I woke up this morning to a war story that read like the classic dispute between President Truman and an insubordinate General MacArthur during the Korean War or between President Lincoln and an insubordinate General McClellan during the Civil War. But, remarkably enough, this one was between President Obama and his top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.
In short, McChrystal (and his staff) went off, not only on Obama but also on many key members of his military and foreign policy teams. Here are some of the excerpts from today’s Agence France Presse report on a profile of the general in this week’s edition of Rolling Stone magazine that must surely constitute just cause to fire him:
McChrystal jokes sarcastically about preparing to answer a question referring to Vice President Joe Biden, known as a skeptic of the commander’s war strategy: “‘Are you asking about Vice President Biden?’ McChrystal says with a laugh. ‘Who’s that?'” the article quotes him saying. “‘Biden?’ suggests a top adviser. ‘Did you say: Bite Me?'”…
McChrystal says that he felt “betrayed” by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in a White House debate over war strategy last year, saying “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.'” Eikenberry, himself a former commander in Afghanistan, had written to the White House saying Afghan President Hamid Karzai was an unreliable partner and that a surge of troops could draw the United States into a open-ended quagmire.
Referring to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one McChrystal aide is quoted saying: “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous.” McChrystal also derides the hard-charging top US envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, saying “Oh, not another email from Holbrooke,” looking at his messages on a mobile phone. “I don’t even want to open it.”
And worst of all:
Although Obama in the end granted most of what McChrystal asked for, he says the strategy review was a difficult time, saying “I found that time painful… I was selling an unsellable position.” The magazine notes that an unnamed adviser to McChrystal alleges the general came away unimpressed after a meeting with Obama in the Oval Office a year ago: “It was a 10-minute photo op. Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”
This isn’t just insubordinate; it’s downright contemptuous. In fact, McChrystal is cultivating a fraternity with the soldiers under his command that makes a mockery of the hallowed tradition of civilian command and control of the military. Not surprisingly, he issued the following apology yesterday in a desperate bid to save his job:
I extend my sincerest apology for this profile… It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never happened… I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team.
But this is an easy call. Not least because the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits any military personnel from demeaning the commander in chief. Accordingly, Obama should emulate the way President Truman dealt with MacArthur by firing McChrystal before he has any chance to resign. Period.
The bigger story, of course, is what this exposes of the shambles that has become of McChrystal’s much-vaunted new strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan. But I warned Obama it would be thus. Here are some excerpts from my December 2, 2009 commentary entitled, Obama escalates war in Afghanistan: the die is cast on his presidency, which presaged this calamity:
These wars have converted multitudes of peaceful Muslims into Jihadists who welcome the opportunity to sacrifice their lives in bin Laden’s holy war. Moreover, these Jihadists have demonstrated that they are as committed to (and capable of) killing Americans (in Iraq and Afghanistan) as President Bush is committed to (and capable of) “routing them out … one by one.” And it doesn’t take a genius in military war strategy to figure out who will win this war [especially on their turf].
(Please spare us the al-Qaeda obituaries, The iPINIONS Journal, December 2005)
Not so long ago, some of us considered the war in Afghanistan as much an unqualified success as we deemed the war in Iraq an unmitigated failure. But a new crop of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are beginning to surpass die-hard insurgents in Iraq in their ability to undermine US efforts to “stand up” a democratic Afghan government… Alas, victory in Afghanistan may prove another casualty of the war in Iraq.
(Meanwhile over in Afghanistan: snatching defeat from the hands of victory, The iPINIONS Journal, September 18, 2006)
Nothing is more responsible for the bedeviling success of the insurgents in Iraq (and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan) than Bush’s refusal to deploy enough soldiers to win these wars. And this despite pleadings by his most respected military advisers, including his Secretary of State Gen Colin Powell and Army Chief of Staff Gen Eric Shinseki, for Bush to deploy 4 to 5 times the number of troops he finally ordered into battle.
(Support the Draft to prevent stupid wars, The iPINIONS Journal, March 17, 2007)
The Washington Post made a mockery of President Obama’s correspondence with his military commander in Afghanistan when it published an “urgent, confidential assessment of the war” by Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal within hours after Obama indicated that he has yet to even receive it. [Given his cozy relationship with Rolling Stone, who do you think leaked it?]…
The irony is not lost on me that McCrystal’s grim assessment makes it woefully clear that nation building in Afghanistan (even under the guise of a “counterinsurgency strategy”) is no longer advisable or feasible. Indeed, all indications are that the die has been cast for this “good war.”
Accordingly, the US legacy there will be distinguished either by a terminally wounded national pride as American forces beat a hasty retreat in defeat (following the Russian precedent in Afghanistan), or by tens of thousands of American soldiers being lost in Afghanistan’s “graveyard of empires” as they continue fighting this unwinnable war (following America’s own precedent in Vietnam) … [And more troops only mean more sitting ducks for Taliban fighters.]
Not to mention the prevailing fallacy that America must wage war in Afghanistan because it (still) constitutes the central front in the war against al Qaeda. After all, for the past six years the Bush administration prosecuted the war in Iraq as if it was the central front in this war.
Moreover, there’s no denying that the last vestiges of al Qaeda are now so splintered that they are just as likely to be found in Pakistan, Somalia or, indeed, in the United States, which makes the strategy for taking them on in Afghanistan patently misguided.
Therefore, Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and run ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to “disrupt and dismantle” Taliban and al Qaeda operations there.
(‘Without (or even with) more forces, failure in Afghanistan is likely’, The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2009)
[E]veryone from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Sen Kerry himself has insisted that Obama will not send over any more troops until the Afghan government gets rid of corruption.
And since the corruption UN officials uncovered at the presidential level is in fact endemic throughout the entire government, nobody believes there will be any change in this respect even if the next president could channel honest Abe Lincoln.
Accordingly, I urge Obama to stop his Hamletian dithering on this issue. In particular, he should ignore the (conservative) chicken hawks who are egging him on to surge troops in Afghanistan to follow the precedent President Bush set in Iraq.
Because the only instructive precedent here is the one President Johnson set in Vietnam, which should warn Obama not to allow a military quagmire to doom his presidency the way a similar quagmire doomed Johnson’s.
(Karzai submits to runoff election, The iPINIONS Journal, October 21, 2009)
Unfortunately, this means that troops are bound to be returning home in body bags throughout his entire presidency. Because, frankly, given the military quagmire Afghanistan has become, sending 20 (or even 40) thousand additional troops amounts to the proverbial tossing of a 50-foot life line to a man drowning 100 feet away
(Picture of Obama saluting war dead the defining image of his presidency? The iPINIONS Journal, October 30, 2009)
Frankly, it is an instructive metaphor for the way Obama’s war in Afghanistan is going that McChrystal has turned out to be another MacArthur instead of another Patton or Eisenhower – as was so devoutly hoped. And with reports today about the Karzai government being in complete disarray, the war strategy not going as planned, and, even worse, U.S. casualties escalating at an alarming rate, I feel obliged to say to McChrystal on behalf of Eikenberry, I told you so … and you’re fired!
Accordingly, I repeat my admonition for Obama to declare victory and begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the killing fields of Afghanistan … now!
Related commentaries:
Obama escalates war…
Failure in Afghanistan is likely
Secret Pentagon Report…
* This commentary was published originally on Tuesday, June 22 at 8:54 am
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