Oh Bummer: General McChrystal gets fired over Rolling Stone article

[viperface]

'How'd I get screwed into going to this dinner?" demands Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It's a Thursday night in mid-April, and the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Hôtel Westminster in Paris. He's in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies – to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany's president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him.

 

"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his chief of staff, Col. Charlie Flynn.

 

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.

 

"Hey, Charlie," he asks, "does this come with the position?"

 

McChrystal gives him the middle finger.

 

 

The general stands and looks around the suite that his traveling staff of 10 has converted into a full-scale operations center. The tables are crowded with silver Panasonic Toughbooks, and blue cables crisscross the hotel's thick carpet, hooked up to satellite dishes to provide encrypted phone and e-mail communications. Dressed in off-the-rack civilian casual – blue tie, button-down shirt, dress slacks – McChrystal is way out of his comfort zone. Paris, as one of his advisers says, is the "most anti-McChrystal city you can imagine." The general hates fancy restaurants, rejecting any place with candles on the tables as too "Gucci." He prefers Bud Light Lime (his favorite beer) to Bordeaux, Talladega Nights (his favorite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard. Besides, the public eye has never been a place where McChrystal felt comfortable: Before President Obama put him in charge of the war in Afghanistan, he spent five years running the Pentagon's most secretive black ops.

 

"What's the update on the Kandahar bombing?" McChrystal asks Flynn. The city has been rocked by two massive car bombs in the past day alone, calling into question the general's assurances that he can wrest it from the Taliban.

 

"We have two KIAs, but that hasn't been confirmed," Flynn says.

 

 

continued at

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236#

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BUD LIGHT LIME

[watson]

career suicide for some dumb magazine

 

CONGRATULATIONS

[Zig]

funny thing is, i was laughing at everything he said and he was pretty much right about the administration.

 

obama has egg on his face

[christo-f]

career suicide for some dumb magazine

 

CONGRATULATIONS

 

Maybe not.

 

Way to jump from the sinking ship and ridding yourself of the blame might be more accurate.

 

I don't have any particular insight in to this but it's obvious that the war effort isn't going so well and the current strategy is failing pretty badly. One may not want history to associate ones name with such failure.

 

 

I can't see any better explanation to it, TBH....

[russell jones]

People like McChrystal don't get to where they are by making stupid mistakes. My guess is that he saw the writing on the wall that the Obama Administration was looking for an excuse to fire him, and he kindly obliged so he could rid himself of the responsibility and future blame. Just a thought.

[christo-f]

I'm not sure that Obama was looking to replace him, if he was we would see a change of strategy in A-stan. But we are not, they are keeping on. I think the writing on the wall that McC read was that the strategy will fail and he didn't want to be left holding the buck.

so he passed the blame and jumped ship, all very spectacularly.

 

However, there is a counter argument for this and this is by no means a precedent. General PAtton thought he could make policy, General McArthur held Truman and Eisenhower in contempt and lost his job because of it. As a matter of fact a number of people in similar positions and higher than McC have acted in similar fashion before.

 

Also look at McC and where he was from. He was head of SOCOM and the COIN guru surrounded by his whole team including advisors and spin doctors. Smart man, yes, but politician no. Add that to living in a tough world very much removed from the reality of the civilians that he felt constrained him from doing his job and you can begin to see a cult of personality building up. Also recall that much of the worst stuff in the article was not actually said by McC himself but those around him.

 

All in all, I still lean towards my original post because this was just over the top.

[viperface]

Here's the speech he gave in London earlier

 

 

text:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/01/gen_mcchrystals_address_on_afghanistan_98537.html

 

vid:

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Like Christo said I don't even see anything that he said himself that was really that big of a deal.

 

However I think the public perception of this, is that he himself was taking shots at the President. Which, I'm sure regardless if he was or wasn't, can't really be tolerated at this point.

 

In the press release Obama said he didn't fire him over the actual comments. But, that is a press release after all.

[russell jones]

I'm not sure that Obama was looking to replace him, if he was we would see a change of strategy in A-stan. But we are not, they are keeping on. I think the writing on the wall that McC read was that the strategy will fail and he didn't want to be left holding the buck.

so he passed the blame and jumped ship, all very spectacularly.

 

I wonder about the appearance of success. For instance, the media song seems to be that Iraq is a success now, and Petraeus was getting credit on NPR for that yesterday. The troop surge in Iraq is now seen as a success in the media as well. So perhaps Obama feels that the reality on the ground is not as important as the perception. Needless to say, Petraeus is far more media savvy than McC and can sell the war better than McC ever could.

 

What do you think Christo? What's more important politically, actual success or the appearance of success? I will not even get into what actual success entails.

[christo-f]

Appearance, by far.

 

 

And yeah, actual success can be debated forever.

[christo-f]

Like Christo said I don't even see anything that he said himself that was really that big of a deal.

 

A friend of mine said "McC surrounded himself with wind bags and fools.....".

 

So in respect to our observations I guess that provides a pretty sound rationale.