Gen McChrystal Defies Administration

jyoshu · #1 (**permalink**) 10-05-2009, 11:13 PM

What's your view of what the general did?

By the way, this is an anonymous poll, meaning your handle will not appear with your vote.

simone · #2 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 12:29 PM

Jyoshu, thanks for that link.

I've been wanting to look into that story.

McChrystal, by the way, is not the Commander-in-Chief, and it is presumptuous for him to speak as though he were.

I would also like to know why he was giving a speech in London whilst 8 of our men were slaughtered in a poorly protected outpost in Afghanistan.

A general in command should have his feet on the ground in the midst of battle.

Steeeeve · #3 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 01:45 PM

Don't go behind your bosses back

Baron · #4 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simone

Jyoshu, thanks for that link.

I've been wanting to look into that story.

McChrystal, by the way, is not the Commander-in-Chief, and it is presumptuous for him to speak as though he were.

I would also like to know why he was giving a speech in London whilst 8 of our men were slaughtered in a poorly protected outpost in Afghanistan.

A general in command should have his feet on the ground in the midst of battle.

It appears that neither you nor the chief procrastinator are military experts. One thing we can be sure of, Obama's decision will be based on whatever his advisors deem to be politically popular. His declining approval rating can not afford another drop.

foundit66 · #5 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baron

It appears that neither you nor the chief procrastinator are military experts. One thing we can be sure of, Obama's decision will be based on whatever his advisors deem to be politically popular. His declining approval rating can not afford another drop.

Why?
Cause Bush has a copyright on the extreme low areas?

Pshaw!

I think Republicans eschew "politically popular" cause they can't fathom the idea of an elected official doing as the majority wants. Bush certainly didn't comprehend the idea, and Republicans were voted out in droves.

As for the general, I hope he enjoyed his moment in the sun. The higher up the military chain one goes the more it IS about politics.

And even in the private sector, it's not a good idea to pull a stunt like this.

Steeeeve · #6 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baron

It appears that neither you nor the chief procrastinator are military experts. One thing we can be sure of, Obama's decision will be based on whatever his advisors deem to be politically popular. His declining approval rating can not afford another drop.

His popularity is around the same as Bush prior to 9/11. Both were not a decline nor increase because you really can't get an accurate reading right off the bat. Too many emotions at first.

jyoshu · #7 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foundit66

As for the general, I hope he enjoyed his moment in the sun. The higher up the military chain one goes the more it IS about politics.

And even in the private sector, it's not a good idea to pull a stunt like this.

Believe it or not, I somewhat agree. (wow, there must be something wrong here as I find you agreeable here.) I think the general's role is to obey the commands of the Commander-in-Chief, and advise HIM (not the whole world in a public venue.). If Obama makes bad decisions, then he makes bad decisions and it will come back on Obama, ultimately. If the general can't deal with that--even if it's for noble reasons (seeing his troops die due to to Obama's indecision and delay)--then he should resign. It seems to me his job is to take orders, lead his men, and advise the president.

However, what is frustrating is that we all know good and well that if an involved general on the ground had publicly taken issue with BUSH in this way on the Iraq war, he would have been portrayed as a hero by the Democrats and anti-war movement. And even though McChrystal was wrong in the way he went about presenting his view, he is correct in that it is taking Obama ENTIRELY too long to make decisions on Afghanistan.
I also wonder what nasty way liberal groups like Moveon.org will portray McChrystal. Because they sure did a nasty thing to Petreus ("Gen. Betray us") over a lot less.

simone · #8 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baron

It appears that neither you nor the chief procrastinator are military experts. One thing we can be sure of, Obama's decision will be based on whatever his advisors deem to be politically popular. His declining approval rating can not afford another drop.

That was the Bush agenda.

Obama's ratings are rising.

JPSartre12 · #9 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simone

That was the Bush agenda.

Obama's ratings are rising.

Maybe they're rising because Obama has squashed all opposing viewpoints as he's trying to do with the general and the media is still sucking up to him to avoid his wrath as well. It's got to be newspeak if you want to play ball with Obama.

foundit66 · #10 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

However, what is frustrating is that we all know good and well that if an involved general on the ground had publicly taken issue with BUSH in this way on the Iraq war, he would have been portrayed as a hero by the Democrats and anti-war movement.

And it is so frustrating to IMAGINE the Democrats acting some way, and then having the Republicans act that way and get criticized...

I mean, if John shoots his wife, he should obviously be able to tell the judge that if the judge was married to his wife, the judge would have shot her too!
Obviously, that's a valid response...
< end sarcasm >

Look. One of the things that has to be done to avoid political childishness is to refuse to use this "Well, I think Johnny would have jumped off the cliff too." mentality as some sorts of bizarre twist on "If everybody else jumped off the cliff, would you follow them"...

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

And even though McChrystal was wrong in the way he went about presenting his view, he is correct in that it is taking Obama ENTIRELY too long to make decisions on Afghanistan.

