.
Some of the strongest criticism, however, was reserved for Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan . “The boss says he’s like a wounded animal,” one of the general’s aides was quoted as saying. “Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous.”
If Eikenberry had doubts about the troop buildup, McChrystal said he never expressed them until a leaked internal document threw a wild card into the debate over whether to add more troops last November. In the document, Eikenberry said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not a reliable partner for the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal was hired to execute. McChrystal said he felt “betrayed” and accused the ambassador of giving himself cover. Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books,” McChrystal told the magazine. “Now, if we fail, they can say ‘I told you so.”‘
McChrystal is a Four-Star General, a position you do not achieve by being an idiot. Today’s military leadership is well schooled not only in war-making but in diplomacy. He knew what the content of the article would be. He also knew that the article would lead his own dismissal (or the proverbial resignation letter where he says he’s quitting to spend more time with his family).

The Rolling Stone interview highlights the difference in the leadership styles of the President and the General. When this President faces a crisis, he looks for someone either internally or externally to blame. On the other hand, the General sees the War in Afghanistan reaching a crisis point because of the way it is being waged, rather than looking to find a scapegoat in his ranks as Obama would do, McChrystal found a way to let the country know what is really happening, while at the same time redirect any criticism for the war effort, away from his men and on to his own wide shoulders.

Notice that even in his apology above,the General does not take back the comments, he simply apologizes for making the comments. The Military commander was sending his troops and the administration a message. To the troops he was saying ” I have your backs even to the point of hurting my own career.” The message for the administration was, “Your way isn’t working, let us do what is necessary to win this war. Even though this was a violation of the Code of Honor, the General’s statements were a service to America and to his men by confirming what we all suspected, the President and his administration do not have a clue.

Article taken from Big Government - http://biggovernment.com
URL to article: http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/201...-by-interview/
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Old 06-27-2010, 02:57 PM
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AMEN
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Old 06-27-2010, 06:02 PM
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A-FLIPPIN'-MEN !!
As soon as I heard about this interview and what was said, I KNEW Mac was doing it for HIS troops. THIS administration holds absolutely ZERO respect from our military from the top down.


http://1stamendmentteez.webs.com/
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Old 06-28-2010, 07:26 AM
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A big x2!!
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Old 06-28-2010, 09:09 AM
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Originally Posted by DrivingMissDD
A-FLIPPIN'-MEN !!
As soon as I heard about this interview and what was said, I KNEW Mac was doing it for HIS troops. THIS administration holds absolutely ZERO respect from our military from the top down.


http://1stamendmentteez.webs.com/
Hey!

I think you just insulted a Clown somewhere.

Scorp
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Old 06-28-2010, 03:35 PM
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While I was out working today, a thought crossed my mind.... :shock:
Mac was WARNING our folks in uniform of the distinct possibility of Obama using them AGAINST Peaceable American citizens in manufactured 'crisis' situations. Mas KNOWS that this socialist/fascist/communist/marxist useful IDIOT will do the total bidding of the 'man behind the curtain'......George Soros......
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Old 06-30-2010, 01:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Scorpion1110
Originally Posted by DrivingMissDD
A-FLIPPIN'-MEN !!
As soon as I heard about this interview and what was said, I KNEW Mac was doing it for HIS troops. THIS administration holds absolutely ZERO respect from our military from the top down.


http://1stamendmentteez.webs.com/
Hey!

I think you just insulted a Clown somewhere.

Scorp
Hey Scorp, I do believe this would mark the very first time I have ever seen you comment about anything political... even better, you made a joke of Obama at the same time. You just moved up another notch on the respect-o-meter. Good-on-ya-mate!!
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Old 07-02-2010, 05:54 AM
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The Prisoner of Gen . Petraeus
by Pat Buchanan
For an interesting perspective See: http://www.townhall.com
President Obama is being hailed for toughness in his firing of Gen. McChrystal and brilliance in his replacing him as Afghan
field commander with Gen. David Petraeus, who managed the George W. Bush “surge” in Iraq that saved this nation from an
ignominious defeat.
Herewith, a dissent.
More critically, Obama just made himself hostage to a savvy general who is said to dream of one day holding Obama's office.
Consider the box Obama just put himself in. In 2009, he sacked Gen. David McKiernan and replaced him with his own man, Gen.
McChrystal. Now, he has sacked McChrystal and replaced him with Petraeus.
Obama is either going to make Petraeus happy by meeting his demands for more troops or make the Left happy-who will it be?.
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Old 07-05-2010, 05:13 AM
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The McChrystal Affair - The Rest of the Story

IF you only read ONE part of this email .....plz read paragraph 12 below (highlighted). The greatest insult to our troops by our "Commander in Chief"
......what a crock......!


The General and the Community Organizer

by Paul R. Hollrah

Channel-surfing from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN through MSNBC and Fox
News, the inside-the-beltway pundits had a field day trying to get inside
the heads of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, General Stanley McChrystal, and
McChrystal's top aides. The one thing common to all of the analyses, by the
most famous and highly-paid talking heads in the Western World, was that
they are all wrong. dead wrong. What is certain is that they all owe General
McChrystal and his senior aides an apology for assuming that they are
lame-brained numbskulls.

