That’s what it looks like to me. And, boy, it’s a dandy.
Of course, I heard and read all the huffing and puffing in the various MSM outlets today. No need to link; they’re everywhere!
And based on that reporting, damned if I didn’t think this man should be fired, and post haste.
But when I found time to read the Rolling Stone story that had everyone bloviating, well, I had to scratch my head.
I didn’t find much evidence of insubordination there.
Oh sure, there’s plenty of insinuation, with a handful of somewhat shocking statements attributed to “Team McChrystal”, or “members of his staff” or “aides”. But every single shock statement is attributed to folks who are mysteriously unnamed. Why is that, I wonder?
The article isn’t extremely well written, so it was a struggle for me to make it through. But I read it, word for word, four times. And I highlighted every quote.
Here’s the worst attributed to McChrystal:
- A rhetorical question of “How did I get screwed into this dinner?”, made to one of his staffers, in relation to a presentation he was about to make to some French dignitaries. He followed that question by flipping the bird to his staffer, and asking “Does this come with the position?” On the same topic, he mentioned “I’d rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner. Unfortunately, no one in this room could do it.”
Hmmm. A bit crude, maybe, in today’s PC world. But it just sounds like some harmless grumbling to me.
- Another time he asks an interviewer, “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” and says with a laugh, “Who’s that?”
OK, that’s a bit disrespectful. But hardly a firing offense, IMO.
- There’s one other quote where he complains about a secret report questioning his strategy, which was leaked to the New York Times : “I like Karl (the author of the leaked report, a former general ,and current Ambassador to Afghanistan), I’ve known him for years, but they’d never said anything like that to me before. He said he felt “betrayed” by the leak, and said “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, “I told you so.”
So that’s it. The rest of the damning “evidence” is attributed to anonymous staffers and aides.
OK, maybe he is responsible for comments made by his staff. But again, why did the author choose to hide every single name of the staffers who supposedly made the offensive comments? Seems if somebody is going to get fired, we should be naming names here. Maybe the author has those names in his notes…..
And for the record, I have no strong opinions of McChrystal, and I am in no way qualified to judge him. I’ve heard what seems to be valid questioning of his strategies and manner from some of his own men. And I’ve read plenty of arm chair Generals voice concerns over him as well. So maybe it is time for a change. I don’t know.
But I do know that it is unfair to harass the General over a weakly reported, blind sourced Rolling Stone article. And doubly so before reading the actual article.
{ 31 comments }
I tend to agree with you about this article. The only thing that I think really damns McChrystal is the claim by Rolling Stone’s editor that he’d seen the article and didn’t push back on any of it.
Other than that, yes, it seems like much to do about nothing and I’m not sure that actually means anything.
fruitylips,
If he did in fact read the entire article as is, and didn’t at least ask for further information on the harsh critics supposedly on his team, then yes, that’s not good.
But I would still wonder if he saw the “final edit” version. There are really only 2-3 paragraphs containing allegations of harsh criticisms in the piece.
Well, that and the title bar:
Runaway General
Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House
There’s shockingly little info in the article to back up that assertion.
I am not sure this was a media assassination. I was fairly sure that McChrystal was saying his “F-You”s before he resigned. I am not sure he is happy with the current administrations handling of his requests and probably no longer wants to lead this mess.
Maybe I am just being more creative than most but that’s how I see it. McChrystal is not stupid, and if he said those things, he did it on purpose and he wanted it to be in print.
jrogge,
But what did HE actually say that is so outrageous?
It seems like the reporter just got the impression that this is how McChrystal feels, so it must be so.
Or based on the disjointedness of the title and the story, with the few little nasty paragraphs stuck in there, I’d say it more likely that the editor wanted to spin it this way.
I’m not at all interested in what anyone said to Rolling Stone. I’m more interested in McChrystal’s lack of seriousness in prosecuting the Afghanistan component of the War on Terror.
He’s McClellan. We need Grant.
(And unfortunately we also have Obama instead of Lincoln.)
