Posted on 09/24/2009 10:13:48 PM PDT by Nachum
There are many reasons to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and all of them are contained within his 66-page "assessment" of the war in Afghanistan.
The document is fascinating, just as the work of zealots is always fascinating. As a high priest of the politically correct orthodoxy, McChrystal has laid out a strategy to combat Taliban jihad in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan without once mentioning Islam, and forget about jihad (fireable offense No. 1).
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
The list, ping
Fire him? He needs to be promoted!
If we fired every General officer who refuses to use the words jihad or Islam, bird Colonels would be running the Pentagon.
So Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal falls on his sword for the good of the country?
Great strategy.
I'd say McCrystal is doing a pretty fair job of it.
I don’t regard Ms West as an authority on what is happening here (note that word) in Afghanistan.
As much as she dislikes it, we must have the support of the people. She obsesses with Force Protection - the general must be fired because he wants his people to take risks. Obsessing with FP is what distances US forces from the population and keeps our folks from being more effective.
Interestingly McChrystal’s assessment reprises, on a grand scale, many of the comments I read by a USMC ETT commander operating up in the northeast a couple of years ago. He said to get out of the vehicles and take off your sunglasses when talking with the locals. He was right.
And here’s what GEN Petraeus has to say about it...
Petraeus in the Times of London.
Countering terrorists and extremism requires more than a conventional military approach. Military operations enable you to clear areas of extremist and insurgent elements, and to stop them from putting themselves back together. But the core of any counterinsurgency strategy must focus on the fact that the decisive terrain is the human terrain, not the high ground or river crossing.
Focusing on the population can, if done properly, improve security for local people and help to extend basic services. It can help to delegitimise the methods of the extremists — especially if you can contrast your ability and willingness to support and protect the population with the often horrific actions of extremist groups. Indeed, exposing their extremist ideologies, indiscriminate violence and oppressive practices can help people to realise that their lives are unlikely to be improved if under the control of such movements.
For the strategy to work, it is also necessary to find ways to identify reconcilable members of insurgent elements and to transform them into part of the solution. ...
General Stan McChrystal, the Commander of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, who has spent most of his career since 9/11 leading the US’s most elite counterterrorist element, the Joint Special Operations Command, is employing a comprehensive, counterinsurgency campaign. He is the first to recognise not just the extraordinary capabilities but also the limitations of counterterrorism forces in Afghanistan.
And here’s what GEN Petraeus has to say about it...
Petraeus in the Times of London.
Countering terrorists and extremism requires more than a conventional military approach. Military operations enable you to clear areas of extremist and insurgent elements, and to stop them from putting themselves back together. But the core of any counterinsurgency strategy must focus on the fact that the decisive terrain is the human terrain, not the high ground or river crossing.
Focusing on the population can, if done properly, improve security for local people and help to extend basic services. It can help to delegitimise the methods of the extremists — especially if you can contrast your ability and willingness to support and protect the population with the often horrific actions of extremist groups. Indeed, exposing their extremist ideologies, indiscriminate violence and oppressive practices can help people to realise that their lives are unlikely to be improved if under the control of such movements.
For the strategy to work, it is also necessary to find ways to identify reconcilable members of insurgent elements and to transform them into part of the solution. ...
General Stan McChrystal, the Commander of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, who has spent most of his career since 9/11 leading the US’s most elite counterterrorist element, the Joint Special Operations Command, is employing a comprehensive, counterinsurgency campaign. He is the first to recognise not just the extraordinary capabilities but also the limitations of counterterrorism forces in Afghanistan.
Sorry for the double post. I must have really meant it.
Or the author of The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization?
Both are highly qualified candidates, but I'm going to fire Ms. West and keep GEN McChrystal.
It is time to get out of Afghanistan. If they need community organizers, send in Acorn. They will know how to secure those poppy fields for Obama. Our fighting men aren’t social workers...they are warriors.
Obama and his carnival crew are not capable of fighting a war. It just isn’t in their DNA.
A lot of people are going to get killed and we will end up like the Soviet Union did there...another Viet Nam.
I never thought I would feel this way...but, this Marxist administration has changed the way I feel about a lot of things.
I'd like to see that assessment for myself.
If General McChrystal ordered the forces under his command to remove their body armor in the hopes that it would placate AQ & the Taliban, he should spend the rest of his life in prison or an insane asylum.
However, not only is he reportedly so reticent to order those under his command to air-box the enemy, he has effectively thrown away his career by telegraphing his distrust of the CIC over the matter.
Something doesn't fit, maybe because Obama is stirring the poo with all the fascination one could expect from a newborn that just found something new to play with.
Did McChrystal set the ROE that got those Marines killed
the other week,,,or did O’Bammy,,,
They were refused Tac-Air when they were nearly over-run,,,
And no Arty,,,
If McChrystal set it he could have still let them have it,,,
What does this tell us ?!,,,
O’Bammy hired McChrystal as a “yes man”!!!
This guy probably knows that 0bama cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Why tell him what to do to win the war, when chances are he will do just the opposite?
Don't see anything there that makes her a military expert.
If General McChrystal ordered the forces under his command to remove their body armor in the hopes that it would placate AQ & the Taliban, he should spend the rest of his life in prison or an insane asylum.
IF this is true, then yeah - - life in prison, or flat out fragged. This is tough to believe, though, especially since he's got to be aware that most Marines would laugh off such an idiotic directive. The grunts definitely would.
A. Doubt West has seen the report.
B. Maybe she is the ‘insurgency’ against the bad PR of the WH blocking action or even receipt of the report...which was done at the END of August.
C. Health care bill attempt to pass w/o real details or CBO estimate = next stop amnesty = wave of illegal immigrants from the poppy fields? Maybe resettlement in the San Joaquin valley.
Seems like a wild hypothesis, but with the inmates in the DC asylum, I’d think it might not be too much of a stretch.
The one who needs to be fired is the Clueless in Chief
I just sent Diana West a request for a copy of or directions to the 66 page assessment from which she based her story on.
Give me a break. Name one hot war where “counterinsurgency math” has led to total victory?
After watching 60 Minutes at the enlisted club (All day football) with some active duty members, the consensus was they are more frightened by McChrystal than the Taliban. Soldier's solider my ass, more like a another PC General who covers his ass thinking the "Zen" way is perfection while the grunts are the collateral damage.
What I do know is that he made no stink about the communuty organizing ROE tha Obama arranged.
Hey , I just don't know what to think.
The root cause is not the Taliban but radical Islam itself. His “counterinsurgencty math” is hopeless because the ideology is too influential with opposing forces and “civilians” that smile in front of his face but secretly back their “cause”.
From what I hear (First hand), many civis helping us are stabbing us in the back. Supplies going to the “good civilians” are being diverted to the Taliban. Would love to see an audit, what a cluster f* that would be.
I was thoroughly disgusted with McChrystal on 60 minutes. He has banned shooting into areas that contain residents even if we are taking fire. He is slowing down the troops who are driving vehicles in streets because their speed shows arrogance. This is a joke, just what the hell will 40,000 more troops do if he isn’t going to use them?
He can't be that bad, he hasn't mass murdered pro-western civilians yet! - Klinton stacked the pentagon with leftist generals.
Anything moves at night, anywhere, should have a shell coming in within 5 minutes.
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