The facts of the McChrystal case are not in dispute. General
McChrystal and his senior officers allowed a reporter for Rolling Stone
Magazine, Michael Hastings, to have almost unprecedented access during an
extended stay in Paris. The extended stay was due, in part, to an excess of
atmospheric ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, keeping the
McChrystal party grounded for days. Hastings subsequently published a
lengthy profile of General McChrystal on June 22, titled, The Runaway
General.

In an interview with CNN, Hastings reported that he had a tape
recorder in his hand most of the time and that McChrystal was "very aware"
that his comments would find their way into print. He said, "McChrystal and
his people set no ground rules for their conversations, although they did
ask that some parts of their conversations were off the record."

As Hastings wrote in his profile, McChrystal thought that Obama
looked"uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass
during their first meeting. Of their second meeting, an advisor to
McChrystal quoted the general as saying that it was "a 10-minute photo op."
He went on to say, "Obama clearly didn't know anything about (McChrystal),
who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f_ _ _ing war, but he
didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

As General McChrystal flew from Afghanistan to Washington to face
Obama in the Oval Office, the almost unanimous opinion of the talking heads
was that the comments made by McChrystal and his staff were off the cuff and
inadvertent. But to believe that is to totally ignore who these men are.

General McChrystal and his top officers are not simple-minded,
knuckle-dragging brutes. To the contrary, they are intelligent, thoughtful,
highly educated, patriots. graduates of West Point and other fine
universities. who are dedicated to duty, honor, and country. To think that
such men would be so careless as to speak unflatteringly of Obama, Biden,
and other top administration figures, in the presence of a reporter for a
notoriously left wing publication, defies logic. at the very least. 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.

From the day that he became the handpicked "spear carrier" for Obama's
unique brand of warfare. playing at being Commander in Chief while playing
to his far left constituency. McChrystal's life had been one of constant
frustration. After telling Obama exactly how many troops he needed to carry
out his mission, Obama dithered for months before deciding to give him just
half the troops he requested. McChrystal could not have been happy about
that.

The Obama team insisted on new Rules of Engage
Get a load of this next crock.......

" But the greatest insult to our troops in the field, and to the
officers who lead them, may be a new battlefield medal designed by the Obama
team. It is called the Courageous Restraint Medal and is awarded to soldiers
and Marines who demonstrate uncommon restrain in combat by not firing their
weapons even when they feel threatened by the enemy. Should we be surprised
to learn that the preponderance these medals were awarded posthumously?
McChrystal must have found that to be an insanity. (Italics mine/jcm) "


I suggest that, having his best military judgments subjected to the
White House political sieve for nearly a year and a half, McChrystal decided
that he'd had enough. And when he announced to his senior staff that he was
prepared to retire they decided to push back. to make the most of a bad
situation. It was clear that, if McChrystal were to simply take off his
uniform and walk away, his retirement would be page-twenty news for a day or
two before the mainstream media and the American people forgot all about
him.

They had to make the most of his retirement because it provided a
one-time opportunity to show the American people, as well as our enemies and
our allies, that the man who claims the title of Commander in Chief of the
U.S. military does not command the respect of our men and women in uniform.
To make the most of that opportunity they had to choose their messenger very
carefully.

They knew that, by openly showing their disrespect for Obama in front
of just any newsman, they may not attract the attention they desired. Like
any astute observer of the MSM, they knew that most reporters would turn on
their own mothers if it meant a good story. But they could not take a chance
that a mainstream media reporter might suffer a rare pang of conscience when
confronted with the prospect of ruining the careers of some of the most
senior officers in the War on Terror. They had to fix the odds as much as
possible in their favor so they chose to use Michael Hastings and Rolling
Stone Magazine.

During the long hours that General McChrystal was in the air between
Kabul and Washington, Obama knew that he had just two choices. both bad. He
could declare McChrystal to be an irreplaceable asset in the war effort,
give him a public reprimand, and send him back to Kabul. Or he could fire
McChrystal, sending a clear message that, at least in his own mind, he was
the Commander in Chief.

In the former case, he was certain to appear weak and ineffectual. a
man not totally in charge. In the latter case, he might at least win a few
rave reviews from the Kool-Ade drinkers in the mainstream media. He chose
the latter of the two options.

But what is now lost in all of the hand-wringing and speculation is
the fact that McChrystal and his people have succeeded in doing exactly what
they set out to do. They wanted to plant the seed in the minds of the
American people that Obama is not up to the task of being Commander in Chief
and that he does not command the respect of the men and women of the
uniformed services. from the newest Private E-1 up to the top four-star
generals and admirals.

That seed is now firmly planted and it cannot be unplanted.

From this day forward, no one will have to tell the American people
that Stanley McChrystal is a true warrior, a man's man, and that Barack
Obama is nothing more than a community organizer.
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Old 07-05-2010, 07:26 AM
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EXCELLENT article and is TRULY 'the way it is'......
America and her people KNOW who and what this puppet in OUR Whitehouse is all about. He is THE MOST ineffectual and dis respected American president EVER.
God bless Mac and all his VERY effective, competent, and INTELLIGENT staff for how they did this very HONORABLE action !!
I call this a combat Mac attack !!
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