> But what did HE actually say that is so outrageous?
Nothing, just like you said. McChrystal may not be able to win this thing under the constraints Obama has given, but I’m seeing an outspoken person, not an insubordinate one.
Yours,
Wince
> He’s McClellan. We need Grant.
What????
He’s not McClellan. McClellan wouldn’t fight because he was afraid of casualties. McChrystal isn’t afraid of casualties.
We do not need Grant. Grant sent Sherman and Sheridan to destroy the Confederacy’s will to fight by rampaging through Georgia and the Shananoah Valley and then grappled with and destroyed the Confederate Army by attacking the entrenched Army of Northern Virginia regardless of casualties. We don’t need McChrystal to make the Taliban wildly popular by sending anyone rampaging like Sherman and Sheridan. And the Taliban are not fighting as a stnd up force. They are fighting like Quantrill, whom Grant did not fight.
Your analogy makes no sense!
Yours,
Wince
To be clear, I am perfectly fine with judging McChrystal on his success or lack there of as a General in the war.
But the furor of the day is over this article which supposedly exposed his criticism at best, and damn near insubordination at worst, by calling the Obama administration a bunch of unprepared and detached “clowns and wimps”.
But after reading the article, IMO, there is no “there” there…..
Maybe the administration wants to pull the plug on McChrystal, but they don’t have the balls to do it without some kind of trumped up story like this. I guess if you’re of the mind that the end justifies the means, then you would be fine with that. But it kinda smells to me.
The only thing I can think (and this is not directed at Jaymaster), is, “does the Right now have its Shinsecki?” (I.E. the General who they glamorize because he says what they want to hear?)
I dunno. I otherwise am rather with Jaymaster, not clear what he said that’s so awful. Any public criticism of the administration is grounds for asking for a resignation, really, but… [shrug] I’m missing something too.
Dean,
I get what you are saying.
The weird thing is, most of the criticism of McChrystal I have seen PRIOR TO TODAY came from people I would consider to be on the right.
And McChrystal was “Obama’s pick”, and seemed generally respected and deferred to by all but the most pacifistic on the left.
But it’s like somebody flipped a switch this morning. And I don’t think that can reflect actual public opinion, that fast. It’s got to be spin.
It’s only a hit job if the public thinks less of him after it is over.
This strikes me more of a miss-job.
“Or based on the disjointedness of the title and the story, with the few little nasty paragraphs stuck in there, I’d say it more likely that the editor wanted to spin it this way.”
Not sure if this is a true spin job. After RTFA I basically got the impression that McChrystal is basically doing a variation of “win hearts and minds”. I am not sure that many Liberals would disagree with the line of thinking that McChrystal designed the strategy on philosophically.
The article only has a few references, but so do many others. Most people do not like to give their name out so it is difficult to procure “references” so-to-speak. There are also no references for the cover-up mentioned in the article. However, most magazine articles do not have a list of references handy, and, let’s face it, typically you have to read scholarly journals to reliably get articles with solid references.
Still, McChrystal has expressed frustration with this administration before and it is no secret that he and Obama have disagreed on things like numbers of troops and how fast they arrive. Also, Biden has been very outspoken about using a counter-terrorism strategy as opposed to COIN publicly, so again no big secrets revealed there.
This appears to be a biased article, but it just doesn’t seem to be very aggressive if it is to be a “hit-job”. In fact the article does in fact confirm other things you have been hearing. Especially the rumors that soldiers are unimpressed with the strategy.
What’s especially interesting is the outrage against McChrystal on the liberal networks. I don’t think they realize yet that this is the person Obama picked to lead the counterinsurgency effort. Damning him is in essence saying he picked the wrong person to lead.
I also didn’t see very many direct quotes about anyone except Biden, and those should be somewhat understandable. This is going long so in short, this is not a hit job, but a piece that has stirred an overreaction which makes it seem more profound than it really is.
Then again, if it caused that much of a reaction, maybe it is profound, if unintentionally so.
