Posted on 06/22/2010 8:15:05 PM PDT by Steelfish
McChrystal Balls
President Obama should reprimand his general, but listen to his complaints June 23 2010
General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, has a reputation as the most disciplined soldier of his generation, and one of the brightest. The asceticism of his daily life, to keep himself ready for any threat, is now legendary: an eight-mile run, only one meal and just four hours sleep. It is understandable, then, that yesterday’s revelations stunned Washington — and Kabul. The general had so far forgotten the cost of careless talk that he had griped about the President and senior White House officials to a freelance reporter from Rolling Stone magazine, and over the course of some days, allowed his aides to do so too.
The most abusive remarks, such as calling General Jim Jones, National Security Adviser, “a clown”, came from unnamed aides. So did a description of the first meeting between President Barack Obama and General McChrystal, at which the general is said to have found the President unprepared and disappointing. But General McChrystal himself complained that he could not face opening another e-mail from Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy, and that he had felt “betrayed” by a leaked critique of his strategy from Karl Eikenberry, US Ambassador to Afghanistan. He is sharply critical of the President for taking three months last year to decide to send more troops. His tone towards his civilian counterparts is one of exasperation, sometimes contempt.
The overall portrait is devastating: that senior military commanders are mockingly critical of top officials in Washington, and of the President himself. That rings true, from many reports. Clearly, General McChrystal was guilty of extraordinary folly.
(Excerpt) Read more at thetimes.co.uk ...
I agree that if his plan was to try and get Obama or Holbrooke to change then he was doomed to failure. Nothing McChrystal could say or do would change either of them one iota.
Well said ODH...I agree completely. If the general is angling for a way to tell off the CIC...this isn’t the way to do it. I can hear the public appologies beginning any time now.
I wonder how many people in the higher levels of the military and spooks know that someone is a usurper.
Sadly the sheep who watch TV will follow the Saudi agent.
Far too many people seem to automatically think that everyone who opposes 0bama are by default conservatives. There is plenty of criticism of 0bama from the left, as we saw in the general's remarks. Perhaps the left just sees 0bama as crashing and burning, and they are simply trying to position themselves in a way that they can jump in should 0bama become politically impotent.
Interesting John Batchelor show on the topic http://www.wbap.com/article.asp?id=746707
I think it is a indication of of the growing dislike of our CIC.
You’re assuming that he knew it was on the record.
He has the CIC between a rock and a hard place.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 6:09:18 PM · 24 of 41
MestaMachine to Constitution Day
McChrystal’s real offense
By: Byron York
June 22, 2010
There is a lot of uproar about Gen. Stanley’s McChrystal’s disrespectful comments about his civilian bosses in the Obama administration, and President Obama would be entirely justified in firing McChrystal for statements McChrystal and his subordinates made to Rolling Stone. Obama is a deeply flawed commander-in-chief who doesn’t want to be fighting a war on terror, but he is the commander-in-chief. He should have a general who will carry out his policies without public complaint until the voters can decide to change those policies
But the bigger problem with McChrystal’s leadership has always been the general’s devotion to unreasonably restrictive rules of engagement that are resulting in the unnecessary deaths of American and coalition forces. We have had many, many accounts of the rules endangering Americans, and the Rolling Stone article provides more evidence. In the story, a soldier at Combat Outpost JFM who had earlier met with McChrystal was killed in a house that American officers had asked permission to destroy. From the article:
The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Arroyo’s platoon for the memorial, I arrive at Combat Outpost JFM to speak with the soldiers he had gone on patrol with. JFM is a small encampment, ringed by high blast walls and guard towers. Almost all of the soldiers here have been on repeated combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have seen some of the worst fighting of both wars. But they are especially angered by Ingram’s death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal’s new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. “These were abandoned houses,” fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. “Nobody was coming back to live in them.”
One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. “Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force,” the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that’s like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won’t have to make arrests. “Does that make any f–king sense?” Pfc. Jared Pautsch. “We should just drop a f–king bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?”
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To which you responded with this same article adding:
= I can’t seem to find any report of the death of soldier, Israel Arroyo who sent the letter.
June 22, 2010 8:04:14 PM by anglian
I corrected you and told you it was not Arroyo but Ingram at 9:14:27
You responded again at 9:21:09 PM
Something is fishy. Here’s the only Ingram I could find.
And he was not killed in a house or building.
Sgt. Matthew L. Ingram
Hometown:Pearl, Mississippi, U.S.
Age:25 years old
Died:August 21, 2009 in Operation Enduring Freedom.
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To which I replied and corrected you again:
To: anglian
Army Sgt. Michael K. Ingram Jr. Died April 17, 2010 serving during Operation Enduring Freedom
Army Sgt. Michael K. Ingram Jr., 23, of Monroe, Mich.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.; died April 17 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol.Was nearing 1-year mark in AfghanistanArmy Sgt. Michael K. Ingram Jr.
The Associated Press
FORT CARSON, Colo. — A 23-year-old Fort Carson soldier died when an improvised explosive device detonated near him while he was on patrol in Afghanistan.
Military officials say Sgt. Michael K. Ingram Jr. of Monroe, Mich., died April 17 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson.
Ingram had been awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals. He was on his first deployment and had been in Afghanistan since last May.
35 posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 9:42:15 PM by MestaMachine
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All of this was before 10:00 PM. Yet you still posted this article which is a half truth at best when you knew better.
Why?
Had you done a little more looking, you would have found that McC's visit to JFM was less than well received by the Troops.
It is unclear who is orchestrating these ROE.
Plenty of it comes from NATO
psyops?
Gen. Patton and MacArthur won the heart of the people.
Thats what I am thinking.
It is a growing indication that McC had utterly failed in Marjah, was headed for an even worse failure in Kandahar, and rather than have the loss of an entire war on his not so spotless record, he opted to screw everyone, including his Troops, to cover his own rear end.
McChrystal OWNS the ROE. There is nothing unclear about it. I have been posting about McC since he was appointed top dog.
His assessment.
His ROE
His strategy
HIS failure
Many DEAD WARRIORS later.
The Saudi booses are having a big laugh over our military being killed and demoralized. It only cost them $700 million to buy America. Thank idiots who watch TV. Anyone who pays for cable or sat TV empowers them.
And nobody helped demoralize them more than McC himself.
He’s a nut. A idot.
He’s not a grunt. He’s time short. He needs to politic. I don’t suppose many Afgans care to bond to him by running. Although running is fine, if not lovey dovey, for Army culture. I suppose he has that down.’
He comes from mil family. Suspect. His brother is mil. Suspect, well...fine if we are going to fight the Soviets. Bad if you want a person, from a family that is use to beyond Byzantine machinations.
To no, zero, zip benefit McCristal covered up, and lied publicly about the Tilman self execution( sorry, standing up in front of Ranger fired automatic weapons is auto execution. Nice. Dreamy, but stupid.)
I also heard this afternoon on the Howie Carr show (Boston WRKO), that the current rules of engagement were McChrystal’s. That soldiers should patrol areas where they were sure they wouldn’t have to load and use their weapons so as not to upset civilians. This is akin to police ceding vast areas to crooks, rapists, murderers, what have you. Not sensible. Plus if McChrystal had any common sense at all...he should have done his homework as a voter, read up on Obama’s background, etc., he should have known Obama was a Marxist. Why vote for him. I won’t be sorry to see him go. (Either one of them.) A pair of fools.
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