The link: Barack Obama angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan (telegraph.co.uk)
A quote:
An adviser to the administration said: “People aren’t sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn’t seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly.”
and
Some commentators regarded the general’s London comments as verging on insubordination.
Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: “As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements.”
It appears that McChrystal talks about winning in some grand sense, which I think borders on propaganda, but obviously, he’s also not willing to toe the party line.
Maybe there are more things important to him than climbing the ladder a little higher, like self-respect.
What’s gonna happen to him for playing the way he’s playing? A courtmartial? I don’t think so. He’s a general, and he at least has 20 years in. He’s probably close to the 30 year mark, and most military people retire at least at 30 years.
So he knows he has the advantage. The worst that could happen is an early retirement, and there’s a good chance that in his view there’s no “worst” in that. A hard charging, successful man like him would have lots of opportunities in life.
And who wants to go down in history as another in a long line of commanding generals who left Afghanistan or Iraq as someone who was outdone by the enemy.
There’s self-respect. And there might be a whole lot more than that, like simply wanting to do the right thing, and having the courage to stand up to the political machine.
But again, they got nothing on him. It’s him who got something on them. If they boot him out and then fail in Afghanistan, it’s all upside for him, because the likelihood of winning in the sense that the enemy will be completely defeated is pretty slim.
Filed under: War
