Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Obama and General McChrystal: The Wimp-in-Chief (a Rolling Stone Gathers Generals, as Media Shows how BAD It Is)--posted 6/23 on Newsvine

The headline refers, of course, to the statements of General McChrystal (and staff), in that Rolling Stone Magazine interview, as I heard it reported by CNN as I waited in the New York airport (LGA). There are two issues here--basically independent of one another no matter how much a corrupt mainstream media would like to link them.


The first issue is whether General McChrystal is basically RIGHT in his characterization of teh Obama Administration, whether or not he was wrong in the way he did it (as he, mimself, correctly recognized in his apology). The answer here is clear: General McChrystal was right.


Oh, he did engage in some over-the-top hyperbole (which McChrystal fully realized he was using for dramatic effect, to emphasize his frustration--and especially the frustration of officers under him, who evidently blew off steam as younger officers are wont to do when placed in a candid situation). Is the Obama Administration really the "main enemy" in Afghanistan for McChrystal? That statement is factually not correct, and you have to take it as meaning the Obama Administration is the most FRUSTRATING and unanticipated enemy of what McChrystal is trying to accomplish. To take this statement literally is to deliberately misconstrue what McChrystal was trying to say. It is no more plausible--and no less plausible--that President Obama WANTS the Taliban to defeat us in Afghanistan than that President Bush deliberately helped arrange for 9/11 to happen (a position toward which much of the left and mainstream media was surprisingly sympathetic, even while recognizing it was not true, because the WHOLE left, and the whole mainstream media, thought that badly of President Bush). Now I think many leftist Democrats put themselves in a position of WANTING our defeat in Iraq, but it is absurd to suggest that a President of the United States is aiming for our defeat in ANY war (or that any President has arranged for our enemies to kill some 3,000 of our citizens, in the case of President Bush). That is just not possible, but that does not mean that the Obama Administration has not done way too much to help our enemies.


From the very beginning, and to this very day, President Obama has continually APOLOGIZED for this country. He went over to the Middle East and did so. He did so in Europe. He basically nodded in agreement as Hugo Chavez trashed this country--or at least Obama expressed little strong disagreement. Ditto with President Ortega of Nicaragua. Obama expressed little support--and that only belatedly--for the people protesting the repressive IRAN regime, and has done basically nothing to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons (not that Bush did much better, but Bush at least SCARED some of our enemies to the point they were nervous about how far to go with him).


President Obama ENCOURAGED the President of Mexico to trash Arizona, and really this country, when Mexico is a FAILED country. While I was on vacation, a mayor of a Mexican town (Guadalupe) was killed in Juarez--where murder is rampant to the tune of 2500 plus per year (Juarez being across the river from El Paso, and no more than five miles from where I am typing this). Yet, Obama chose to apologize for an Arizona law that--rather weakly and tamely--merely tried to HELP the Federal Government stop the spread of Mexican violence to this country. Only a wimp like Obama--who also does not really like much of this contry--could believe that the real problem here--in the face of wholesale murder along the border--is POTENTIAL "discrimination" enabled by Arizona's attempt to really deal with the horrible situation. Obama's envoy even apologized to RED CHINA for OUR human rights "viola tons" represented by the Arizona law that has not yet caused ANY "civil rights" violations, and prohibits such violations on its face. Even CNN (NYC airport again) is recognizing that there is a WAR for the future of Mexico going on, and that the drug cartels appear to be WINNING. Even CNN recognizes, when it is not doing straight leftist propaganda, that it is INEVITABLE that the Mexican problem will spread to this country unless we take STRONG action (although CNN refuses to actually connect the danger with the need for ACTION to secure the Mexican border--action such as the Arizona law, but preferably by the Federal Government).


What of Afghanistan? Well, Obama simply refuses to directly criticize Islamic extremism. He took FOREVER to actually decide on the number of extra toops requested by McChrystal in Afghanistan, and ARBITRARILY (who is Obama to decide this number?) CTU the number requested by McChrystal. Then Obama set a withdrawal DEADLINE at the same time as increasing the troops--one of the worst decisions ever made in a war. It is as if Lincoln told his generals they HAD to win by 1854, or the Union would withdraw from the South. You just can't be this much of a wimp: CUT the number of troops just to politically show you are not doing everything the generals want, and TELL the enemy that all they have to do is outlast us (whether you mean that or not).


Nope. In the general outlines of what he said, General McChrystal was dead on right. The Obama Administration has UNDERMINED this country--not only in Afghanistan, but around the world. This does make it MUCH harder for McChrystal in a military sense, but it is even more disastrous in encouraging our enemies everywhere.


The second issue is, as stated, basically unrelated to the first issue. That is the question of whether McChrystal did this thhe right way. He did not. Yes, he DID have an obligation to bring this to the attention of the American people. And if the President were Bush, the media would be saying that.


