One "Oh, sh*t!", negates a thousand "attaboys".

[CorbinKale]

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. What a stupid way to end a career.

President Obama reacted angrily to derogatory comments Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal made about administration officials involved in Afghan policy and has not ruled out firing him, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...200813_pf.html

[Damaris]

General McChrystal has officially been replaced by Petraeus (sp?). Having only watched news reports on the subject, and basing these next views on them, I think Obama and his administration completely overreacted. Most of the "derogatory comments" came from staff under the general, as I understand it, and were not so much derogatory as, well, honest opinions. I know almost nothing about this Petraeus, but if a few slightly inappropriate comments are Obama's worst complaint about General McChrystal, I think the President is foolish to replace him.

[PatInTheHat]

One?
I was done with him as far as having any kind of integrity, much less being a believable authority figure, after the Pat Tillman propaganda/lies, cover-up/fiasco, and that was what, two or three oh *%@#s ago...I kinda figured he was 'bout due.
Can't hardly wait for his book and subsequent radio and/or cable show, or whatever his peoples come up with.
Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it will be not only will be grand, but will befit his status.
Status as a great military counter insurgent expert, or as a questionable human being, it doesn't really matter to me, I leave that to much more important, and way more knowledgeable about this guy, folks, than me.
See I blow straight into the Tillman family's, and that of any family, that possibly have had sons or daughters injured or killed because of the higher enlistments benefit the military got from the high emotions stirred up with their lies about Pat Tillman's death, direction on this dude.

[CorbinKale]

I don't know why the General would do what he did, unless he wanted out. That is the only explaination I can come up with.

As for President Obama, he absolutely did the right thing by accepting the resignation. In fact, he would have been right to fire the General, had he not resigned. Breaks in the command structure like that CAN'T be tolerated, or the whole organization falls apart. With Petreus stepping in, operations should continue with little interruption.

The General has every right to his own opinion, as do his staff officers. However, in that position of trust and power, you keep those opinions quiet and do your job. Indeed, if you can't be quiet the job becomes impossible, and the General damned well knew it.

[PatInTheHat]

I don't know why the General would do what he did, unless he wanted out. That is the only explaination I can come up with.

That's what I keep coming up with when I bounce it around, but since I can't do more than wildly speculate on motive, it's going to be interesting to see where, and maybe especially when, he bounces back...ya just gotta know he will at least try right?

[mojomofo]

General McChrystal has officially been replaced by Petraeus (sp?). Having only watched news reports on the subject, and basing these next views on them, I think Obama and his administration completely overreacted. Most of the "derogatory comments" came from staff under the general, as I understand it, and were not so much derogatory as, well, honest opinions. I know almost nothing about this Petraeus, but if a few slightly inappropriate comments are Obama's worst complaint about General McChrystal, I think the President is foolish to replace him.

The thing with the military is that enlisted members essentially give up their rights to free speech, especially in front of reporters. It was an absolute violation of the military code of conduct for McChrystal to condone such speech- and having read the RS article, I would say McChrystal definitely condoned it. As others have said, it cannot be tolerated or the system just falls apart.

[Terry B]

I don't know why the General would do what he did, unless he wanted out. That is the only explaination I can come up with.

As for President Obama, he absolutely did the right thing by accepting the resignation. In fact, he would have been right to fire the General, had he not resigned. Breaks in the command structure like that CAN'T be tolerated, or the whole organization falls apart. With Petreus stepping in, operations should continue with little interruption.

The General has every right to his own opinion, as do his staff officers. However, in that position of trust and power, you keep those opinions quiet and do your job. Indeed, if you can't be quiet the job becomes impossible, and the General damned well knew it.

You are so right Corbin - I worked for the federal government for 20 years and I can tell you one thing for sure - if I had talked about MY BOSS like McChrystal talked about his I would have been terminated on the spot. No - not an opportunity to resign - fired.

[Damaris]

The thing with the military is that enlisted members essentially give up their rights to free speech, especially in front of reporters. It was an absolute violation of the military code of conduct for McChrystal to condone such speech- ... it cannot be tolerated or the system just falls apart.

Again, having not read the Rolling Stone article and having not been present at any of these shindigs, I can only speculate. But I don't see this as a breakdown in the system. (A system which, for better or worse, has made the Afghanistan campaign one of the longest in US history.) First off, the remarks may have been made in front of a reporter but they were not made outside that small circle of his staffers. These weren't comments he broadcast to the troops at large, they were primarily bits of humor among close allies in a war zone. Maybe he did it on purpose to be removed - I sure as hell wouldn't want to be there - but I would hardly call it a mutiny. I see it as a few off-color remarks made the by general and his staff over a period of time, and generally without malice. The Biden-Bite-Me joke may have been in poor taste but was hardly derogatory. One of the staffers said a dinner party with a French minister of some import was "f***ing gay," which was also in poor taste but is exactly what I would expect an enlisted man to say. It seems to me that General McChrystal was forced to resign for being common with his men and allowing them to be common around him. But that rapport is the same one that backed up his statement [paraphrased] "I would die for them. And they would die for me." Petraeus may be an excellent general. Perhaps he should have been appointed in the first place. But he wasn't, and I don't support ousting a war commander for groaning over a bullshit e-mail from Washington following countless other bullshit e-mails. It's fine for a dandy like Holbrooke to make his demands from the comfort of a plush office in D.C., but he doesn't have an idea one what is really going on in Afghanistan. Or how best to handle it. President Eisenhower said, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." How much truer that is of military actions. Patton was a controversial general, too, but he knew how to kick ass and take names ... and it seems to me that a bit of that would be quite useful in our current wars.

[Ryan002]

Well, they did say they wanted someone more aggressive and out-of-the-box. Guess they got what they asked for eh?

McChrystal seems to have this odd idea that as a General, he's somehow in charge of winning a war. Someone ought to tell him if that's the job he wanted, he should have stopped at Col. I guess Westpoint doesn't teach their graduates that at the strategic level, a military degree needs to be swapped for a political science major. Or maybe a BA in Drama.

That isn't as sarcastic as it may sound, because a part of counter-insurgency is talking the enemy to death. I don't mean one's mouth alone will win the War on Terror, but it does have a pretty tangible effect on logistics and morale (on both sides of the fence). It's a quality that shouldn't be too hard to find in a General, but McChrystal seems to have evaded that experience on his ascent. The man has the subtlety of a bowling ball through a Swarovski storefront.

[Pucker]

Isn't this the guy the lovable left-wing media dubbed General "Betray Us" not so very long ago?

I guess now that he's Obama's boy, everythings' cool.