Jrogge,
Now you’re zeroing in on the point I was trying to make. But I didn’t quite get pull it off, apparently…
The hit job isn’t the Rolling Stone piece. The hit came afterwards, when some in the more main stream media picked up the story, and piled on. They implied that the article claimed that McChrystal actually said the nasty things.
This trick is used often, on all sides of the political spectrum. A lower level or more obscure paper, magazine, blog, think tank, or what have you issues a marginally factual report that pushes some desirable meme. Then the more main stream media then reports on THAT report, as if it is gospel. The thinking is that very few consumers of the main stream news will have the time or ability or desire to track down the initial report and check it for accuracy or validity.
And this one is text book from back in the pre-internet days. The MSM reports came out a week before the article was actually to be published in the Rolling Stone. So back in the day, folks couldn’t even check the initial report for a week. And by then, the meme will hopefully be firmly established, and the effect complete. And if by chance the MSM or the lesser publication does get called out on inaccuracies, there’s a lag time of another few weeks before corrections are issued. That’s plenty of time to get a message established in the public’s mind.
This worked like a charm in the pre-web environment. It still works OK today, especially with folks who hear what they want to hear, or for folks who are only peripherally concerned about a certain topic, and/or those who are too busy or don’t know how to track down the original article. Which is probably still a huge chunk of the population.
“McChrystal isn’t afraid of casualties?” Have you seen the ROI he’s issued?
There are two problems here: Obama and his henchmen in Congress are not going to give whomever’s responsible for winning in Afghanistan what they need to do it. But whoever that is, he’s got to make the best of it and do what he can to prevail. McChrystal isn’t that man.
I’ve seen a rumor (which I find credible) that John Allen will be replacing him. If so, this will make me very happy.
Sounds about right.
And the other thing to remember is that the Vice President is not in the chain of command.
(Why is Rolling Stone still published?
By which I mean, who the hell reads it, and why? Is it just aging hippies?)
Alert:
Gen. McChrystal gets to join the General David McKiernan un-employment club.
So it looks like Obama got the cover he needed to justify firing his hand picked man…
And he’s replacing him with Bush’s evil Surgemeister.
The worm turns?
> Have you seen the ROI he’s issued?
No. He’s not afraid of casualties among the soldiers. But every Afghan civilian casualty violates his strategy.
Yours,
Wince
Yes, the same, General Betray-Us gets a mulligan.
>> Have you seen the ROI he’s issued?
> No.
Perhaps you should check that out, then.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2539265/posts
(Yeah, it’s the freepers, but it’s also Byron York.)
It’s not that he was afraid of casualties; he wasn’t prosecuting his part of the war in such a way as to keep them appropriately minimal both in the indigenous civilian population and in our own military ranks. And there doesn’t seem to have been very much in the way of competent attention to the goals of the overall mission, either.
This is a good move for Obama, even if he may have made it for the wrong reasons.
This is a good move for Obama, even if he may have made it for the wrong reasons.
Mark,
I suspect you may be more than 100% incorrect. IMO, Obama made the move at the behest of VP Biden (Bite-Me). Just look at the TV media blurb with the scowled look on the face of Biden as Obama says, …We didn’t make this decision for personal reasons yada, yada, yada. The body language and and the TV does not lie.
So how many times has Obama actually been to a war zone other than Chicago ?
Mark,
> Perhaps you should check that out, then.
Then link the ROI. I’ve read the Rolling Stones article, which York quoted. And the York piece makes my point, not yours. McChrystal has the ROI set up so we have more casualties, not less – which is like Grant, not McClellan.
I do think I know why you say McChrystal is like McClellan. McClellan thought he should be running the war, not Lincoln, whereas Grant we willing to follow Lincoln’s lead. Similarly, McChrystal does not trust Obama to run the war. I don’t trust Obama either. His moronic deadline makes things worse. And Biden has never been suited to influence any kind of grand strategy, strategy, or even tactics. Petreaus is a good pick, however. If he (rightly) doesn’t trust Obama he will find a way to handle it without being stupid about it. Which I think Grant would also have done, but who can tell? By all accounts he did trust Lincoln.