However, the right way to do this is to RESIGN at the same time you make your point. John Kerry came back from Vietnam and not only criticized our effort there, but criticized our SOLDIERS (their actions) as well. Kerry, I believe, was out of the military by then, but many in government (and even the military) criticized their "boss" (the President) as to both Vietnam and Iraq (to media acclaim). They did not always resign. Is it too much to expect for a military officer to QUIT, rather than stay and fight (even though he is fighting his "boss"? Maybe so. General MacArthur was one of the greatest generals who ever lived (including the Inchon landing that saved us in Korea), but he took on President Truman and lost. General McClellan took on Lincoln and lost. The President is the Commander-in-Chief, and he has the ultimate power.


Whether it is too much to expect of human beings or not, the correct thing to do when you can't live with your boss (especially in a military setting) is to resign, and THEN go public. Otherwise, you are breaching military discipline and setting entirely the wrong precedent (for those under YOU and ever other commander). A good military allows dissenting opinions to be heard INTERNALLY, but military personnel have no business making public fights over those decisions that are made--including with the President. It will continue to happen--sometimes with media approval when it fits their agenda--but it really can't be defended.


So McChrystal was wrong. But that does not make Obama right. McChrystal COULD have resigned and made exactly the same criticism he did--in perfect honor. In fact, I would say that is what he SHOULD have done. Thus, the criticisms are not discredited just because McChrystal was human enough not to want to leave his command (where he might justly believe he is the best leader his men have available, arrogant as that may seem). Sure, it marginally hurts the credibility of McCrhrystal to make his criticism through this kind of interview, but that is really a very minor thing in terms of whether the criticisms are correct. The people DO have a right to know when a commander thinks this way. And the commander CAN--with total honor--make his cirticriticisms There is nothing that says we should ignore what McChrystal said just because he did not choose the correct way to say it. We DO have freedom of speech in this country, even if you cannot STAY in a position in the military and fully exercise that right.


In short, McChrystal was right on substance, and wrong on method. He probably should go--should have gone by his own choice. But that does not change that Obama is, and has been, WRONG in the way he has presented this country to the world, and the way he has emphasized "rights" of our enemies over the rights of this country. Miranda rights for terrorists captured IN AFGHANISTAN is another example, as are the infamous "Rules of Engagement" which put the lives of our soldiers at risk.


Nope. I am not saying we should engage in unrestrained war--unrestrained by any morality. But there has bo be a better balance here than that of the Obama Administration.


P.S. Contrast the way General McChrystal appears to be actually "taking responsibility" for this to the SMARMY, Uriah Heep way President Obama has "taken responsibility" for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. There is a vast difference between SAYING "the buck stops here", and MEANING it. The general appears to mean it, while Obama does not. And there is a BIG problem here. Do you believe in "transparency"? Do you believe the media should really have access to the CANDID assessments of military people? Nope. Obama does NOT believe in the first, and the mainstream media is making sure that people realize the second does not happen. Yes, today's mainstream media is INCOMPETENT (as well as corrupt). When military people were criticizing President Bush and Rumsfeld on things like armor for the troops, there was no talk about "undermining" the President. But the problem here--which tends to undercut both my criticism of the General and that of others, is that General McChrystal does not appear to have set out to "undermine" the President. He and his men just got too candid, and their WORST comments were blown out of proportioin. The Rolling Stone people and the military people were evidently thrown together for a considerable length of time, and basically got into a "bull session" with the reporter (or reporters). Contrary to the mainstream media assertion that everything was "on the record", that misses the real issue entirely. The real problem with the media and this story is the way the worst comments, surely not meant literally, were SENSATIONALIZED as more important and seriously meant than they were. If the media is going to do that, WHY should anyone talk to the mainstream media in any kind of candid way. Can the media really mean that you can MANIPULATE the media by saying "off the record", but that otherwise you can expect the media to be UNFAIR to you in the way it reports? Yep. That is EXACTLY the way the modern mainstream media operates, and it is an EVIL thing. It allows people to attack others behind a mask of anonymity, while the sanctimonious mainstream media jumps on people who actually talk "on the record" in a candid way. This means that NO ONE should talk to the media "candidly"--"on the record"--unless you are deceiving them. In reality, General McChrystal is less culpable that I suggest above, because he did NOT "hide" behind being an "anonymous source" or set out to undermine the President. He, and ihs people, merely made the mistake of believing they could talk honestly to reporters without it coming back to bite them. Yes, it is hard to believe they would make that mistake, but it appears to have happened.


P.P.S. This was written before the fate of Geneal McChrystal was known. By the time you read this, that fate may be known. I think it is valuable to look at the situation before that "spin" begins.

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