Fire his ass

[stoneric]

Obama ‘Furious’ Over Gen. McChrystal Speech
Working Relationship 'Not Great' as General Fights for Escalation
by Jason Ditz, October 04, 2009

Friday’s 25 minute in-flight meeting between President Obama (just returning from what proved to be a failed last minute pitch for Chicago’s Olympics bid) and Gen. Stanley McChrystal was more than just the coincidental meeting officials tried to spin it as.


Gen. Stanley McChrystalRather officials say that President Obama was “furious” with the General following his pointed remarks at a London speech the day prior. At the speech, Gen. McChrystal mocked Vice President Biden’s call to scale back the objectives of the eight year long war, saying it would lead to “Chaos-istan” and insisting that he would never accept such a plan.

The meeting that followed was reportedly “awkward,” and experts say that the working relationship between the president and the commander of the Afghan War is “not great.”

Undaunted, however, General McChrystal is said to have spent much of their brief time together emphasizing the increasingly grim situation on the ground and pressing the president to make a decision on his call for additional troops.

The Obama Administration is reportedly unsure what to make of McChrystal, with one adviser saying “people aren’t sure whether McChrystal is being naive or an upstart.” Whatever the case, it is uncharacteristic for a US general to spend so much of his time publicly petitioning for his strategy and attacking the commander in chief for not endorsing it immediately.


This guy mcchrystal sleeps 3 hours a night and eats 1 meal a day. He has tortured himself into delirium.

[verklingen]

if obama does dismiss him the pundits will have a field day

[Mydriasis]

So much for let's end the war, lol.

I bet $5 they are gonna get more troops. I don't think Obama really has power over the military to be honest. Some people believe the military was behind JFK's assassination.

But I guess we'll wait and see how it all unfolds. I hope they don't need more troops, I mean I understand the US probably wants a base over there just incase shit hit's the fan over seas, but how long does it really take...

[zerodown]

What? The president unable to give orders to his subordinates? Wow, that can't be right, not in america.

The president is only a puppet, always has, an interpreter of bad news from the invisible hand to the visible working class that struggles working their asses off each day so the few can have their pretty little wars.

[mookie]

I don't think Obama really has power over the military to be honest.

It ain't wat you gotz it's the wayz how you use it !

Authority as Commander-in-Chief on the battlefield

As Commander-in-Chief, the U.S. President outranks any military officer and so has the inherent right to assume command on the battlefield. It should be noted that only one man has ever been Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces without being President: he was George Washington, appointed Commander in Chief by the Continental Congress. However, because presidents are rarely present in war zones, and often have less military experience than the military commanders, only two presidents, George Washington and James Madison, have so far done so. Washington personally led a federalized militia force of approximately 15,000 troops to quell the Whiskey Rebellion during his second term, although he was not present during any of the skirmishing in the relatively bloodless conflict.

During the War of 1812, President Madison was under enemy fire on August 24, 1814, when American forces were routed by British troops in Bladensburg, Maryland. Madison, incensed by the American commanding general's incompetence, was on the scene and personally assumed command of the only remaining American force, a naval battery commanded by Commodore Joshua Barney. He did so to stall the British invasion of the American capital, but his efforts were unsuccessful, and the British burned Washington over the next two days.

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln considered personally assuming battlefield command of the Union Army, and studied military texts when he became frustrated by the incompetence and lethargy of his generals. He actually came under enemy fire in 1864 during the Confederate attack on Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia, but did not exercise battlefield authority as commander-in-chief at any time.

actually if he wanted to he could lead the troops in either of America's current wars....on the battlefield (or off).

[Mydriasis]

So why didn't he end the war like he said he would? That's half the reason why my friends voted for him in the first place.

[verklingen]

^ i'm not sure but thank your friends next time you see them. with many GOP congressmen calling for military action against iran, we may be facing yet another invasion if not for their votes.

if i remember correctly obama said during the campaign that he would get us out of iraq. i remember him talking about how we needed to focus in afganistan, but that may have been late in the campaign. by election day no one should have voted for obama expecting an abrupt end to our wars.

[stoneric]

Obama, hillary and mccorpse were trying to out hawk each other on Afghanistan so anything he does to contradict that mistake will be a plus. I'll be happy if he lied his ass off during the campaign or if he just comes to his senses. Afghanistan is a bottomless pit.

