McChrystal Calls Out White House 'Wimps,'

[amicus]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128010104



June 22, 2010

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was summoned back to Washington by the President after he slammed Vice President Joe Biden and "the wimps in the White House" to Rolling Stone. McChrystal issued an apology for his "poor judgement," but faces calls for his resignation.

~~~

This hand-picked by Obama General said what many people think and express, this administration is inept, at best, in conducting and supporting the war in Afghanistan, in protecting the Borders of the United States and in protecting the environment with an effective clean-up program for the Gulf Coast.

It would appear that the Oath of Office, taken by Obama, the failure to act to 'protect and preserve' might just be grounds for impeachment?

Okay, Obamadroids, defend your wimp.

Amicus

 

[TxRad]

You don't remember Westmoreland, do you?

 

[Carnevil9]

Everything McChrystal said was true, but it was very unsoldierly of him to say it.

 

[amicus]

You don't remember Westmoreland, do you?[/QUOTE]

~~~

For those whose memories don't go back that far, the above refers to the war started by a Democrat, Kennedy, micromanaged by his Vice President, then President Johnson, "Hey, Hey, LBJ..." Westmoreland was a General handcuffed by Democrat policies that failed to acknowledge that Vietnam was a 'containment' conflict, waged by SEATO to prevent the expansion of International Communism into Asia.

Funny, doncha think, that it was Russian and Chinese Mig fighters and pilots and Eastern Bloc weapons that killed SEATO soldiers in that part of the world?

Also funny, that the policy, begun by the Republican, Eisenhower, that of 'containemnt', actually worked and the Soviet Union is no more.

Amicus

 

[cloudy]

Sure, let's send more young people over there to die uselessly. I have more family members still, after all. Never mind the two that have already died over there - for nothing.

I doubt any of you dumbasses would be so war-like if it was your nephews, your cousins dying over there. You don't even have a stake in it, so you call for more war from your comfy armchair in front of the tv.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Everything McChrystal said was true, but it was very unsoldierly of him to say it.

Agreed, but a Commander hates to see his men die needlessly and he spoke out about it...wait...never mind...I would have spoke out about that too irregardless of the consequences, unlike...well y'all know who.

 

[amicus]

Everything McChrystal said was true, but it was very unsoldierly of him to say it.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Hello again, Carnevil...good to see you again; and I agree.

I would add that the Media is not doing its job in terms of assessing the current state of affairs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The withdrawal is opening the way for more terrorist violence in Iraq and the premature statement by this silly assed Regime in Washington concerning when Coalition troops would begin withdrawing in Afghanistan, goes against all the conduct of warfare known to man.

Add to that the failure of this administration to follow the advice of General McChrstal and others knowledgeable of the war for a greater number of 'surge' forces to secure Afghanistan.

As Clint Eastwood said in a film about the Grenada incursion by Cuban Communist troops, "our entire response has been a 'clusterfuck' all around." (I paraphrase from memory)

Curious times we live in, eh?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

CLOUDY

They volunteered, dear.

 

[JackLuis]

McChrystal may be in trouble. I hope he sticks around, he is one of the Generals who 'gets it", that counterinsurgency is a long fight, with few victories.

Trying to grind down the Taliban with conventional force structure is a thirty year job. Just like Viet Nam.

So how may of you "conservatives" want to spent $60 Billion to make Afghanistan into a shining pillar of Islamic Democracy? It will be so great after we reduced the population in Helmand Province to 20 and "win" the war.

 

[Carnevil9]

irregardless?

 

[amicus]

For Cloudy & JackLuis...this is not a real difficult conceptual leap to make if you try just a little bit.

The world changed after World War 2, it was in the process of changing even before that with the BlitzKreig of the Nazi's and the Aircraft Carrier assault on Pearl Harbor.

It changed even more with the onset of ballistic missile technology and the 'boomers' of the submarine fleets of several nations.

We, the US, are no longer protected by a 'two ocean barrier' from the rest of the world; like it or not, a global foreign policy has been in order for well over half a century.

There is a moral concept involved here, even a moral absolute in that it applies to all people at all times and in all places. Every human being has the moral obligation to assist any other human being if their life is threatened.

One may choose an example such as a child drowning or a home fire where one might help and save lives.

