The McChrystal Affair - The Rest of the Story
IF you only read ONE part of this email .....plz read paragraph 12 below (highlighted). The greatest insult to our troops by our "Commander in Chief"
......what a crock......!
The General and the Community Organizer
by Paul R. Hollrah
Channel-surfing from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN through MSNBC and Fox
News, the inside-the-beltway pundits had a field day trying to get inside
the heads of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, General Stanley McChrystal, and
McChrystal's top aides. The one thing common to all of the analyses, by the
most famous and highly-paid talking heads in the Western World, was that
they are all wrong. dead wrong. What is certain is that they all owe General
McChrystal and his senior aides an apology for assuming that they are
lame-brained numbskulls.
The facts of the McChrystal case are not in dispute. General
McChrystal and his senior officers allowed a reporter for Rolling Stone
Magazine, Michael Hastings, to have almost unprecedented access during an
extended stay in Paris. The extended stay was due, in part, to an excess of
atmospheric ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, keeping the
McChrystal party grounded for days. Hastings subsequently published a
lengthy profile of General McChrystal on June 22, titled, The Runaway
General.
In an interview with CNN, Hastings reported that he had a tape
recorder in his hand most of the time and that McChrystal was "very aware"
that his comments would find their way into print. He said, "McChrystal and
his people set no ground rules for their conversations, although they did
ask that some parts of their conversations were off the record."
As Hastings wrote in his profile, McChrystal thought that Obama
looked"uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass
during their first meeting. Of their second meeting, an advisor to
McChrystal quoted the general as saying that it was "a 10-minute photo op."
He went on to say, "Obama clearly didn't know anything about (McChrystal),
who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f_ _ _ing war, but he
didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."
As General McChrystal flew from Afghanistan to Washington to face
Obama in the Oval Office, the almost unanimous opinion of the talking heads
was that the comments made by McChrystal and his staff were off the cuff and
inadvertent. But to believe that is to totally ignore who these men are.
General McChrystal and his top officers are not simple-minded,
knuckle-dragging brutes. To the contrary, they are intelligent, thoughtful,
highly educated, patriots. graduates of West Point and other fine
universities. who are dedicated to duty, honor, and country. To think that
such men would be so careless as to speak unflatteringly of Obama, Biden,
and other top administration figures, in the presence of a reporter for a
notoriously left wing publication, defies logic. at the very least. To think
that men who are trained to be careful and deliberate in everything they do,
could do something so careless and so unguarded is simply beyond
comprehension.
I would argue that McChrystal and his aides knew exactly what they
were doing.
From the day that he became the handpicked "spear carrier" for Obama's
unique brand of warfare. playing at being Commander in Chief while playing
to his far left constituency. McChrystal's life had been one of constant
frustration. After telling Obama exactly how many troops he needed to carry
out his mission, Obama dithered for months before deciding to give him just
half the troops he requested. McChrystal could not have been happy about
that.
The Obama team insisted on new Rules of Engage
Get a load of this next crock.......
" But the greatest insult to our troops in the field, and to the
officers who lead them, may be a new battlefield medal designed by the Obama
team. It is called the Courageous Restraint Medal and is awarded to soldiers
and Marines who demonstrate uncommon restrain in combat by not firing their
weapons even when they feel threatened by the enemy. Should we be surprised
to learn that the preponderance these medals were awarded posthumously?
McChrystal must have found that to be an insanity. (Italics mine/jcm) "
I suggest that, having his best military judgments subjected to the
White House political sieve for nearly a year and a half, McChrystal decided
that he'd had enough. And when he announced to his senior staff that he was
prepared to retire they decided to push back. to make the most of a bad
situation. It was clear that, if McChrystal were to simply take off his
uniform and walk away, his retirement would be page-twenty news for a day or
two before the mainstream media and the American people forgot all about
him.
They had to make the most of his retirement because it provided a
one-time opportunity to show the American people, as well as our enemies and
our allies, that the man who claims the title of Commander in Chief of the
U.S. military does not command the respect of our men and women in uniform.
To make the most of that opportunity they had to choose their messenger very
carefully.
They knew that, by openly showing their disrespect for Obama in front
of just any newsman, they may not attract the attention they desired. Like
any astute observer of the MSM, they knew that most reporters would turn on
their own mothers if it meant a good story. But they could not take a chance
that a mainstream media reporter might suffer a rare pang of conscience when
confronted with the prospect of ruining the careers of some of the most
senior officers in the War on Terror. They had to fix the odds as much as
possible in their favor so they chose to use Michael Hastings and Rolling
Stone Magazine.
During the long hours that General McChrystal was in the air between
Kabul and Washington, Obama knew that he had just two choices. both bad. He
could declare McChrystal to be an irreplaceable asset in the war effort,
give him a public reprimand, and send him back to Kabul. Or he could fire
McChrystal, sending a clear message that, at least in his own mind, he was
the Commander in Chief.
In the former case, he was certain to appear weak and ineffectual. a
man not totally in charge. In the latter case, he might at least win a few
rave reviews from the Kool-Ade drinkers in the mainstream media. He chose
the latter of the two options.
But what is now lost in all of the hand-wringing and speculation is
the fact that McChrystal and his people have succeeded in doing exactly what
they set out to do. They wanted to plant the seed in the minds of the
American people that Obama is not up to the task of being Commander in Chief
and that he does not command the respect of the men and women of the
uniformed services. from the newest Private E-1 up to the top four-star
generals and admirals.
That seed is now firmly planted and it cannot be unplanted.
From this day forward, no one will have to tell the American people
that Stanley McChrystal is a true warrior, a man's man, and that Barack
Obama is nothing more than a community organizer.