McChrystal busted for thought crimes.
There was a joke from the Vietnam era about a wounded Australian soldier being interviewed, as follows:
Interviewer: And how did this happen to you?
Soldier: Well when I came over here, I was told that the best way to work out if someone in hiding is hostile is to insult the enemy leader; if he reacts angrily, he is Viet Cong.
So?
Well I was out on patrol, and I realized someone was hiding in the bushes across the road. I took cover and called out “Ho Che Min is a bastard”, and a voice replied, “Harold Holt (Then Prime Minister) is a bastard”.
And?
I walked across to shake his hand and got run over by a Yank.
This is fairly typical of the attitude of most soldiers I have met towards politicians and the Americans are probably not much different. In fact the interview with Col. Jack Jacobs below seems to support this contention. H/t Newsbusters:
JACOBS: “Those views are very widely held, by the way, inside the military and outside the military, about those people. That they're ineffective, that Jim Jones, the National Security Advisor, does not have an impact on national security policy, that he has very little access. That Holbrooke hasn't done anything and so on. Those views are widely held. They're not just held by McChrystal's staff for example.”Breitbart has McChrystal’s position summed up here.
Shortly after President Obama assumed the Commander-in-Chief duties, he retired the existing commanding general in Afghanistan and handpicked his successor: General Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal was always known as a brash and outspoken military man, an expert in counterinsurgency, greatly respected by the troops under his command, and as having little patience for fools.I have read the article and it appears to be mostly commentary about the General with quotes, mainly from his staff. Some, but not necessarily all of what they said may have come from McChrystal but it is reasonable to assume that some was their own opinions and are not the Generals responsibility. The whole thing comes down to the fact that a commander has opinions that the administration doesn’t like, and those opinions are about them. There is no suggestion that the man is in anyway incompetent or unable to do the job, in fact he seems to be very good at it.
His requirement to have to answer to Obama, then, was a trainwreck waiting to happen.
He is essentially being railroaded on the basis of a slime job by a left wing rag.
OF COURSE the media is trying to spin this as "brilliant, decisive leadership" on the president's part (after literally MONTHS of indecision and dithering on troop levels, oil spills, which golf course to play) and comparing it...over and over and over...to Truman firing MacArthur during the Korean War. Mac was openly advocating dropping atomic bombs on Red China, for Christ's sake; McChrystal hurt poor wittle Bawack's feewings (especially that ego.)
ReplyDeleteYup, exact same thing alright.
I also notice them trying to align it to Lincoln's firing of General McClellan which is really stretching it. For some reason McClellan was reluctant to take his army into action against Lee and the only option open was to get him out of there and appoint someone who would do the job.
ReplyDeleteMcChrystal was a fighting general and to be respected. In fact the whole article is on reflection the opinions of his aides and some observations from the reporter, who seems to have been on a mission to destroy him.
Bwacky is no Truman, never mind a Lincoln.
Hell, he's not even a Jimmy Carter.
ReplyDeleteI agree on that and ironically was thinking a few days ago of the slogan "a second term for Jimmy Carter," which was an answer to the lefts "a third term for Bush." I came to the conclusion that it had been really unfair to Carter, as he was a better man than this.
ReplyDeleteCarter was an incompetent, but he was at least willing to try and in his own way had the interests of the nation at heart, even if he didn't have a clue as to what those interests really were.