America, given the ability and resources, has the obligation to go to the assistance of any threatened people, anywhere in the world at any time.

I am somewhat surprised at the anti war folk here who do not perceieve the oppression of the people in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, especially the women in those Muslim societies, as a 'call to arms' to defend the rights and liberties of those in jeopardy.

I do understand the 'head in the sand' attitude of pacifists and isolationists, even those whose religion forbids participating in war, but I dismiss those as a small minority, cult-like, who exist in every society.

It begins with your friends and neighbors, Cloudy; I would imagine that even you, had you the ability and resources, would come to their aid if needed. Just expand that moral premise to the global community and voila! you become a real adult, responsible human being.

Amicus

 

[jeanne_d_artois]

Outspoken generals are nothing new.

Some of the British generals during the American War of Independence despaired of their government's ineptitude in dealing with the 13 Colonies - because the generals believed that a more reasonable course would have made war unnecessary.

Wellington, when in Spain, was extremely rude about both the British and Spanish governments. Only his habit of winning battles (and his powerful relatives) kept him from being fired. Wellington on the British Government: "I never saw such shocking bad hats in my life."

Churchill said of WWII's General Montgomery: "In defeat unbeatable; in victory unbearable." Monty tried to harange Churchill as if Churchill was a private soldier.

Politicians' criticism of generals also isn't new. King George II said when General Wolfe was criticised: "Oh! He is mad, is he? Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals."

Jeanne

 

[lustatopia]

Blame it on Bush!

Everything McChrystal said was true, but it was very unsoldierly of him to say it.

Unsoldierly? I respectfully fucking disagree with Carne.

It was the mutherfuckers in this White House that have forever lowered the level of civility and propriety we expect from the highest echelons of government. Now the fucking clowns in this White House are getting our people killed through their utterly oleaginous incompetence. As our Vice President would say, "This is a BIG FUCKING DEAL."

If Gen McCrystal is speaking truth to the fucking White House "Wimps" in public it can be only because every other more diplomatic effort to get the attention of the thick mutherfuckers has failed. Heh, now the mutherfuckers are listening? Big Fucking surprise: Obama cares more about his fucking media image than the soldiers dying in Afghanistan.

Bottom line, the Obama Administration has had Gen McCrystal stand by, hands in pockets, watching his soldiers die while Obama and Rahm connive ways the crisis in Afghanistan could allow them to "do things you fuckin' thought couldn't be done before." You know, like winning elections in November. Or maybe something far more creative and sinister. Who knows what these scheming mutherfuckers will come up with next? Maybe Obama will order The Marines escort the next Gaza Peace Fotilla in as part of our war against "man-made catastrophe." These are some twisted mutherfuckers we've installed in the White House.

So you have to admire McCrystal for the balls to publicly diss the Commander in Chief during a fucking shooting war! He's thrown his career on the proverbial hand grenade to save his soldiers lives. Now that's a true American hero.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

McChrystal went about it the wrong way. He shoulda called a press conference, expressed his views about the Obama crew, then resigned.

 

[amicus]

