McChrystal to resign? NO PROBLEM! *She* is ready to serve!!!!
Posted on 09/22/2009 7:47:30 AM PDT by CWW
McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan
By Bill RoggioSeptember 21, 2009 4:17 PM
Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal's team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn't given sufficient resources (read "troops") to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan:
Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.
In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion "premature." Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "time is not on our side"; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public "to take a deep breath."
...
In Kabul, some members of McChrystal's staff said they don't understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn't given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.
Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he'd stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.
"Yes, he'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He'll hold his ground. He's not going to bend to political pressure."
On Thursday, Gates danced around the question of when the administration would be ready to receive McChrystal's request, which was completed in late August. "We're working through the process by which we want that submitted," he said.
The entire process followed by the military in implementing a change of course in Afghanistan is far different, and bizarrely so, from the process it followed in changing strategy in Iraq.
For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague "AfPak" assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal's assessment hit President Obama's desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration.
Contrast this with Iraq in the fall of 2006. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired just one day after the elections in early November. The Keane-Kagan plan for Iraq was submitted to President Bush shortly afterward, and encompassed both the assessment of the situation and the recommended course of action, including the recommended number of troops to be deployed to deal with the situation. General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey in early February 2007, and hit the ground running; the surge strategy was in place, troops were being mustered to deploy to Iraq, and commanders on the ground were preparing for and executing the new orders. The first of the surge units began to arrive in Iraq only weeks later, in March.
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration's commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration's waffling on Afghanistan.
Exactly at the point that you realize that your death will be in vain, and the mission is a failure due to lack of leadership.
“How does a general resign?”
RETIREMENT OF GEN. SCOTT.; His Letter of Resignation to the Secretary of War. Order of the President Placing Him on the Retired List. Visit of the President and Cabinet to the General Interesting Ceremony. GEN. McCLELLAN’S ORDER ON ASSUMING COMMAND.
November 2, 1861, Wednesday
Page 1, 1585 words
April 20, 1861
Lee resigns from U.S. Army
Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union.
US Military Chief Quits Amid Claims of Iran Rift
Resignation prompts speculation that US military action against Iran is under consideration in Washington
The top US military commander in the Middle East is stepping down days after a magazine profile reported that he was trying to block US military action against Iran. Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, was described in an Esquire article last week as a lone voice within the administration arguing for restraint. Published: 3/11/2008
He can listen to his generals who are trying to WIN the war, or.......
He can listen to his moneyed supporters, his fanatice activists and his under-educated lumpen masses on the Left who want him to withdraw all our troops immediately.
Which way will the Gifted One jump?
Don't everyone answer all at one, LOL......
Leni
I agree. SOMEBODY needs to be an advocate for our troops, and it sure as H isn't going to be Obama and his anti-military minions.
Yon's Site
Afghanistan Force Requirements (PDF) - Kagan Report
And a CIC who does not.
He’s treating the military like it’s a political opponent. Does he even know he’s the Commander In Chief?
McChrystal to resign? NO PROBLEM! *She* is ready to serve!!!!
Amen. Refuse Defeat.
Isn’t he the guy that O appointed? He said he could do the job with existing resources.
Maybe we were lied to again?
Tisk tisk.... that’s racist of you
Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former Special Operations chief who is President Obama's new choice to lead the war in Afghanistan, rose to military prominence because of his single-minded success in a narrow but critical mission: manhunting.
As commander of the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for nearly five years starting in 2003, McChrystal masterminded a campaign to perfect the art of tracking down enemies, and then capturing or killing them. He built a sophisticated network of soldiers and intelligence operatives who proceeded to decapitate the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq and kill its most notorious leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He has also led the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders in AFGHANISTAN and Pakistan.
But, but, but it was the right war not the bad war, Obama said so. Whatever happened to common sense. Afghanistan is a tactical meat grinder, Iraq an open playing field that favors our firepower and mobility. Afghanistan has no economy beyond a 7th century agriculture - Iraq has the worlds second largest known oil reserve. Democrats are either demonically possessed or intuitively attracted to worse decisions possible. Play a delaying action in Afghanistan while building a lasting friend in Iraq. Remember people its Iran that we are after - not some 7th century hillbillies.
ping
I was speaking of McChrystal, not Obama. I was replying to a poster who seemed to think it was immoral and/or cowardly for McChrystal to resign. I maintain it was neither. If he does resign, it’s a matter of honor.
“Bambi better get off his butt and get moving:”
I agree but I don’t believe O has requested funding or started that process in the House and I heard this morning on the radio, the WH has ask him NOT to submit the report “officially” so they don’t have to act on it.
Remember, this was a confidential report, not yet submitted that was leaked to the media.
Both he and the SecDef need to also review staff on letting this report out.
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