Yale University says it has hired retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal to teach a graduate level seminar on its New Haven, Conn., campus. -- The New York Times
At ease, ladies and gentlemen. You may think it's odd that I was picked to teach a course on leadership. After all, I was infamously relieved of my command in Afghanistan and forced into early retirement after some unflattering remarks my staff and I made about President Barack Obama and his administration were published in Rolling Stone.
But I am merely attacking from a different direction -- as that great military strategist Sarah Palin once said. It's like that old Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" (episode 33, original air date 10/6/67) where Spock has a goatee. The only way you can move up in rank is by assassinating your commanding officer. Of course, we don't use anything as primitive as phasers -- we use the media to kill our targets.
Now you may think I missed -- Obama is still president, and I'm an ex-four-star general. But I'm playing an elaborate game of tri-dimensional chess. And, like a Ferengi Grandmaster, I'm thinking three moves ahead -- and have three extra pawns up my epauletted sleeve.
Everyone in the Pentagon knows that Afghanistan is unwinnable, although nobody will admit it publicly. The U.S. is propping up a corrupt local government against a determined insurgency -- sound familiar? No, not Vietnam -- "A Private Little War" (episode 48, original air date 2/2/68) and "The Omega Glory" (episode 52, original air date 3/1/68).
Sooner or later the U.S. will be forced to withdraw in disgrace, the Taliban will overthrow Karzai, and Obama will get the blame for "losing" Afghanistan. Never mind that Bush bobbled the ball -- the war's been going on so long nobody remembers how it began except maybe the Time Guardian from "The City on the Edge of Forever" (episode 28, original air date 4/6/67).
Meanwhile, I will be safely ensconced in academia, polishing my medals and burnishing my military record. I will advance the narrative that I could have won in Afghanistan -- if only the bureaucrats, politicians, and jihadist-lovers hadn't tied my hands. Hey, it almost worked for Pat Tillman, didn't it?
Obama will do an LBJ and decline to run again. I will team up with whomever the Republican frontrunner is -- say, the aforementioned Grizzly Mama. Although she resembles a mugato from the aforementioned "A Private Little War" more than a grizzly. The bite of the mugato is poisonous and only curable by a beautiful female shaman -- a shawoman? A shamaness? A person of sha? -- laying hands on the body politic.
Speaking of poisonous bites, we'll make short work of Joe Bite Me in the general election. Then, once sworn in, I'll negotiate "peace with honor" with the Taliban -- no public stonings in return for ignoring getting stoned on the heroin trade, that sort of thing. As Spock said to Kirk in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) "only Nixon could go to China."
Then I'm sitting pretty. I'm chief military adviser to the Idiot-in-Chief, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. And accidents happen -- especially to idiots. Remember Dubya almost choked to death on a pretzel. Maybe Palin could "fall" out of a helicopter while hunting wolves. Worse comes to worse, I could always use my Tantalus Field (look it up).
Check and mate. Obama may be the Spock of this dimension, but he's no match for the evil Spock from the Mirror universe. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go work on my goatee. As Ricardo Montalban said in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), "revenge is a dish best served cold."