WASHINGTON – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday. (Yahoo)Obama gets his Truman-MacArthur moment*
I know his advisors think he needs it to increase his stature, but to those who know history, it diminishes him further. Harry Truman was no effete metrosexual unfamiliar with basic military terms. He was a combat veteran of WW I, serving as an artillary Captain in France. But Obama is the president, as he so often reminds us.
McChrystal Earned It
He should have kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself. No military person should make those types of comments about civilian leadership and he knows that. Rolling Stone? What the hell was he thinking?
His comments sound arrogant, but they are borne of an arrogance produced by real-world success. Our US military is practically the only government institution that still knows how to get things done, and it has been getting a lot of things done over these past years.
It sometimes rankles and chafes to be overlorded by people in Gucci shoes, but that is how our system is set up and I wouldn't want it any other way. It is a classical separation of powers. Those who know how to prosecute war cannot authorize it, and those who authorize war do not know how to successfully carry one out.
General McChrystal Must Be Punished
Defending General McChrystal over this is defending the indefensible. I wish to hell he hadn't said what he said, but he did. Now he takes his lumps. If you love the constitution, you cannot protest the president firing the general. Fat head liberal pissants like Joe Klein are already howling.
* Harry Truman's Military Background
Truman enlisted in the Missouri Army National Guard in 1905, and served until 1911. At his physical in 1905, his eyesight had been an unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/40 in the left.[22] Reportedly, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.[23]
Truman was chosen to be an officer, and then battery commander in an artillery regiment in France. His unit was Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Infantry Division, known for its discipline problems.[28]
During a sudden attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains, the battery started to disperse; Truman ordered them back into position using profanities that he had "learned while working on the Santa Fe railroad."[28] Shocked by the outburst, his men reassembled and followed him to safety. Under Captain Truman's command in France, the battery did not lose a single man.[28] H
On November 11, 1918 his artillery unit fired some of the last shots of World War I into German positions. The war was a transformative experience that brought out Truman's leadership qualities; he later rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Reserves,[30] and his war record made possible his later political career in Missouri.[28] (Wikipedia)
As usual, Blackfive has the definitive take. Go read it here.
