Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: RevDisk on June 23, 2010, 02:29:33 PM
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65K4W220100623
Obama fires Gen. McChrystal
Photo
2:20pm EDT
By Matt Spetalnick and Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama fired his top Afghanistan commander on Wednesday over inflammatory comments that angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.
Calling it the "right thing for our mission in Afghanistan," Obama relieved General Stanley McChrystal of his command after a 30-minute meeting at the White House and named General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, to replace him.
McChrystal had been summoned by Obama to explain remarks he and his aides made in a magazine article that disparaged the U.S. president and other senior civilian leaders.
"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.
"It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan," he said.
The situation posed a dilemma for Obama. If McChrystal had kept his job, the president could have been seen as tolerating insubordination from the military. But by firing him, Obama is shaking up the chain of command at a perilous moment in the unpopular 9-year-old war.
Vowing not to tolerate divisions within his national security team, Obama said the switch in generals was a "change in personnel but it is not a change in policy." There have been increasing doubts among U.S. lawmakers about Obama's troop buildup strategy against a resurgent Taliban.
McChrystal first met Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon before entering the White House through a side door for his one-on-one meeting with Obama. He left before Obama's Afghanistan war council, which he had been due to attend, convened in late morning.
Obama had been described by aides as furious about the Rolling Stone magazine article, but said in his Rose Garden appearance that he was not acting out of a feeling of personal insult.
Amid harsh criticism over McChrystal's contemptuous remarks, U.S. officials had said they expected the general, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and architect of Obama's war strategy, to offer his resignation and allow the president to decide whether to accept it.
With his career on the line, the 55-year-old general apologized. "It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," McChrystal said in a statement. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason; Editing by Patricia Wilson and Doina Chiacu)
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Wow. This will be interesting. Personally, if I was McChrystal, I would not have apologized but also would have resigned.
Wonder how this will change current operations in Afghanistan.
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So what do you guys in the know think of the replacement decision? I heard it might be Rodriguez, which from an operational standpoint would seem to be the better decision since as the #2 guy to McChrystal in Afghanistan, he'd already know what's going on from being in the thick of it. But maybe the administration thought that put him too close to McChrystal?
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Drudge says Petraeus.
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The president said he did not make the decision to accept McChrystal's resignation over any disagreement in policy or "out of any sense of personal insult." Flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Rose Garden, he said: "I believe it is the right decision for our national security."
Obama hit several gracious notes about McChrystal and his service, saying that he made the decision to sack him "with considerable regret." And yet, said he said that the job in Afghanistan cannot be done now under McChrystal's leadership, asserting that the critical remarks from the general and his inner circle in the Rolling Stone magazine article displayed conduct that doesn't live up to the necessary standards for a command-level officer.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_mcchrystal
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Here is the statement by McChrystal
2010-06-007
For Immediate Release
Statement by General Stanley McChrystal
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO
Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the Presidents strategy in Afghanistan
and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan
people. It was out of respect for this commitment -- and a desire to see the mission
succeed -- that I tendered my resignation.
It has been my privalge and honer to lead our nations finest.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2010/Statement%20by%20General%20Stanley%20McChrystal.pdf
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I betcha the general resigned before O dude could fire him. We'll never know if we have to depend on the MSM.
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Of course he was pushed. Was there ever any doubt that the incompetent narcissist in the WH would "kick some ass"?
The twist of replacing him with his boss is just bizarre. From CENTCOM to a subordinate position? WTF?
I trust General McChrystal will soon have a great deal of money from his tell-all book and FNC consultancy.
TC
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Rush was pulling out quotes from the Congressional debates over the surge in Iraq pointing out what Obama and Biden were saying about Petreaus back then.
What I want to know is who the staffers were that blabbed their mouths off to Rolling Stone and got their general thrown under the bus. I hope he "reassigned" some of those guys before he resigned.
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I'm unclear -- did McChrystal resign as CO of our effort in Afghanistan, which would mean he is still a general and is available for reassignment ... or did he resign from the Army? The way I'm reading it, he has been "relieved of command" and is now a general looking for a post.
On another note:
The Rolling Stone story set off a political firestorm. Obama was "angry" after reading the general's remarks, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.
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The "magnitude and graveness" of McChrystal's mistake in conducting the interview for the article were "profound," Gibbs said. Gates said McChrystal had "made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment."
"Graveness"? Is "graveness" even a word? The word is "gravity." We've reached a sorry state indeed when the President's professional mouthpiece can't even speak English.