[Hedons]

Fire his ass?

Why? For being critical of the president?

-Hedons

[ProfessorMurder]

Matthew Rothchild from The Progressive states it clearly


By choosing Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Obama shows how indifferent he is
to the serious allegations that have swirled around McChrystal, a darling of
the Bush-Cheney regime.

It was McChrystal, after all, who approved a medal for Pat Tillman, the
former NFL star, saying he fell under “devastating enemy fire.” But just a day
later, McChrystal warned the White House that it might have been friendly
fire, not enemy fire.

And, according to Seymour Hersh, McChrystal was the guy who was running
Cheney’s assassination squads. From 2003-2008, McChrystal headed the
Joint Special Operations Command, which Hersh called “an executive
assassination wing” that reported directly to Cheney’s office.

What’s more, Esquire has reported that McChrystal authorized torture at a
secret camp, where two detainees died under interrogation, and expressly
prohibited the Red Cross from entering the camp, which would be a double
violation of the Geneva Conventions.

McChrystal’s promotion mocks Obama’s rhetoric about making a clean break
with the torture regime of Bush and Cheney.

http://gsmso.blogspot.com/2009/05/mc...ghanistan.html

[ProfessorMurder]

Not to mention a repeat attack on an Afghan valley base.
Haven't learned the lesson.

The Associated Press: Afghan battle probe a reminder of war's challenges

By RICHARD LARDNER (AP) – 12 hours ago

WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama grapples with the way ahead in
Afghanistan, a decision to launch a new investigation into a deadly firefight is
a painful reminder of the challenges the U.S. faces in a country known as the
graveyard of empires.

Fought in the small village of Wanat near the Pakistan border, the battle
claimed the lives of nine American soldiers and wounded 27 others after their
platoon-sized unit was attacked by as many as 200 insurgents during the
early hours of July 13, 2008. Accounts of the battle indicate senior
commanders may have made serious mistakes, leaving the soldiers short-
handed and without critical support needed to blunt such an intense raid.

On Saturday, just days after Army Gen. David Petraeus ordered the inquiry,
U.S. forces in Afghanistan endured a stark echo of that tragedy: eight U.S.
soldiers were killed when several hundred militant fighters struck two
American outposts in the same rugged region in northeastern Afghanistan
where the earlier assault occurred.

The emerging story of the 2008 battle along with Saturday's attack adds new
weight to calls by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top officer in
Afghanistan, for thousands more American forces to deal with the dicey
political, cultural and geographical conditions there.

The efforts of Brostrom and others gained momentum when a military historian at the
Army Combat Studies Institute in Kansas wrote a detailed account of the battle at
Wanat, based on soldiers who were there, that contradicts many of the service's
conclusions. The 238-page study by Douglas Cubbison, though not yet officially
released, was obtained by The Associated Press and other news organizations.


Cubbison's report details a growing hostility toward the Americans in Wanat and a failure
by higher-level commanders to recognize the tension when they ordered the unit to the
village just a few weeks before the attack.

Concern had been expressed by 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, a platoon leader, about the
number of troops he had and the mountainous terrain surrounding the outpost, Cubbison
was told during the interviews.

The commanders withdrew airborne intelligence-gathering assets from Wanat to another
location one day before the attack despite vehement protests from the unit. The
reasons, according to Cubbison's report, were that "nothing of consequence" had been
detected in Wanat and the equipment was needed elsewhere.

[ProfessorMurder]

NATO Says U.S. Airstrike in Kunduz Killed 30 Civilians - WSJ.com

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN

WASHINGTON -- NATO investigators believe that 30 civilians were killed in a
controversial U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan's Kunduz province, a preliminary finding that
could spark new pressure for disciplinary actions against the German and American
personnel involved in the attack.

A team of military officers led by Canadian Maj. Gen. C.S. Sullivan spent more than a
week probing the Sept. 4 bombing, which took place after a German commander in
Kunduz ordered an airstrike on two hijacked fuel trucks that he feared would be used in
a suicide attack against his troops.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization investigators believe roughly 100 people were killed in
the resulting strike, including approximately 70 militants, according to people familiar
with the matter. A separate Afghan government probe reached roughly the same
conclusions about the militant and civilian death tolls, these people said.