Funny.
Obama raised troop presence in Afghanistan shortly after taking office.
Bush spent how many years detracting from Afghanistan, doing even less?

It's like Republicans are suddenly finding new concern over issues that they didn't have while a Republican could be to blame...

JPSartre12 · #11 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foundit66

And it is so frustrating to IMAGINE the Democrats acting some way, and then having the Republicans act that way and get criticized...

I mean, if John shoots his wife, he should obviously be able to tell the judge that if the judge was married to his wife, the judge would have shot her too!
Obviously, that's a valid response...
< end sarcasm >

Look. One of the things that has to be done to avoid political childishness is to refuse to use this "Well, I think Johnny would have jumped off the cliff too." mentality as some sorts of bizarre twist on "If everybody else jumped off the cliff, would you follow them"...

Funny.
Obama raised troop presence in Afghanistan shortly after taking office.
Bush spent how many years detracting from Afghanistan, doing even less?

It's like Republicans are suddenly finding new concern over issues that they didn't have while a Republican could be to blame...

We were succeeding in Afghanistan when Bush was president, IIRC.

jyoshu · #12 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foundit66

And it is so frustrating to IMAGINE the Democrats acting some way, and then having the Republicans act that way and get criticized...

I mean, if John shoots his wife, he should obviously be able to tell the judge that if the judge was married to his wife, the judge would have shot her too!
Obviously, that's a valid response...
< end sarcasm >

Except one (my point) is far more imaginable--rather, LIKELY--by orders of MAGNITUDE than the analogy you gave. And ypu know I'm right that Democrats and the anti-war movement WOULD play it up if the same thing happened under a Republican administration.
You refuse to acknowledge the predictability and likelihood of partisanship--based on how politics tend to play out in this country--when it's your own party. it's like you exist entirely in the moment politically, naive of history and the fact partisanship and politics will come back around no matter which party.

Obama's in quite the bind.
He can't just play the 'blame-Bush' card the way he could have if it were Iraq. Afghanistan is well known as an area where terrorist have originated from and is much more legitimate occupation. If he fails to send in a lot more troops, he loses face because he will lose in the Afghanistan situation.
But if he DOES, he ticks off his base.
Poor fella just can't win.

foundit66 · #13 (**permalink**) 10-07-2009, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

Except one (my point) is far more imaginable--rather, LIKELY--by orders of MAGNITUDE than the analogy you gave.

You're missing the point...

Imagine if John breaks curfew.
His parents go to punish him, and John retorts back that if Mark (brother) had been in a similar situation, Mark would have done the same thing (breaking curfew).

Now, does such a comment IN ANY WAY justify John?
No.
Does it IN ANY WAY mitigate John's situation or his subsequent punishment?
No.

Even if Mark HAD done the thing before, that wouldn't mean anything about John's situation.

Instead of acknowledging that "your side" is acting boorishly, you instead try to whine that you think somebody else would have done something similar if roles were reversed.
Pointless observation!

The RIGHT-WINGERS need to fix THEIR behavior and stop fantasizing about what the left-wingers would do.
If the left-wingers pull junk like this, I'll be happy to say they are wrong.
Anything more is just plain pointless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

You refuse to acknowledge the predictability and likelihood of partisanship--based on how politics tend to play out in this country--when it's your own party.

I refuse to pretend it is SIGNIFICANT.
You are using your fantasies about another party's "partisanship" in order to obfuscate and avoid responsibility FOR YOUR OWN party's problems.

Complain ABOUT WHAT IS REAL.
Complaining about your imagination is futile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

it's like you exist entirely in the moment politically, naive of history and the fact partisanship and politics will come back around no matter which party.

No. Not "naive of history".
History deals with WHAT DID happen.
Not what some people want to proclaim would have happened if roles were reversed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

Obama's in quite the bind.

And you return to your partisanship...

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

He can't just play the 'blame-Bush' card the way he could have if it were Iraq.

Man. That is a pointless comment.
He pointed out Bush's failures WHERE BUSH MADE FAILURES.

To whine about a "blame-Bush card" is simply avoiding the fact that there are a LOT of Bush's screw-ups that Obama has to fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

Afghanistan is well known as an area where terrorist have originated from and is much more legitimate occupation.

Golly gee whiz.
I've been singing that tunes FOR YEARS.

But whether or not Afghanistan is more legitimate than Iraq is not the same question as whether or not we should increase our presence in Afghanistan.
Considering Afghanistan's rigged election, questions of propping up an illegitimate government comes to mind. Questions which warrant answers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyoshu

If he fails to send in a lot more troops, he loses face because he will lose in the Afghanistan situation.
But if he DOES, he ticks off his base.
Poor fella just can't win.

Can't win with people like you...
Never with people like you...

Bush had stagnant (and decreasing) troop levels in AFghanistan FOR YEARS.
Obama has been in office for months. Already INCREASED the level incredibly once.
And now Repubs are proclaiming that it's a huge problem for Obama to do something that Bush was doing FOR YEARS???