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpremium1.uploadit.org%2FdocZox%2F%2Fdefiedobama.jpg&hash=9c6ab9cc1227a059444c54a6ae1d5c9e4bf540d0)
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Another home run by Harold. :laugh:
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An assessment I read a while back about the successful surge in Iraq said Patraeus had the good sense to allow McChrystal to do what he does best and that is do in bad guys. Shift to A'stan and you see Patraeus in command but no McChrystal with the added feature of rules of engagement which evidently prohibit US troops from actually going after the bad guy. This won't turn out like Iraq.
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How's Patraeus going to feel about taking over for McChrystal? It sounds like a demotion to me.
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I'm not so worried....Gen. McChrystal will make much better money as the new military consultant for FOXNews....and have the last laugh.... =D
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How's Patraeus going to feel about taking over for McChrystal? It sounds like a demotion to me.
Yes, but he may like it better - since it's probably closer to the job he's used to and excels at.
Not a good situation in Afghanistan, of course... Obama apparently wants some/all US forces out of the area by July 2011 (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/petraeus-last-week-beginning-withdrawal-july-2011-based-conditions-ground). No way in hell can you fix Afghanistan in that time frame. July 2111, maybe.
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When the rumors started and this pot started boiling I was wondering..... Obama could have declared this war a loss, and Mcrystals fault and pulled us out, and claimed, not my fault, he did it,
Well,,, I could see the washington spin machine coming up with something like that.
I think there are a lot like me that want to see these wars ended and our soldiers brought home.
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show me the words that caused the problem:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=0
When Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, he immediately set out to deliver on his most important campaign promise on foreign policy: to refocus the war in Afghanistan on what led us to invade in the first place. "I want the American people to understand," he announced in March 2009. "We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." He ordered another 21,000 troops to Kabul, the largest increase since the war began in 2001. Taking the advice of both the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also fired Gen. David McKiernan – then the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan – and replaced him with a man he didn't know and had met only briefly: Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It was the first time a top general had been relieved from duty during wartime in more than 50 years, since Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War.
Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his *expletive deleted*ing war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."
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Reading through the article, I'm cringing at some parts that have been ignored. Like meaning the JSOC employing IT geeks to hunt terrorist networks. Way to go, Rolling Stone.
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BHO proved--to himself, if no one else--that he CAN really, yes, really kick butt. Even better U.S. military butt, the people responsible for making this entire planet so, well, "unfair."
But the realities of what's happening in the Middle East--in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and Elsewhere--won't be changed by Obama's removing of Gen. McChrystal. As bad as it is this is a "show war" that is the equivalent of fighting the druglord's guard dogs at the periphery of his compound. Obama has no intention of going where The Problem really is, and for that matter neither do a lot of Obama's critics.
The counter-insurgency theories of Gen. Petraeus PhD appear to require not only massive amounts of combat personnel we don't really have but a conversion of hearts and minds that is, to many, far-fetched in the extreme.
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Obama is going to suffer for this if the war goes badly. He'll be blamed for firing the general he'd put in charge to run the surge. McChrystal made a stupid mistake, but it was no hanging crime. Obama could have let him stay on but give him a public rebuke.
This isn't MacArthur bucking Truman on going to war with the Chinese. It's a little slap at Obama's pride, which apparently rises to a more serious offense than provoking war with the Chinese.
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Obama is going to suffer for this if the war goes badly. He'll be blamed for firing the general he'd put in charge to run the surge. McChrystal made a stupid mistake, but it was no hanging crime. Obama could have let him stay on but give him a public rebuke.
This isn't MacArthur bucking Truman on going to war with the Chinese. It's a little slap at Obama's pride, which apparently rises to a more serious offense than provoking war with the Chinese.
IIRC, MacArthur wanted to use Nukes on the Chinese. And he was "somewhat" insubordinate in his letter to Congress.
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Frankly, I'm not seeing the insubordination. I see at worst (on General McChrystal's part) political incorrectness/conduct unbecoming. On the part of his staff 'aides" I see blabbermouth in the presence of an anti-military freelance journo--bad judgment.
It's surprising to find that McChrystal is indeed socially liberal and likely did vote for Obama as he said.
TC
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Gotta wonder what some of the "General Betray-us" lefties think of all this. :lol:
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Gotta wonder what some of the "General Betray-us" lefties think of all this. :lol:
Nothing much. Any weapon at hand. If boosting Petreus at this point in time advances their agenda, they'll do so.
Gotta remember that this is the same crowd that, after the Nazis & Russians invaded Poland, said we need to stay out of European wasrs. After Hitler attacked Russia, they were all hot to trot to save the world (USSR) from Naziism.
Let's face it, America was duped into the European theater to save Josef Stalin and his regime. We succeeded beyond all expectations.