Gen. McChrystal Is No MacArthur
A half century ago President Harry Truman tamed a rebellious -- and hugely popular -- Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to dramatically expand the war in Korea by attacking China.
President Obama faces a similar challenge today from his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who wants to send tens of thousands more American troops to this war.
Like MacArthur in 1951, McChrystal was not shy about airing his dissent from the White House, giving a London speech saying that one of the strategies under consideration by the president -- to concentrate on wiping out terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than trying to wage an endless counterinsurgency war -- would lead to "Chaos-istan."
When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."
Obama won the first round last week when he summoned McChrystal to a tense showdown aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Denmark.
But the battle between the general and his commander in chief is far from over.
McChrystal is in for a rude awakening, however, if he thinks he's a latter-day MacArthur, with a vast conservative following ready to rally to his side.
For starters, Afghanistan is not China, which had long and deep commercial, cultural, religious, political and military ties with millions of Americans before its communist revolution triumphed in 1950.
And it hardly needs saying that Afghanistan's "loss" to the Taliban has nothing near the strategic ramifications for the United States that the communist revolution in China had.
When MacArthur publicly rebuked Truman for refusing to pursue Chinese troops across the Yalu River, moreover, America was already in the grip of a national paranoia about communist agents in the U.S. government, media, and Hollywood.
It's impossible to imagine a present-day Joe McCarthy whipping up fears of al Qaeda or the Taliban having secret sympathizers in the State Department.
No, President Obama will find it far easier to dump Gen. McChrystal than Truman did MacArthur if he keeps speaking out.
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General McChrystal is considered to be our most successful tactician in the war on terror and our most battle hardened general to date. Remember, we have been at war for 8 years, and McChrystal has been in the trenches for every minute of this fight.
On 60 minutes McChrystal was asked about the nice little park where all the military officers came to relax and have tea. The good General said he didn't like the park and would rather turn it into a pistol range. That is the kind of guy he is. He is out of place in front of reporters and is likely to do what he always does: tell the truth no matter how hard the truth is to take. McChrystal is a soldier's soldier. He would never run for any kind of political office. If we want to win this fight, we will need more soldiers on the ground. That is the hard truth.
I have read a lot of military history. I have never heard a general say he wanted less troops. All generals want more troops. The question is are we at war with the Taliban? If so, lets get the Paks on board, as I think they are after this latest mass murder, and squeeze these murderers out of their rat holes with a military offensive from both sides of the border. Don't put in 40,000 troops. Put in every division we have and get this thing over with.
President Obama would look politikally foolish firing his own hand picked general.
I think the General is doing Obama a favour by speaking out
instead of being squelched like General Shinsheki was
and he was right about Iraq
and what was needed to do the job there.
Stan McChrystal ain't going anywhere and that's that.
Secretary Gates told everybody to keep their pieholes shut
and I think all this chatty chat ain't going to change a thing.
President Obama won't look at all foolish for firing an insubordinate general officer in the field. However, President Obama would look weak to us and within the military ranks if he allows such insubordination to continue unpunished.
We don't even begin to understand the country we invaded and have stayed in for over 8 years. Until someone can intelligently tell me why Pashtuns oppose the Uzbeks, and so on and so on, there will be no progress in this quagmire.
Afghanistan - "the graveyard of empires".
I find it amazing that so-called "progressives" are actually objecting to open communications with people. Just amazing...
All of a sudden, the traditionalism that I noted in the primaries is, yet again, rearing its head. Oh, so now nobody should dispute the president?
In fact, he did not. He spoke to the strategy that Obama had in place. Obama forgot to mention he was rethinking that strategy. Of course, notifying his general might have been smart.
But hey, he had other fish to fry, right?
MacArthur didn't just publicly go against Truman, he actually undertook various actions to try and force a policy change at the presidential level, something that was way out of even his paygrade. Not that Mac ever acknowledged that he had a paygrade.
But even so, McChrystal is getting very close to what Singlaub got relieved for when he got booted out of his command in South Korea, and his career hasn't exactly been without controversy in the first place.
The question to ask is, 'what did he think he was trying to do by saying it publicly?'
And the answer is: nothing particularly good.
