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To: bentway who wrote (256387)	6/24/2010 3:56:55 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 306849

Col. Jack Jacobs: Most In Military Will Say McChrystal 'Was Right' Tue, 06/22/2010 newsbusters.org Contessa Brewer got a lot more than she was likely looking for when she interviewed Col. Jack Jacobs this afternoon about the McChrystal situation. The MSNBC host wanted to focus on the impropriety of McChrystal publicly airing his criticisms of Pres. Obama and others in the chain of command. But while the Medal of Honor recipient readily agreed that McChrystal was out of line, and would probably pay with his job, Jacobs also went out of his way—twice—to add an inconvenient truth: that when it comes to the substance of the criticism, most in the military think McChrystal "was right." CONTESSA BREWER: It's about the sort of disdain for authority. And that worries me. JACK JACOBS: Well it should worry you, and I think he's going to wind up getting fired because of that; at least partially because of that. BREWER: But is his view not only about the President but about Joe Biden, about Jim Jones, the National Security advisor, about Karl Eikenberry [US ambassador to Afghanistan], on and on down the list: Richard Holbrooke -- JACOBS: Those views are very widely held, by the way, inside the military and outside the military, about those people. That they're ineffective, that Jim Jones, the National Security Advisor, does not have an impact on national security policy, that he has very little access. That Holbrooke hasn't done anything and so on. Those views are widely held. They're not just held by McChrystal's staff for example. Contessa didn't respond to Jacobs' startling assertion. And when a bit later she closed with more concerns about respecting the chain of command, the colonel took a tough parting shot. BREWER: There are hundreds of thousands of enlisted men and women in the military who are taught not to question authority; they don't go outside their chain of command. what kind of message does this send to people at the lower levels in the military? JACOBS: Well, it's not a very good one. But let me tell you what's going to happen. Gen. McChrystal can't stay in his position. He's probably going to tender his resignation, and it's probably going to be accepted--or demanded in the first place. He might stay. There are certain circumstances in which he might stay. Likely as not he is going to be gone, and he's probably going to wind up retiring. And in the end, this is what the rank and file of military establishment is going to say, privately. They're going to say: absolutely right: you can't do this, you can't countenance your subordinates speak to the press and say that the rest of the chain of command above you are a bunch of knuckleheads. But they're going to say: you know what? He was right.

To: bentway who wrote (256387)	6/24/2010 4:52:06 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 306849

A Sad Day (Thomas Sowell) Townhall.com ^ \| June 23, 2010 \| Thomas Sowell townhall.com The flap about General Stanley McChrystal's "resignation" was nobody's finest hour. But there are some painful lessons in all this that go beyond any of the individuals involved-- the general, the president or any of the officials at the Pentagon or the State Department. What is far more important than all these individuals put together are the lives of the tens of thousands of Americans fighting in Afghanistan. What is even more important is the national security of this country. It is certainly not politic for a general or his staff to express their contempt for civilian authorities publicly. But what is far more important-- from the standpoint of national security-- is whether what those authorities have done deserves contempt. My hope is that General McChrystal will write a book about his experiences in Afghanistan-- and in Washington. The public needs to know what is really going on, and they are not likely to get that information from politicians. This is, after all, an administration that waited for months last year before acting on General McChrystal's urgent request for 40,000 more troops, which he warned would be necessary to prevent the failure of the mission in Afghanistan. He got 30,000 eventually-- and a public statement by President Obama about when he wants to start withdrawing American troops from that country. In no previous period of history has an American president announced a timetable for pulling out troops. They may have had a timetable in mind, but none of these presidents was irresponsible enough to tell the world-- including our enemies-- when our troops would be leaving. Such information encourages our enemies, who know that they need only wait us out before they can take over, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere. At the same time, it undermines our allies, who know that relying on the United States is dangerous in the long run, and that they had better make the best deal they can get with our enemies. But the worst aspect of the national security policy of this administration is its clear intention to do nothing that has any realistic chance of stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. This may be the most grossly irresponsible policy in all of history, because it can leave this generation-- and future generations-- of Americans at the mercy of terrorists who have no mercy and who cannot be deterred, as the Soviet Union was deterred. All the current political theater about "international sanctions" is unlikely to make the slightest difference to Iran. Nor is the administration itself likely to expect it to. What then is its purpose? To fool the American people into thinking that they are doing something serious when all that they are doing is putting on a charade by lining up countries to agree to actions that they all know will not have any real effect. There is another aspect to General McChrystal's "resignation." Everyone seems to be agreed that Stanley McChrystal has been a soldier's soldier-- someone who knows what to do on a battlefield and is not afraid to put himself in danger to do it. Do we need more generals like this or do we need political generals who know how to cultivate Washington politicians, in order to advance their own careers? Some people see a parallel between McChrystal's "resignation" and President Harry Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur. No two situations are ever exactly the same, but some of the parallels are striking. MacArthur was proud not only of his military victories but also of the fact that he won those victories with lower casualty rates among his troops than other generals had. But General MacArthur too was not always discreet in what he said, and also had reasons to have contempt for politicians, going all the way back to FDR, who cut the army's budget in the 1930s, while Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were building up huge military machines that would kill many an American before it was all over. If we are creating an environment where only political generals can survive, what will that mean for America's ability to win military victories without massive casualty rates? Or to win military victories at all?