McChrystal went about it the wrong way. He shoulda called a press conference, expressed his views about the Obama crew, then resigned.

~~~

At first gasp, I thought to just agree with you, JBJ, and go on from there...however...after listening and watching all three networks and several different commentators this afternoon, the General and his Aids are just the tip of the iceberg that is creating great dissention within the armed forces world wide.

High ranking military officials in all services, around the world are describing the Obama administration as, 'clowns', incompetent, 'cake eaters' (ala the Tom Hanks movie about the CIA and Afghanistan). The general attitude seems to be that no one in high political office knows anything at all about the true situation in the Middle East and are concentrating only on withdrawal dates and reducing forces.

Further, the push for openly Gay military service is fomenting a rush to leave military service and creating dissention throughout the rank and file.

This insane and anti American agenda of Obama is finally bearing fruit...sour fruit.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"[/QUOTE]

The above excerpt from the RollingStone piece that set off the brush fire, full article at the link:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

Amicus

 

[TE999]

I'm still shaking my head over the fact that of all the publications McChrystal could have decided to be interviewed by, he chose a music oriented leftist rag like Rolling Stone.

McChrystal's firing or resignation will throw the entire campaign into chaos...he knows all the plays and the signals...his replacement will need to be brought up to speed and that will take time we don't have.

If Obeyme has a grain of sense he'll take the general to the woodshed, acknowledge his outburst was due to frustration or some such and keep him on. He spoke out of turn, but has followed orders and hasn't been openly insubordinate as defined in the UCMJ.

Afghanistan's Viet Nam redux...the military is doing it's damndest to win while Obeyme and his usual gang of idiots is doing it's damndest to see the campaign lost by calling the shots on tactics and making weaponry available.

There's not going to be a troop withdrawl next year any more than Gitmo's gonna be closed, but just announcing that has emboldened the enemy to wait us out and the citizenry to not cooperate with us fearing for their lives.

 

[amicus]

I listened to an interview as to why the RollingStone writer was able to get such a story to write....he had been given access to the 'perimeter' around McChrystal for two days when the Icelandic volcano shut down air travel in many parts of Europe. It turned into more than three weeks of, 'fly on the wall' access to the reporter and, as you can read, he made the most of it.

Ami

 

[lustatopia]

Whoa, there son, let's keep our power dry...

The world changed after World War 2, it was in the process of changing even before that with the BlitzKreig of the Nazi's and the Aircraft Carrier assault on Pearl Harbor.

It changed even more with the onset of ballistic missile technology and the 'boomers' of the submarine fleets of several nations.

We, the US, are no longer protected by a 'two ocean barrier' from the rest of the world; like it or not, a global foreign policy has been in order for well over half a century.

There is a moral concept involved here, even a moral absolute in that it applies to all people at all times and in all places. Every human being has the moral obligation to assist any other human being if their life is threatened.

One may choose an example such as a child drowning or a home fire where one might help and save lives.

America, given the ability and resources, has the obligation to go to the assistance of any threatened people, anywhere in the world at any time.

I am somewhat surprised at the anti war folk here who do not perceieve the oppression of the people in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, especially the women in those Muslim societies, as a 'call to arms' to defend the rights and liberties of those in jeopardy.

I do understand the 'head in the sand' attitude of pacifists and isolationists, even those whose religion forbids participating in war, but I dismiss those as a small minority, cult-like, who exist in every society.

It begins with your friends and neighbors, Cloudy; I would imagine that even you, had you the ability and resources, would come to their aid if needed. Just expand that moral premise to the global community and voila! you become a real adult, responsible human being.

Amicus

Amicus... You summed up in a nutshell the moral grounds for what has been oddly labelled Neo-conservatism. I guess that makes you a Neocon. Ironically, the MSM has use the term Neocon as a term of derision, ignoring the highly moral and noble goals you delineated above.

I say the term Neo-conservative is odd, because the vision of liberating the people of the world by bringing them freedom and democracy was never the primary focus of the conservative agenda, other than in cases where the liberation of foreign peoples ALSO coincided with American national interest. And that's the key.

What George Bush taught us is that America can't free all the people of the world. There are just too many wars that could be fought. And to fight and win them by our own humanitarian standards is a slow, wrenching process that always results in extended occupations with much loss of young American lives. It did so in Japan, Korea and Germany. Why are we surprised it's the same in other far less convivial cultural situations, like Iraq and Afghanistan?

The Neo-conservative ideal should be called "radical" or "progressive" conservatism, because it's a foreign policy unhinged from our direct national interest. I suspect you'll argue that expanding democracy, equality and liberty everywhere is in American national interest. And it might be. But at the end of a gun barrel?