The thing is, he's probably right about the need for 50K more troops in Afghanistan, but he's also polarized the debate to a large degree now. The biggest problem I have with all this dialogue is that no one is considering that we might be more effective in fighting terrorist groups if we pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than stay. I think we are exacerbating the problem, in the long term, with our presence, and certainly with our continued support of Hamid Kharzai.
I recall 1977 when General John Singlaub was replaced after he criticized a presidential decision. There are similarities. Of course, and rather unusually for most generals, Singlaub had a Silver Star and a Purple Heart..
It is time that McChrystal and the other bush appointees in the government were replaced with competent people.
May I remind you Stan McChrytal was Obama's handpicked General,
and Bush's
So what? General officers serve ONLY at the pleasure of any sitting POTUS. President Obama hired General McChyrstal. However, within his wisdom feels that McChrystal is either insubordinate towards the Command-in-Chief, the chain-of-command or is tactically ineffective or incompetent, the POTUS can certainly fire him.
Keep your mouth SHUT in public. Period. Unless you're in front of Congress. What's so hard for the General to understand about that?
No one told him to go on 60 Minutes. Certainly no one told him to go to London, give such a dumb speech and such inflammatory answers. Petraeus appeared the day before McChrystal. Somehow HE managed to not say something incredibly stupid.
Arguing that a general has the right to give candid advice and carry out the mission as a warrior does not excuse insubordination. Dwight Eisenhower gave Roosevelt and Truman his honest advice, disagreed with Marshall and asked for what he needed. Yet no one is comparing him to MacArthur for good reason.
There's a line. So far, only McChrystal has managed to step over it. Not Petraeus at CENTCOM, not Ray Odierno in Iraq.
Again ONLY McChrystal has stepped over that line. So one has to ask again, HOW is this not McChrystal's fault?
This is the same pattern we always get with McChrystal, screw up royally, break the rules, then try to dodge taking responsiblity. Pat Tillman, his torture squads in Iraq, t the IDIOTIC new rules of engagement he personally put in place and the constant 90-page long memos he keeps issuing to the troops and the NY Times detailing his new COIN tactics every month (BTW genius, the enemy reads those too when you pass them out like candy.)
I think you misunderstand the limitations of what general can say. I don't see anything insubordinate.
What is the story with the general and Tillman? Does anybody know? What is the general's background, he seems to think he runs the show. He''ll have a rude awakening, somebody needs to tell him he has a Commander in Chief.
it's also important to mention that MacArthur was known as the liberator of the Pacific who also brought Japan to democracy. I never even heard of this McCrackin' guy.
I think military increase in Afghanistan will end up with irreversible tragedy.
that's what you thought about the surge in iraq
and you wrong then.
Afghanistan is a very poor, backward country. But one thing they are incredibly good at is driving foreign invaders and occupiers out, especially if they are infidels. And those, if any, who do not see us as foreign occupiers yet, will do so if we send in more troops.
Trying to win this war using the strategy of winning the hearts and minds of a people who view us as foreign invaders and occupiers who need to be driven out is a fool's errand.
We need to remember why initially we were very successful in Afghanistan in beating the Taliban. It was because we did not do any of the fighting on the ground. There were many Afghanis who wanted the Taliban out and what we did is that we gave them weapons, money, and air support, but the Afghanis did the fighting.
We need to go back to this approach. We need to identify Afghanis who are opposed to the Taliban, even if they are unsavory warlords and drug dealers and give them the weapons, money and air support they need to fight the Taliban.
there's more to this story
i think general mcchrystal has americans and american interests on his mind:
http://www
consider the four star general's statement an urgent call for americans to reconsider political and military priorities
osama bin laden remains at large
It is insubordination for a military commander to try to do an end run around the chain of command. If he does it again, he should be fired and demoted.
this was not insubordination.
what happened to rome?
The good General is not to be trusted ;there is lot to be said about him going to Englang to make his requset known before he talked to the President or Gates for that matter. This was a deliberate act, the question is why ? miltary General at McChrystal level don't make these kind of mistake.Th
If Obama fires McChrystal
Not likely. The Gen is no politician. But it is just possible the pubes are so thickheaded they would bring him aboard. Results will be similar to Lincoln-McClellan, 1864.
No way he could beat Sarah Palin in the Republican primary.
Itf thats all they got
Good...let him run so he can lose. Military general officers, the dozen already known in American political history (Grant, Zach Taylor, Eisenhower, etc.), were not well known to be very effective Presidents.
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