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BloodRider

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(the RS article says McChrystal is a fan of Bud Light Lime)

He should be fired immediately based on this alone.

Especially given that in this situation, truth is no defense.

:b

It was an interesting article. While it indicated (at least through the general's drunk "staff"--so take that for what its worth) that McChrystal was less than impressed with Obama, it also stated that the general voted for him over McCain. There is no direct quote of the general criticizing the president. Though there is the joke where an aide calls Biden "biteme". Which is kinda pathetic.

The article goes at great length to show that this is a dynamic workaholic with charisma and claims he "bullied" his way to get the 30,000 troops more troops (a claim I don't agree with) and then goes on to indicate that the whole thing is failing.

It made for an interesting read, but like most Rolling Stone political articles (including the 08 hit piece on McCain) it tend to take some of its contents with a grain of salt.

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What are you referring to, trisky? I can't recall.

Not to answer for Trisky, but here's a section from the Rolling Stone article that details how McChrystal "manipulated" the White House into a new Afghan surge:

From the start, McChrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military's preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petraeus beta-tested the theory during his "surge" in Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think-tankers, journalists, military officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed "COINdinistas" for their cultish zeal, this influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan. All they needed was a general with enough charisma and political savvy to implement it.

As McChrystal leaned on Obama to ramp up the war, he did it with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq: Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the fuckers out. After arriving in Afghanistan last June, the general conducted his own policy review, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The now-infamous report was leaked to the press, and its conclusion was dire: If we didn't send another 40,000 troops – swelling the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by nearly half – we were in danger of "mission failure." The White House was furious. McChrystal, they felt, was trying to bully Obama, opening him up to charges of being weak on national security unless he did what the general wanted. It was Obama versus the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was determined to kick the president's ass.

Last fall, with his top general calling for more troops, Obama launched a three-month review to re-evaluate the strategy in Afghanistan. "I found that time painful," McChrystal tells me in one of several lengthy interviews. "I was selling an unsellable position." For the general, it was a crash course in Beltway politics – a battle that pitted him against experienced Washington insiders like Vice President Biden, who argued that a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan would plunge America into a military quagmire without weakening international terrorist networks. "The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people," says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. "The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

In the end, however, McChrystal got almost exactly what he wanted. On December 1st, in a speech at West Point, the president laid out all the reasons why fighting the war in Afghanistan is a bad idea: It's expensive; we're in an economic crisis; a decade-long commitment would sap American power; Al Qaeda has shifted its base of operations to Pakistan. Then, without ever using the words "victory" or "win," Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, almost as many as McChrystal had requested. The president had thrown his weight, however hesitantly, behind the counterinsurgency crowd.

Today, as McChrystal gears up for an offensive in southern Afghanistan, the prospects for any kind of success look bleak. In June, the death toll for U.S. troops passed 1,000, and the number of IEDs has doubled. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the fifth-poorest country on earth has failed to win over the civilian population, whose attitude toward U.S. troops ranges from intensely wary to openly hostile. The biggest military operation of the year – a ferocious offensive that began in February to retake the southern town of Marja – continues to drag on, prompting McChrystal himself to refer to it as a "bleeding ulcer." In June, Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history – and Obama has quietly begun to back away from the deadline he set for withdrawing U.S. troops in July of next year. The president finds himself stuck in something even more insane than a quagmire: a quagmire he knowingly walked into, even though it's precisely the kind of gigantic, mind-numbing, multigenerational nation-building project he explicitly said he didn't want.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=1

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Don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but apparently Gen. McChrystal, the senior U.S./NATO commander in Afghanistan, is in big trouble for shooting his mouth off about the President and the President's advisors.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38837.html

He deserves to be shit-canned for this. Just flat-out stupid, really. If a General is going to mouth off to the press with disrespectful comments about the President, then the message for the troops is that they can say the same things in public about their superiors in the Chain of Command.

Maybe someone can point me to the part of that article that is an example of him saying something that would be considered a fireable offense? Or where he says anything bad really about Obama at all?

I don't see what the big deal is, at least not based on that article.

Is it the part about Holbrooke?

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Maybe someone can point me to the part of that article that is an example of him saying something that would be considered a fireable offense? Or where he says anything bad really about Obama at all?

I don't see what the big deal is, at least not based on that article.

Is it the part about Holbrooke?

I agree, I am just not seeing it.

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Not to answer for Trisky, but here's a section from the Rolling Stone article that details how McChrystal "manipulated" the White House into a new Afghan surge:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=1

I stopped reading at the point where the author was describing COIN as something controversial, implying that it was some radical new theory. Rolling Stone has had a good military reporter in Evan Wright, but this guy couldn't wipe Evan's ass.

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Oh FFS, really? I'm not even going to read what was said, I don't care, and I wish bad things for the people who ran their mouths and gave rise to this whole mess because they clearly should have known better. Thanks, assholes, we really need to add finding a new commander for Afghanistan to the pile of national problems. Or the drama of whether or not we should, at the least.

Anyhow, looks like there's going to be a face to face:

"General McChrystal is on his way here," Obama said. "And I am going to meet with him. Secretary Gates will be meeting with him as well. I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment. But I also wanna make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decision."

ETA: I feel extra need to vent, possibly because a stupid indiscretion has such potentially big consequences. In any case, I must summon my Lewis Black. Just substitute where appropriate:

I think that a group of Americans should have been sent to Washington on our behalf. And they would take everyone, from the President on down, out for an afternoon of electroshock.
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I don't get it.

