Posted on 06/28/2010 3:23:00 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
What does one make of US President Barack Obama’s sacking of General Stanley McChrystal as Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and the United States Forces in Afghanistan? First, it would be pertinent to consider precedents.
Tensions and conflicts between military commanders and political leaders are not unknown. As far back as 1905, the tussle between George Nathaniel Curzon, then Viceroy of India, and Horatio Herbert Kitchener, then Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, became very messy. Ostensibly, the argument was over military reforms. Actually, it was a power struggle, with Kitchener wanting to concentrate more and more authority in his office and reduce the oversight of the Viceroy.
In the end, Kitchener won and Curzon had to resign. A resourceful and cunning man, Kitchener lobbied politicians in London, masterminded an assiduous campaign in the British Press and outmanoeuvred Curzon. If nothing else, this proved a clever General could be a smarter politician than a patrician if even naïve civilian incumbent.
In 1998, India encountered a small-scale repeat of the Curzon-Kitchener battle. Mr George Fernandes, then Defence Minister, recommended the dismissal of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat as Chief of the Indian Navy. Adm Bhagwat had refused to accept the right of the Union Cabinet to appoint the Deputy Chief of Navy Staff and had instead handed the job to another. He had also voiced his criticism in the media. After his sacking, his wife charged the BJP-led Government with prejudice because she was a Muslim.
It was patent nonsense, of course, and Adm Bhagwat was guilty of insubordination. Nevertheless, like Kitchener, he had his supporters in the media and got his 15 minutes of fame. The larger institutional battle — between a duly-elected civilian Government and a military commander — was, however, a no-brainer. Adm Bhagwat had to walk into oblivion.
America’s most famous General-President stand-off occurred 60 years ago, during the Korean War. As Commander of the United Nations forces on the Korean peninsula, Douglas MacArthur was not satisfied with the liberation of South Korea from invading North Korean soldiers. He wanted to expand the war deep into aggressor territory and came up with an audacious plan to neutralise the Chinese threat once and for all. MacArthur was clearly taking a politico-strategic call and seeking to impose revised political goals on the war. Had he succeeded, he may have ended the Cold War in Asia even before it had begun.
Understandably, President Harry S Truman was cautious and wanted to limit the war to narrow, achievable objectives. In 1951, he dismissed MacArthur from his command. This ended the career of one of the greatest warriors in human history.
As is evident, each of these cases is very different. Kitchener was more of an intriguing politician than Curzon. MacArthur was a visionary in that he foresaw the Cold War and the Communist threat, but few politicians would have bought into his proposal of a cataclysmic, all-out war. Having just come out of World War II, Truman may have calculated his country didn’t have the will for a second successive extended conflict. Also, the idea that MacArthur was reportedly open to using nuclear weapons may have worried Truman, who was still living down ordering the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Given this backdrop, what does one make of the McChrystal affair? There is no doubt that his interview-based profile in Rolling Stonemagazine was not a good idea. While there are few if any direct quotes in the article to implicate Gen McChrystal — his aides are quoted as saying the more damaging things — the fact is the writer of the piece was an embedded journalist with the McChrystal team for a few weeks and the General must have known who was saying what to him.
In the article, Gen McChrystal comes across as a very different man from his President. He is instinctual, with an inspirational, let’s-get-out-there style. On the other hand, Mr Obama sees himself as a reserved intellectual. More important, as a soldier Gen McChrystal believes in clear-cut goals, while Mr Obama is decidedly wishy-washy in his positioning.
This does not justify Gen McChrystal’s utterly stupid actions in front of a journalist. As Rolling Stone records, the General refuses to read an e-mail from Mr Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan, and allows his aides to tell the writer that he doesn’t think much of the US Ambassador to Kabul or of Vice-President Joe Biden or of Mr Obama.
Faced with such provocation, Mr Obama had to act. Already his ratings are slipping because of the handling of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It is possible that if there were no oil spill crisis, Gen McChrystal would have got away with merely an admonition. Yet, under siege, Mr Obama had to be seen to be doing something. The dismissal of Gen McChrystal offered the most convenient opportunity.
