Thoughts on General McChrystal being fired?

[Restoman]

I'm surprised it has not come out here yet. It's funny that a guy without military experience can fire a general.

[shiftbmw]

He is the commander in chief after all. That said, it was more that he was flexing political might than thinking war strategy.

[Ral]

^^^ I've been following it fairly extensively, and there's good (and bad) reasons for him to do both. I'm more wondering why he demoted Gen. Petraeus to fill the job, and who will fill his position if he is not tasked with doing both. (Before this happened, Gen. Petraeus was head of CENTCOM, under which Afghanistan falls under.)

There's a lot more to this than meets the eye.

[kronus]

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm88.htm

[Farbin Kaiber]

Bullshit, He just fired him for using his 1st amendment right.

[ZM Blue Devil]

no different then any other "company" happen 100s times a day.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Granted, I understand, when you sign up for active duty, you don't have constitutional rights...

[LBJefferies]

Bullshit, He just fired him for using his 1st amendment right.

You kinda forfeit many of your rights when you become a member of the military.

[Farbin Kaiber]

^ You do see I said something along those lines, right above your reply.

[markseven]

Bad judgment indeed. He deserved to be relieved of his duty.

I'm confused as to why he granted an interview to Rolling Stone.

[dvs909]

as much as i hate obama, i think the right call was made here.

[Jon325i]

Bad judgment indeed. He deserved to be relieved of his duty.

I'm confused as to why he granted an interview to Rolling Stone.

As I understand it, the author of the article (the name escapes me) is a freelance journalist....does writing for several publications. That said, I wonder if it was disclosed as to which 'rag this write up was going for?

Jon

[ldsbeaker]

I have to say that I'm not surprised by the comments that the General and his fellow soldiers made.
It sounds like a typical, "not for public consumption" military conversation about policy.

You see, we don't get to write policy. We don't get to question it, we just follow orders.
So yeah, conversations like that are happening ALL OVER THE WORLD, in and out of the military. I think it's healthy. The President can't be there behind the trigger, or with the foreign civilian population... (You weren't THERE, MAN!!)
So he has to rely on his military commanders.
I wonder if maybe the journalist had an axe to grind, if you read his follow up articles, it kinda smacks of "there, see what I did?" Of course the whole thing is spun the way he wants it spun, and a kicked pigeon is always going to flutter. In other words, he could have gone several ways with that article, and just because you call a spade a spade, doesn't mean you're wrong.

It was VERY stupid to go ON THE RECORD for this kind of article. I'm sure it was for the sake of "transparency" that he was allowed to follow him around in such candid situations.
All together, I'm not surprised by the outcome, what really irks me though, is that it sounds like the decision was made more by the "White House" than by the President...
Politics politics politics.

[jrhaile]

Guy should have kept his mouth shut...

[mrsleeve]

Guy should have kept his mouth shut...

this, but since he didn't, the right call has been made,

so really 0 has done 1 thing right and its a minor thing at that.