The NATO investigation is trying to determine the precise sequence of events that led
the local German commander, Col. Georg Klein, to order an airstrike rather than sending
ground forces, according to people familiar with its work. The full probe is expected to
be completed within the next two weeks, these people said.

Its findings will then be formally presented to the German and U.S. militaries, which will
decide whether to discipline or bring criminal charges against the personnel involved in
approving and carrying out the strike, these people said.

The investigation comes amid mounting tensions between Washington and Berlin about
the strike, which NATO acknowledged last week had "killed and injured" civilians as well
as insurgents.

The rift threatens to further erode European public support for the war effort, which is
already deeply unpopular in most NATO countries. Germany, France and the U.K.
recently called for an international conference to seek ways of transferring responsibility
for the country's security from NATO to the Afghan government.

Several military officers at the Pentagon and the U.S.-led NATO high command in Kabul
said in recent interviews that the Kunduz attack violated the rules put in place by the
top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to limit the use of
bombs and other heavy weaponry in civilian areas.

Gen. McChrystal's written guidance ordered NATO commanders to use such weaponry
only in cases of imminent danger to their troops. That condition doesn't appear to have
been met in the Kunduz strike, which happened even though no German troops were
taking fire or facing immediate Taliban attack.

German officials have rejected foreign criticism. In an address to parliament last week,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered regret for any potential civilian fatalities
but warned against jumping to conclusions about German culpability.

Ipso Facto, fire him.
He's going to have to take one for Germany.

[ProfessorMurder]

A D.C. whodunit: Who leaked and why? | Reuters

POLITICO (Washington) - Bob Woodward's Monday-morning exclusive on a 66-
page report from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to President Barack Obama about
Afghanistan policy was a rite of passage for the new administration: the first
major national security leak and a sure sign that the celebrated Washington
Post reporter has penetrated yet another administration.


So who did it?

The simplest theory — and one most administration officials Monday were
endorsing — is that a military or civilian Pentagon official who supports
McChrystal's policy put it out in an attempt to pressure Obama to follow
McChrystal's suggestion and increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

But not everyone in Washington is a believer in Occam's razor, so all manner
of other theories flourished.

There are believers in the reverse leak, in which the leak itself is meant to
damage McChrystal's position by inducing White House anger at the general.
There's the fake leak, in which the White House may have been trying to
back itself into a corner.


In the larger sense, the document's contents are completely unsurprising —
McChrystal's views were widely known, and the assessment just spells them
out. But giving the document to a brand name like Bob Woodward, who has a
flair for the dramatic, ensures big play in The Washington Post and broad
pickup by other media.

"This leak would, by all appearances, be the act of someone who supports an
increase in troop strength and resources," said Kevin Kellems, a
communications director for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who noted
that "the power of Woodward going on page A1 is exceptional" in its ability to
dictate to wire services and cable outlets, a vanishing power of the
newspapers. "This is the act most likely of a civilian who is an advocate of
this position and believes they were right to do this because lives were at stake."

[stoneric]

Fire his ass?

Why? For being critical of the president?

-Hedons

He lives under the UCMJ. Better check the chain of command.

[Terry]

Fire him for misunderstanding the concept of chain of command, but even more importantly end this goddamn war.

[SpankyMcLankey]

Some people believe the military was behind JFK's assassination.

I don't care WHO was behind that shit, that shot was fucking INCREDIBLE.

[Mydriasis]

I guess it was voted against that mccrystal could talk to the congress, that's fucking stupid. I don't support the war, but shit freedom of speech ya know what I mean?

Sometimes I just wanna hop the fucking border and live in Canada.

[stoneric]

I guess it was voted against that mccrystal could talk to the congress, that's fucking stupid. I don't support the war, but shit freedom of speech ya know what I mean?

Sometimes I just wanna hop the fucking border and live in Canada.

What does freedom of speech have to do with anything? The general follows orders from the commander in chief. Do you understand the chain of command? The general should. We don't need the fucking pentegon running foreign policy.

[Terry]

No such thing as free speech for a soldier

[stoneric]

Like I said earlier, he lives under the UCMJ. Lucky he's not in the stockade but that's reservered for peons just like in the real world.