McChrystal's Real Offense

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

McChrystal’s real offense
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
06/22/10 8:40 AM EDT

There is a lot of uproar about Gen. Stanley’s McChrystal’s disrespectful comments about his civilian bosses in the Obama administration, and President Obama would be entirely justified in firing McChrystal for statements McChrystal and his subordinates made to Rolling Stone. Obama is a deeply flawed commander-in-chief who doesn’t want to be fighting a war on terror, but he is the commander-in-chief. He should have a general who will carry out his policies without public complaint until the voters can decide to change those policies.

But the bigger problem with McChrystal’s leadership has always been the general’s devotion to unreasonably restrictive rules of engagement that are resulting in the unnecessary deaths of American and coalition forces. We have had many, many accounts of the rules endangering Americans, and the Rolling Stone article provides more evidence. In the story, a soldier at Combat Outpost JFM who had earlier met with McChrystal was killed in a house that American officers had asked permission to destroy. From the article:

The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Arroyo’s platoon for the memorial, I arrive at Combat Outpost JFM to speak with the soldiers he had gone on patrol with. JFM is a small encampment, ringed by high blast walls and guard towers. Almost all of the soldiers here have been on repeated combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have seen some of the worst fighting of both wars. But they are especially angered by Ingram’s death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal’s new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. “These were abandoned houses,” fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. “Nobody was coming back to live in them.”

One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. “Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force,” the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that’s like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won’t have to make arrests. “Does that make any f–king sense?” Pfc. Jared Pautsch. “We should just drop a f–king bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?”

[Geee]

McChrystal gets rolled

By: CHRIS STIREWALT

Political Editor

06/22/10 9:02 AM EDT

Washington Post -- Top allied commander apologizes for magazine profile

 

What is Gen. Stanley McChrystal doing granting extensive access to Rolling Stone for a piece on the Afghan war? Was he trying to burnish his image? Did the White House authorize the interviews in hopes that they could placate the increasingly critical publication?

 

What a disaster.

 

Writer Ernesto Londono got an advance copy of the piece “Runaway General” that will be out Friday. In it, McChrystal and his aides batter his rivals inside the Obama team.

 

It comes at a terrible time.

 

The American death toll continues to rise, achievements are amorphous at best and there is obvious dissention within Obama’s defense cabinet about whether the August 2011 end date for the Obama surge is firm or just a suggestion. The question for the White House today: what did you know and when did you know it about the Rolling Stone article? The answer will tell us a lot about whether McChrystal can survive this epic failure in judgment.

 

“McChrystal and some of his senior advisors are quoted criticizing top administration officials, at times in starkly derisive terms. An anonymous McChrystal aide is quoted calling national security adviser James Jones a ‘clown.’

 

Referring to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one McChrystal aide is quoted saying: ‘The Boss says he's like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous.’

 

On one occasion, McChrystal appears to react with exasperation when he receives an e-mail from Holbrooke, saying, ‘Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke. I don't even want to read it.’”

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Morning-Must-Reads----McChrystal-gets-rolled--96874889.html

[Pepper]

Geee! SrWoodChuck!

 

McChrystal Apologizes for Remarks in Profile, Summoned to White House

 

The top U.S. war commander in Afghanistan is being called to the White House for a meeting with President Obama after issuing an apology Tuesday for an interview in which he took shots at top administration officials and his staff described the president as unprepared for their first one-on-one encounter.

McChrystal has been called to the White House Situation Room on Wednesday to explain his comments to the magazine directly to the president, a senior administration official told Fox News. Normally, he would appear on a conference

call for a regular strategy session.

 

from

McChrystal Apologizes for Remarks in Profile, Summoned to White House

 

 

It would be tough to take a dressing down from an ass hat.