Where was this concern back when Bush was in office???

simone · #14 (**permalink**) 10-08-2009, 01:39 PM

General McChrystal and "The Dark Side":

Quote:

No one would have mentioned his name at all if President George W. Bush hadn't singled him out in public. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, West Point '76, is not someone the Army likes to talk about. He isn't even listed in the directory at Fort Bragg, N.C., his home base. That's not because McChrystal has done anything wrong—quite the contrary, he's one of the Army's rising stars—but because he runs the most secretive force in the U.S. military. That is the Joint Special Operations Command, the snake-eating, slit-their-throats "black ops" guys who captured Saddam Hussein and targeted Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

JSOC is part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to "work the dark side" after 9/11. To many critics, the veep's remark back in 2001 fostered his rep as the Darth Vader of the war on terror and presaged bad things to come, like the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. But America also has its share of Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls "the shadows." And McChrystal, an affable but tough Army Ranger, and the Delta Force and other elite teams he commands are among them. ...

The Raw Story Did newly announced top Afghan general run Cheney’s assassination wing?

In regard to Pat Tilman:

Quote:

When NFL player-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman died at the hands of US troops in a case of "friendly fire," the spin machine at the Pentagon went into overdrive. Rumsfeld and company couldn't have their most high-profile soldier dying in such an inelegant fashion, especially with the release of those pesky photos from Abu Ghraib hitting the airwaves. So an obscene lie was told to Tillman's family, his friends and the American public. The chickenhawks in charge, whose only exposure to war was watching John Wayne movies, claimed that he died charging a hill and was cut down by the radical Islamic enemies of freedom. In the weeks preceding his death, Tillman was beginning to question what exactly he was fighting for, telling friends that he believed the war in Iraq was " [expletive] illegal." He may not have known what he was fighting for, but it's now clear what he died for: public relations. Today, after five years, six investigations and two Congressional hearings, questions still linger about how Tillman died and why it was covered up.

Now the man who greased the chain of command that orchestrated this great deception is prepared to assume total control of US operations in Afghanistan: Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It was McChrystal who approved Tillman's posthumous Silver Star, a medal given explicitly for combat, even though he later testified that he "suspected" friendly fire.

McChrystal's Pat Tillman Connection

Lies, cover-ups and knives in the back in the dead of night...

Wonderful recommendations!

simone · #15 (**permalink**) 10-08-2009, 01:47 PM

This will gladden the heart of the righties! They love torture. And torturers...

Quote:

McChrystal's Men: Hunters — and Torturers?
In February 2006, the Army Times reported that Joint Special Operations Command, as an entire branch, was in effect being promoted — and with it its commander since 2003, then two-star general Stanley McChrystal. JSOC would gain greater autonomy from its parent organization, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCom); McChrystal would gain a third star for himself, a two-star deputy for his operation, and a mandate for streamlining an elite unit that then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had come to believe was encumbered by the traditional military practices and bureaucracy of SOCom.

It was already the case that after 9/11, JSOC had evolved from a hostage-rescue role to "door-kicking" — that is, hunting terrorists. But under McChrystal, the transformation had gone further and deeper than before. JSOC became a focused and highly active machine. Two JSOC task forces were stationed in Iraq after the invasion, and a third operated in Afghanistan. "You train, you train, you train, then all of a sudden you get on a plane and you go somewhere, do a mission, it's over in 36 hours and you come back," a source told Army Times, speaking about the nature of the branch prior to McChrystal's arrival. After he came aboard, the source said, JSOC was deployed "24/7."

.... In 2006, "Jeff," an elite Army interrogator, told Esquire that he had witnessed the physical and mental torture of prisoners at a veiled U.S. base in Iraq. Camp Nama — short for Nasty-XXX Military Area, the joke went — was one of the primary locations where the military and intelligence agencies brought detainees suspected of harboring knowledge about Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But when Jeff questioned the legality (as well as the usefulness) of the violent techniques employed in their interrogation, he was rebuffed:

It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in — they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."

.... In 2006, Human Rights Watch released a major report based on dozens of interviews with soldiers who had witnessed the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. "No Blood, No Foul" revealed that the elite forces conducting the interrogations at Camp Nama and two other locations, known (among other names) as Task Force 121, committed systematic abuse of prisoners at other facilities across Iraq, leading to at least three deaths. Whether or not he was present during the actual abuse — and it seems unlikely that he would need or want to put himself in that exposed position — as commander of JSOC, Stanley McChrystal oversaw them.

Read more: Stanley McChrystal's Torture History in Afghanistan and Iraq - Esquire

Systematic abuse? Oh my!

Spitting on the Geneva Conventions? Oh my!

View Poll Results: Did Gen McChrystal do a good thing or a bad thing?
Going public bordered on sedition.	1	11.11%
What he did was over the line; he should have used official channels.	2	22.22%
What he did was at least ok and should not be frowned upon.	1	11.11%
Gen McChrystal is a hero for what he did.	5	55.56%
Voters: 9. You may not vote on this poll

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