Please don't misunderstand, I don't believe Obama should tolerate the kind of comments that McChrystal made to Rolling Stone. But that doesn't mean McChrystal wasn't right.
What did McChrystal and his staff say? This CBS News story summarizes it well:
On President Obama:
After Mr. Obama's was sworn into office, McChrystal felt the new president looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" while meeting with a dozen senior military officials in a Pentagon room known as the Tank, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Following McChrystal's first one-on-one meeting with the president, an aide said the general left disappointed.
"It was a 10-minute photo op," the adviser said. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his [expletive] war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."
McChrystal termed the president's three-month review of the U.S. military situation in Afghanistan before deciding to send more troops a "painful" time.
"I was selling an unsellable position."
On Vice President Joe Biden:
Last fall, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy Biden advocated in Afghanistan as "shortsighted," adding that it would lead to creating "Chaos-istan" in the country.
In the piece, McChrystal and his staff' openly mock the vice president:
"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal said. "Who's that?"
"Biden?" said a top aide. "Did you say: Bite Me?"
On Jim Jones, the U.S. national security adviser and a retired four-star general:
A McChrystal aide calls Jones a "clown" who is "stuck in 1985" - an apparent reference to Jones' experience in the Cold War.
Back to the point. Obama didn't give a damn about what was happening in Afghanistan until he was personally insulted. McChrystal was the author of the disastrous new rules of engagement in Afghanistan. As this article points out, the Rolling Stone piece by Michael Hastings spent more time focusing on other issues. Some highlights:
After Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former-NFL-star-turned-Ranger, was accidentally killed by his own troops in Afghanistan in April 2004, McChrystal took an active role in creating the impression that Tillman had died at the hands of Taliban fighters. He signed off on a falsified recommendation for a Silver Star that suggested Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. (McChrystal would later claim he didn't read the recommendation closely enough – a strange excuse for a commander known for his laserlike attention to minute details.) A week later, McChrystal sent a memo up the chain of command, specifically warning that President Bush should avoid mentioning the cause of Tillman's death. "If the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public," he wrote, it could cause "public embarrassment" for the president.
But they [the soldiers] are especially angered by Ingram's death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal's new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. "These were abandoned houses," fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. "Nobody was coming back to live in them."
One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. "Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force," the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that's like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won't have to make arrests. "Does that make any fucking sense?" asks Pfc. Jared Pautsch. "We should just drop a fucking bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?"
"How's the company doing? You guys feeling sorry for yourselves? Anybody? Anybody feel like you're losing?" McChrystal says.
"Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we're losing, sir," says Hicks.
During the question-and-answer period, the frustration boils over. The soldiers complain about not being allowed to use lethal force, about watching insurgents they detain be freed for lack of evidence. They want to be able to fight – like they did in Iraq, like they had in Afghanistan before McChrystal. "We aren't putting fear into the Taliban," one soldier says.
McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren't buying it.
After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there. Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. "Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem," says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. "A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we're picking winners and losers" – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population.
Okay, so back to the main story. Petraeus got confirmed by the Senate, 99-0. It likely would have been 100-0 if not for the recent death of the old Klansman. Remember kids, it's okay to be a racist if you're a Democrat.
It is fascinating to see these Senators vote unanimously for a guy they vilified not so long ago. It's enough to make me think that maybe they don't have any principles at all, that it's all about politics. Remember this ad? Sure you do.
Now, just because Petraeus is taking the job doesn't mean that things will change. Policy is set from the top. In a rational world, where people made decisions based on logic and common sense, Petraeus would discontinue McChrystal's disastrous rules of engagement. But there is no guarantee that this will happen.
http://townhall.com/columnists/DianaWest/2010/07/01/petraeus_continues_coin_nightmare
Clearly Obama is way different than Bush, and the people of Afghanistan have responded accordingly. He clearly has their hearts and minds. It reminds me of the classic Simpsons episode that criticized Bush--but it applies equally well to Obama and Afghanistan.
Oh, and how is that oil spill cleanup coming? Well, we're doing all we can. Right? Right??? Not everyone thinks so...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyyL50dFkMc&feature=youtube_gdata
At least the immigration issue is under control. Right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDlN7VLmXQ
Do I dare ask about the economy? Unemployment?
At what point do people sit back and realize who they voted for?
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