Even so, there is a larger point for Mr Obama to consider. As the Rolling Stone article stresses, despite their personality and background differences, citizen McChrystal did vote for candidate Obama in the presidential election of November 2008. If Gen McChrystal is now so disappointed with the man he helped elect, surely he is not alone. The broad-based coalition that Mr Obama put together — with his original White liberal supporters being joined by African-Americans and finally blue-collar Whites from the mid-western heartland of America — is now in tatters.
In sacking Gen McChrystal, Mr Obama can’t run away from the fact that the dozens of civilian busybodies he has appointed to deal with the AfPak region have left the US more confused than ever before. In particular, Lt Gen Karl Eikenberry, the American Ambassador in Kabul, has been accused of undermining Gen McChrystal’s military strategy to take on the Taliban. His controversial cables to Washington, DC, have pointedly been leaked to newspapers. Such bloody-mindedness is only matched by Mr Holbrooke, a self-appointed viceroy who is now the most unwanted man in not just South Asia but in the Obama Administration but who refuses to do the honourable thing and quit.
Maybe Mr Obama will now get rid of Lt Gen Eikenberry and Mr Holbrooke too. What will he do, however, about his rapidly declining, all-over-the-place presidency.
McChrystal mighta had a point, but any bigtime militician like McCh or Petraeus or MacAurthur or McClellan who’s in large and in charge and who trusts a reporter this much has to go. And any current, modern major general who trusts a Rolling Stone reporter this much should be shot for gross stupidity.
He voted for obama. That says it all.
Exactly.
He was a paper warrior....and a “suck up” in the first degree. Kissed ass all the way up the line...just like Weasley Clark did with ole BJ klintoon....
So did Colonel David Hunt.
I felt betrayed by him. Somehow I think sanity left him, too bad.
Don’t believe everything you read or hear...or take it at face value.
Kind of off subject but...”
America’s most famous General-President stand-off occurred 60 years ago, during the Korean War. As Commander of the United Nations forces on the Korean peninsula, Douglas MacArthur was not satisfied with the liberation of South Korea from invading North Korean soldiers. He wanted to expand the war deep into aggressor territory and came up with an audacious plan to neutralise the Chinese threat once and for all. MacArthur was clearly taking a politico-strategic call and seeking to impose revised political goals on the war. Had he succeeded, he may have ended the Cold War in Asia even before it had begun.”...
Just think of how RIGHT he was. Like Iraq W1, not finished.
.............”He was a paper warrior....and a “suck up” in the first degree:
Don’t Agree!
Obviously McCrystal was completely stupid to allow a Rolling Stone writer into his inner sanctum;
But, McCrystal had earlier dug in his heels and told Zer0 and the rest of the idiots in DC that he needed more men to win this war. He got about half of what he requested.
Then was told that there will be no more civilian deaths!
???What would you do with fewer troops, fighting with one arm behind their backs???
Personally, I hope that as a parting gesture, he was able to tell this imposteur Zer0 president to STFU, stick it up your a!!, and I’m out of here.
Zer0, let your conscience be the one to kill all of our warriors!
McCrystal was great, but stupid!
We will all learn to miss him, unfortunately, for many years into our Afgan future!
Obama voters = brainless twits.
Even if otherwsie accomplished or smart ...
Anyone who was that naive, stupid, left-wing or all of above needs to be questioned.
According to Bernie Goldberg, it is has been ‘said’ he voted for Zero via Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic.
General Stanley McChrystal banned Fox News from his headquarters, according to The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder. Ambinder wrote Wednesday (via Michael Calderone) that McChrystal is a liberal, and added in the detail about Fox News to flesh out the point: Michael Calderone on staff at Politico
Why would conservative Freepers believe anything coming from left leaning websites. As shown above Ambinder repeated Calderone's statement from Politico.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2543584/posts?page=20#20
Ambinder thinks conservatives have gone mad.
Have Conservatives Gone Mad? by Marc Ambinder Apr 23 2010,
“The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, that TAXPAYERS will fund the bailout of banks — these aren’t meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on." - Marc Ambinder
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/have-conservatives-gone-mad/39417/ You know we are screwed when FReepers get talking points from Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic and Michael Hastings of RS.
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