As if Generals McArthur, Patton, and Chesty Puller never existed.
Eff you Gates, and the horse you rode in on.
I am with this guy:
Gates has forgotten who he is tangling with.
Posted on 10/05/2009 6:19:27 PM PDT by Kaslin
How to proceed in Afghanistan will be among the most difficult and fateful decisions that President Obama ever makes. But he's the one who has to decide, not his generals. The men with the stars on their shoulders — and I say this with enormous respect for their patriotism and service — need to shut up and salute.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is entitled to his opinion about the best way forward. But he has no business conducting a public campaign to build support for his preferred option, which is to send tens of thousands more troops into a country once called the "graveyard of empires."
McChrystal's view — that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be "short-sighted" — is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account.
But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to lay down the law. Gates said Monday that it is "imperative" that military and civilian leaders "provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately."
I believe that's Pentagon-speak for: "Put a sock in it, Stan."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
But he doesn't want them home. They would work to prevent his move to socialism, and do not forget. Veterans often become right wing terrorists according to Janet Napolitano.
Like you, I want them home, not in a leftist meat grinder.
By the time Obama’s term is finished, the military will be nothing more than a glorified home security force.
Democrats have always disliked the military and now they can do something about it.
Afghanistan will only get worse, right up till we run away. This is one of the main reasons that Dems had to be stopped at all costs in 2006 and 2008.
Oh well.....
I am banking on it, and like you, will work to make it happen. Name the town and state . I will be there getting out the vote.
If not the generals then who? Who can stop a repeat?
The quagmire today is in the same place it was 45 years ago -- in Washington!
Obama is the U.S. forces' LBJ and McNamara.
Obama will do nothing for the troops if it harms his domestic agenda.
"Robert McNamara and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's staff . . . were more concerned with political victories in the US, than military victories in South Vietnam." [A review of book, below]
Colonel H.R. McMaster, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, wrote Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.
The book took 5 years to research and was completed in 1997 as a part of McMaster's Ph.D. thesis at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
It's been ten years since I read it but I think an important point was the generals should have been forthright with the civilians and Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy's powerful military adviser then later appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who remained with LBJ through 1964.
It seemed that not even LeMay stood up, if I remember correctly -- except when he and his cigar always positioned themselves next to Taylor who hated smoking.
Never again! Today's generals seem to be speaking up. This time the war is for all the marbles. We must support them.
LLS
if we don’t get out the vote and stop the rats, all hell is going to break loose
Well, we got rid of MacArthur for the same thing, did we not?
He wanted to take the Korean War into China and when Truman didn’t agree, MacArthur went public.
On the other hand, Truman was a Democrat, too!
As if Generals McArthur, Patton, and Chesty Puller never existed.
Eff you Gates, and the horse you rode in on.
I am with this guy:
Gates has forgotten who he is tangling with.
America has forgotten that the only way to win a war is to break the most things, and kill the most people. Civilians bedamned.
Make war on us and you will pay dearly.
That lesson is lost.
I had a phone call with my son the other day. He’s been through 3 Iraq tour’s with Bush as CIC, and asked him about him going to Afganistan. He told me...quote....”Dad, with the current ROE, I’m scared sh!tless!, but I’ll do my duty!”
Semper Fi, Chesty!
Great grab, Candor7!
Well, Gene, it’d be a lot easier for General McChrystal to give his advice to the president in private if the president talked to him more than a half hour every few months.
I worship the dust his boots may have passed through.
. . . the Pubbies will have their candidate for 2012!
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is far to professional to put a sock where Obama needs to have a sock put.
I didn’t hear affirmative-action Pulitzer Prize winner Robinson bitching when generals second-guessed Bush. Eugene needs to stay on MSNBC where he belongs.
ROFLMAO!
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