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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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.
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.
Afghanistan - "the graveyard of empires".
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?
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.
and Bush's
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.)
and you wrong then.
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.
i think general mcchrystal has americans and american interests on his mind:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/08/general-mcchrystal-troops-afghanistan
consider the four star general's statement an urgent call for americans to reconsider political and military priorities
osama bin laden remains at large