Yours,
Wince
I’m in favor of General Petraeus.
To avoid libel I won’t name names, but a certain show didn’t take my call. My question was, “How come the host and other people are not mentioning that he wanted to limit civilian casualties in the war?”. They touch on other points the article makes, which really do sound bad, but this very important point is glossed over. They will mention that the troops fell he is doing a poor job, but completely skip the whole thing about COIN strategy emphasizing a minimum on civilian casualties.
In any case, he resigned and I think that is sort of what he was planning on doing. I think he took this ending before he got the inevitable Ollie North ending.
Yay! This article also has an interesting opinion on why he was picked
In any case I like Patreus, and think with Gates and Patreus running things we should be good to go.
If they can’t pull something off then it’s time to GTFO.
heard a couple of commentators take a casual swipe at what looks to me to the the root of the problem — the difference in direction vis a vis Kharzi;. The civilian side of Obama’s administration does not think Kharzi can make a credible government and is either deliberately or unconsciously undercutting his authority. The military side of Obama’s administration is banking on Kharzi & committing effort to make him a credible national head. The common thread between these two branches is Obama, who has not resolved the conflict — which is his major role.
Going to press exposed this conflict in such a way that it could not be ignored, although the firing/resignation and appointment of Pet. was a pretty masterful way of deflecting attention from the lack of Presidential leadership.
If the conflict continues to fester, there is no hope for success. Maybe Mchry. had to go for political reasons (to bury Obama’s incompetence in leadership), but (if he cannot be re-aligned) the ambassador needs to go to avoid foot-shooting.
The talk about the military needing to have respect for the civilian side of the administration does not match my memory of historical events nor my experience in the military. A military guy takes orders from the chain of command. If a civie is in your chain of command, you do what he says (might be grudgingly, half-halfheartedly, or with attitude). I’ve been in situations as a swabbie working hand-in-hand with civilians. If a civilian is not in your C of C, you don’t take orders & your opinion is irrelevant. Your responsibility as a military guy in these circumstances is well defined and well communicated. The chain of command is supposed to manage the civilian interaction.
The interesting part PMike is that Joe Biden is not within general McChrystal’s chain of command. He ain’t s–t. The president even wants to continue counter insurgency instead of Biden’s counter terrorism plan.
So all the disrespect for Biden really shouldn’t mean anything should it?
You may have misunderstood me (or perhaps I’m misunderstanding you). The official line is that McChrystal is being forced to resign because of what came out in the RS article. If that’s true, that’s the wrong reason to get rid of him.
If McChrystal were worth keeping around, the better course of action would have been for Obama to announce that the two of them have had a conversation, that they’ve reached an understanding, and that McChrystal is being sent back to finish the job.
But he’s not worth keeping. He’s losing the Afghanistan Theater of Operations, and it’s time to replace him with someone who can turn things around.
So even if Obama fired McChrystal because he’s a big whineypants – the wrong reason – he’s done the right thing.
Okay, I wont agree or disagree. But I do think Biden had a talk with President Obama. If McChr wasn’t worth keeping he’d have been gone before this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal#Dates_of_rank
President Obama Fires McChrystal, Kills Innovation
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/06/president_obama_makes_a_major.html
President Obama may well have made a major management mistake in dismissing General Stanley McChrystal, the senior commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency is a creative act and McChrystal is the Frank Gehry of modern warfare. In removing him, Obama is undermining both the strategy and execution of his own policy for defeating the Taliban and building a stable, democratic Afghanistan.
McChrystal’s defiance of authority, exemplified by his intemperate remarks about White House policy-makers in Rolling Stone and willingness to buck the collective behavior of his own peers, highlighted by his vote for Obama over military hero Senator McCain, reflect the values of an innovative personality and style of leadership that is exactly what is needed in unconventional warfare.
Some global media fallout to enjoy, or cringe at
I’ll just leave this here.
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