Wall Street Journal published a slew of specific quotes from the Rolling Stone article today. All were disparging remarks made by McCrystal's aides, rather than him, the worst out of his earshot. McCrystal himself seems to be guilty of saying things like "I'd rather get may a@@ kicked than go to this meeting (with a French diplomat to convince them to stay in the war) but none of you could do it". And "I don't even want to read it" when an email from Holbrooke comes in. Plus not rebuking an aide who joked about "Bite me" in his presence. Should he be expected to do that? Every time? Context of the "bite me" remark was that McCrystal hoped he was not asked about Biden at a Paris news conference and that if he was he jokingly said he might like to say "Who?". (to which the aide replied "Who? Bite me?")

I mean, if the worst thing you did was let your aides make a slightly impolite joke about the VP, does this merit resigning? Alternatively, did the Wall Street Journal fail to print the worst? It seems like the are too through a paper, and would want the scoop - I can't see them holding back.

My fear: McCrystal is uniquely capable. We may lose in Afghanistan if we lose him. In fact, if I understand correctly, the most likely scenario is that we will lose in Afghanistan if we lose him.

My hope: McCrystal comes with resignation in hand, Obama rebukes him, but then insists that he stay on for the good of the US, NATO and Afghanistan.

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More Republican family values in action! Senator David Vitter, the whore of a Bible-thumping douchebag from Louisiana who managed to survive being outed as a customer of the DC Madam, employs on his staff a guy with repeated DUIs, one cocaine arrest, and stabbed his girlfriend with a knife in 2008. Vitter "disciplined" the crazy fuck in 2008, but still kept him on the staff.

After drinking at a restaurant, the two returned to Furer's Capitol Hill apartment, the report says. Furer "would not let her leave." He "pulled on her coat, which caused it to rip," then "pulled out a knife and stabbed [her] in the hand," the police report says.

Charging documents allege that Furer became angry when he found phone numbers for other men in her blackberry. He smashed her phone when she tried to call 911, the records say, and he shoved her to the floor when she tried to leave, then held his hand over her mouth and threw her on a bed.

Demopoulos told police Furer "uttered the words to her, 'Do you want to get serious.'" Then, the arrest warrant states, Furer "grabbed an unknown object and held it under her neck. The suspect asked the complainant, 'Do you want to die?' The complainant replies and she stated, 'No, I don't want to die.'"

After a 90 minute standoff, Furer made her promise not to call police, and then allowed her to leave. She fled to a friend's house, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A slash on her chin took eight stitches to close, the police report says.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/vitter_aide_slashed_woman_with_knife_drove_drunk.php?ref=fpb

Let me guess... It's okay to slash your girlfriend as long as you are otherwise a Good Christian?

I'm wondering how much shit it's going to take to bring Vitter down. But maybe his constituents just doesn't care that he's such a bottomless worm.

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My fear: McCrystal is uniquely capable. We may lose in Afghanistan if we lose him. In fact, if I understand correctly, the most likely scenario is that we will lose in Afghanistan if we lose him.

He's uniquely capable of propping up an endlessly corrupt and feckless Karzai government, issuing conflicting orders to his troops while keeping up a tough guy persona, ignoring the diplomatic responsibilities of his job, freezing out dissenting opinions, and manipulating the White House into throwing more and more soldiers at Afghanistan?

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My fear: McCrystal is uniquely capable. We may lose in Afghanistan if we lose him. In fact, if I understand correctly, the most likely scenario is that we will lose in Afghanistan if we lose him.

And what exactly makes McCrystal uniquely capable? How exactly will we lose in Afghanistan if we lose him, especially considering we have already lost in Afghanistan. There is absolutely no chance of winning in that country. None whatsoever. I doubt we even leave anytime soon, especially since the recent re-discovery of a massive wealth of minerals and metals in the country. Every industrialized country in the world is slobbering over the money those mines might bring them.

Not to mention that McCrystal has stated in order to succeed, we need 500,000 troops on the ground and 5 more years of fighting to succeed. That's never going to happen. Not when the US-propped Afghan government is ranked as the second most corrupt in the world behind only Somalia. Not as long as the Taliban have their mountains to run and hide in every time they need to.

We have already lost Afghanistan. The most we can hope for is that, like the Soviet Union, we don't deplete our own resources so much in trying to take the country that we are left weakened.

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Holy shit. It's like parts of the GOP have decided to see who can out-crazy the other. I look forward to this continuing up until November.

Yeah, I was starting to think Arizona was squeezing out the rest of the market on xenophobic bugfuck craziness. Good to see Texas stepping up its game. Florida, South Carolina, eyes are on you now.

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I mean, yeah, party programmes tends to be out of whack (CSU's used to read like a church pamphlet, and social democratic party tends to have nationalization of private property on theprogramme long after it has been abondoned in practice) but still?

Bugfuck.

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I'm not at all surprised to see Texas do something like this. Because of the BP spill people are actually thinking about the enviornment and alternative energy. Can't have that happen. Have to get them riled up about something else. Well, let's see what's in the usual bag of tricks. Ah...GAYS FTW!!!

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I'm wondering how much shit it's going to take to bring Vitter down. But maybe his constituents just doesn't care that he's such a bottomless worm.

I was complaining about this yesterday, but Peter Dyckman-Campbell pointed out that Vitter is indeed a values candidate, given that powerful men visiting hookers is a time-honored tradition. So I stood corrected.

On other news, check out these numbers from Gallup. Although Gallup is not impressed, I am delighted to see support for health insurance reform at 49%, given where it was just after the law was enacted.

However, just as encouraging was the breakdown of support by age; seems the younger you are, the more likely you are to think that passage of the law was a good thing. That means that the naysayers are on average going to die alot sooner than the yeasayers, giving this law a much broader base of support in days to come. I think it's amusing, however, that support for the law is lowest amongst elder Americans who are the recipients of single-payer healthcare (which the law won't grant to other Americans) and who already have a mandate to purchase coverage. Try to figure that one.

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