Gen. McChrystal Takes One for the Team

The Commander in Chief cites a lack of forethought in Army Gen. Stan McChrystal's recent interview in Rolling Stone magazine. In that piece, the Gen -- one whom Pres Obama had praised to the skies a mere matter of months earlier -- had aired differences between his plans to prosecute the ongoing war and the President's foreign policy.

Lack of forethought? HAH! I believe Gen. McChrystal knew EXACTLY what he was doing.

A couple of years ago, the previous Commander of US Central Command, Navy Admiral William "Fox" Fallon, also fell on his sword publicly in an interview with Esquire magazine, in which he took the Bush administration to task for its saber-rattling talk of war with Iran. Fallon, a fighter-pilot-scholar-turned-diplomat, aired his own feelings about the tenstions between the Bush White House and Iran.

A short time later, he was unceremoniously canned from his post at CentCom.

And so now comes Gen. McChrystal ... feeling hemmed in by Obama political appointees and a foreign policy that ties the hands of US troops in Harm's Way.

Upon assuming command (at Obama's insistence) of all US troops in Afghanistan, the first thing the canny general ordered was a complete review of the US troop posture over there...resulting in a thick compendium of figures, which basically stated that without a 40,000-troop increase, the Afghanistan mission was doomed to failure ... and then allowed that report to be leaked to the media!

Simply put, Obama and his cronies were furious (and now under immense pressure to comply with McChrystal's report's recommendations.)

Now comes the Rolling Stone interview. McChrystal knew PRECISELY what a good, political general should do ... shut the hell up, toe the President's political line, and follow orders ... not to mention staying out of the media limelight.

But current policy now places as much or even more importance upon protecting civilian lives in Afghanistan, even to the point of endangering US troops during a firefight.

To Gen. McChrystal, a soldier's soldier, this was as unacceptible as it is untenable.

So the general did the only thing he could honorably do: He spoke up for his soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines ... knowing that he would be required to sacrifice his own career as penance. Now, as a result, perhaps one of only two generals that could really FIGHT this war now is toast, and out of the fight.

And the East Coast liberal political Brahmans in the Obama Administration couldn't have cared less.

They only care that the President was politically embarassed, which is far more important that a few soldier's lives.