Moreover, transplanted democracy can go morbid quickly, see Hamas in Gaza. Most non-western people have no tradition of democracy or liberty as we define it, thus require long indoctrination (occupation) periods, which reeks to me, as unsavorily similar to what Mao and Lenin had in mind for their own high-mind "liberation" projects. In fact, Neo-conservatism, at least as you have spelled it out, has much in common methodologically with 20th century Marxist liberationist and social justice goals. It's just the American free enterprise humanist version.

American foreign policy must always be firmly based on an America first POV. This doesn't mean that altruistic and humanist values are devalued in anyway. Quite the contrary. Unlike any other world power, America is as much a complex of intensely modern social values--free enterprise, equality, democracy, transparency in government, civil rights, including property rights and free expression-- as we are a economic and political force. Merely to define American foreign policy in terms of what is best for American national interest will protect these very values as central to our identity.

To unhinge our foreign policy from our national interest and attach it to "the moral obligation to assist any other (oppressed) human being," is an invitation to moral corruption and ultimately national disaster, since by definition we can not save every Darfur, Bosnia, Georgia, Burma, Tibet, Somalia, Yemen, Kurdestan, etc that comes along. We will always be forced to choose our battles. But you offer us no light by which to guide that choice.

Of course, it's a false choice. "America, given the ability and resources, has the obligation to go to the assistance of any threatened people, anywhere in the world at any time." Wrong on both counts. We no more have the ability and resources to directly intervene to save anyone anywhere in the world than we can control the Earth's climate by mandating new tax schemes in Congress.

Nor is it our moral obligation to come to the aid of anyone who isn't an ally abroad. Rather it is our moral obligation to see that no more young Americans die abroad than is absolutely necessary to keep America safe. Therefore, the only good preemptive wars are the ones we avoided altogether. In perfect hindsight we obviously should not have gone into Iraq. Maybe we would have been forced to by now, but so what? We defeated the Iraqi army in two weeks and could have done that later if necessary. On the other hand, Afghanistan is a legitimate causus bella we had no choice but to invade a foreign land to root out the hoods who organized 911. And now we have morally inherited the care of the Afghan people, perhaps for a generation or more, just like in Europe, Korea or Japan. And you think we can afford the blood and treasure to do this everywhere there is an injustice in the world?

It is our moral obligation - as it is the moral obligation of every other country - to work to preserve their own national interest, safety and health of their citizens. If every polity would perform this task competently there'd be far less war, starvation, disease, environmental degradation and economic problem around the world.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

irregardless?

I'm surprised I didn't get nasty, bitchy, blast of gas from Cloudy for that?

 

[JackLuis]

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"[/QUOTE]

The above excerpt from the RollingStone piece that set off the brush fire, full article at the link:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

Amicus

Thanks for the citation.

I heard the same sort of talk in 1966, "Victory is Just around the Cornor!" or "We have then on the Run, bear down!"

McChrystal may have bought into the COIN, but after 7 years of "Big Army", I don't believe he can turn this ship around. And even if he "Wins", all we'll have achieved is a doubious ally that grows a lot of Opium.

Wonderful, if they we just wogs, we could nuke em. As it is we will be lucky to get out of there with half our equipment. Well, that'll put a few people to work.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LUSTATOPIA

Son, you need to learn the terms if you wanna use them correctly.

Conservatives oppose big government, national debt, foreign intrigues, entitlements, and pretty nearly anything that lets others cut to the head of the line.

NeoConservatives are the Democrat competitor in business across the street. They sell the same snake-oil to the same customers, like Capone and Bugsy Moran.

Amicus is our Pied Piper Crusader collecting lemming souls for John Galt.

 

[colddiesel]

McChrystal's fitness for the job should not depend on his whining about the administration whether or not it is true.

What is important is McChrystals earlier ridiculously optimistic forecast that he can win. He cannot win because he would need to have ten times the resources and be far far more vicious to the civilian population than the American public would allow. The only way to win this war would be to out terrorise the terrorists and CNN et al will ensure that will not happen.

The only decision to be made is when to cut losses and bring troops home and let the Afghans find their own way to hell.

PS you can't sack anyone for thinking Biden is an idiot . Is there anyone breathing who does not.

 

[JamesSD]

McChrystal is a jackass who basically violated the chain of command. Can you imagine the bricks conservatives would be shitting if a general had talked this way about GW Bush? That said, most of the worst quotes in the Rollingstone article were from unnamed aides.

Afghanistan is a mess. It was a mess long before we invaded. It will be a mess long after we leave. There are serious, huge infrastructure problems. The Roman Empire had a brilliant system of roads. Afghanistan lacks even that.

I don't claim to have the solution to Afghanistan. I hope there are a lot of conversations going on about it in the Pentagon and White House. But those conversations need to stay out of the media. Respect the Commander in Chief.

 

[DesertPirate]

McChrystal, one of the very few Obama appointees that actually knew what he was doing, got fired todasy. Gen. Petraeus is now in charge.

Weren't the Dumbasscrats calling him Betrayus afew months ago?