On all the major news outlets, journalists, political commentators, and news junkies are out in full force to express their opinions. They've typically fallen along party lines - those who lean right condemn the remarks but want McChrystal to stay on as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Those who lean left are immediately calling for his resignation. Though the case against General McChrystal is straightforward, the factors surrounding this legendary commander tends to murky what would be an easy call.
Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) makes it a punishable offense to display any sort of contempt against public official by a commissioned officer. Sounds straightforward to me. The only exploitable loophole a lawyer could argue would probably be the fact that General McChrystal may or may not have said these words in the United States or U.S. territory. Semantics aside, the commander is guilty of a punishable offense.
Yet there are two peculiar dimensions regarding the punishments of flag officers. The first of which is how evenly a standard is applied between higher ranking officers versus the lower ranked ones. It's a common Soldier complaint that a young private can be bitterly punished for a minor offense while an officer may get a pass for the very same. This unfortunately happens on a routine basis. I recall a senior officer making some rather unsavory comments about another over email. She served on my commanding general's staff but her actions went largely ignored. No one would extend me the same mercy. I found myself repeatedly dressed down after having made a smart-aleck comment at the logistics officer. To this day, I still bristle with anger when I hear his name, but that's another story for another time. What will happen to the general? Will the commander-in-chief send him to a court-martial, drum him out unceremoniously, or let him delicately resign from his post? The nation will soon find out. The second dimension is the wisdom of taking a wartime commander from his post while he is active engaged against the enemy. This more or less speaks for itself, and it will be up to Obama to make that determination.
However the confounding factors are not limited to these two. There are countless more that will make it difficult to render a clean decision. This is the man who reportedly tried to cover up the true cause of death of Corporal Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL star. This is the man who had command responsibility over allegedly abused detainees in Iraq. This is the man who made a bold and honest recommendation to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, a move that lacked political decorum but expected in the military culture. He is a devout acolyte of counterinsurgency operations รก la Petraeus (or would that be au Petraeus) - determined to minimize civilian casualties but maximize victory. These rules of engagement draw the ire of young infantrymen but the applause of senior policymakers - is this Stan McChrystal's style or the political pressure on an otherwise gung-ho general? Unlike most commanders though, he does not hesitate to go out on patrol with his soldiers and to suffer alongside them, but he's obligated to report to demanding superiors.
The list goes on and on, and I find my emotions cloud my more rational judgment. One part of me respects him as a tough but wise military leader. A man, I believe, who should not be restrained by politics and petty egos bruised by a straightforward personality. But another part of me worries when the tables may turn one day when an unwise commander is pitted against a more experienced commander-in-chief. If McChrystal gets a pass, would that set a precedent that would keep a less qualified military commander in place? Perhaps my emotions do cloud my judgment, but I would recommend only a verbal reprimand without resignation / firing. Regardless of what happens, I hope someone will take good care of those young men and women in Afghanistan; I know what a harsh place it can be.
It seems like a smooth transition has been made from McChrystal to Petraeus, since Petraeus designed and implemented COIN in Iraq. I'm just curious how CENTCOM will operate and how Petraeus will handle both duties.
ReplyDeleteAs far as McChrystal goes, I guess it's still too early to make a judgement call about his service, though it has to be said that the majority of the comments in the article were from his staff (at a bar over beers no less). All in all, I didn't find anything that was said that shocking, though I think one purpose of the article was to deflect attention from the Gulf spill disaster (and Obama's plummeting poll numbers) and perhaps the upcoming Kagan hearing; I don't think it's a coincidence that the article appeared now.
I also think it's instructive how the media template immediately became "McChrystal is BAD, how dare he question our commander-in-chief!" With our media, it's never about how incompetent the president or his staff is, but how bad and wrong the other guy is. Furthermore, if Bush was still president, I'm sure the media would be calling McChrystal a brave soldier speaking out against an incompetent administration. Let's face it, politics and ideology now color everything that the news reports; George Orwell is laughing in his grave.
One last thought on McChrystal: it is said that their are warrior generals and political or corporate generals. While you can find great men in both categories, warrior generals tend to have my respect, and the corporate types much less so because of their overriding desire to advance their own careers. I think it's also true that because the warrior generals care so deeply about their men and the mission, not their future career advancement, they tend to speak bluntly and say what they think, i.e. Patton. And from everything I have heard and read, it would seem to be that McChrystal is definitely a warrior general, and as such, his political acumen is lacking. Needless to say, I respect General McChrystal, and, even though it may have been wrong, I agree completely with almost everything that was said by him and his subordinates; it's clear that our current administration is inept and clueless when it comes to war.
I, too, found it shocking that anyone in the media could hold the opinion, "Who is this guy to question the sacred, almighty Obama?" Although McChrystal didn't do the right thing, it's painful to see a distinguished career Soldier demonized without even a second thought.
ReplyDeleteObama is obviously short competent generals. In essence, what he did was demote Petraeus to cover a high priority command. More of the men and women sporting stars on their shoulders have no business leading troops. I'm really concerned for the direction of all these campaigns.