The commander of multinational forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has been dismissed by US President Barack Obama after critical comments about senior administration officials.
Ok they said he "handed in his resignation" but that is protocol, he was sacked.
Was it right to sack him, after all he was expressing his opinion and with the USA being the country of the "free" and free speech.
I know the status quo is "you donīt talk bad about your boss or your gonna get it" in this world, but when you consider the two men...
The General, over 40 years of experience including special forces a man who knows what he is talking about in a military sense. President Obama, some lawyer with no military experience at all who became president because heīs black and can sweet talk.
Another point, it must have been obvious to the General that his comments would cost him his job, so why did he do it?
Maybe he is dissillusioned by the operation in Afghanistan.
Leaving the implied racism of you saying Obama is president because he is black aside, of course the general needed to be sacked- you cannot have a leading general in a war so openly critical of government policy; that is ridiculously undermining. Bigger men than him have had to be sacked that way before.
All public figures at that level have to be either supportive of government policy or resign. That's collective responsibility. Resigning over policy differences is mature. Discussing issues about policy in public is mature. Sniping to journalists about it is horiffic.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Mentioning that someone is black isnīt racist, and implying that his colour helped his election campagn surely cannot be offensive because it is a fact. Otherwise all the "first black president" "is the USA ready for a black president" spin before it must also have been racist, and counter producive.
I agree that the Military has to support the rulling government policies, unless your going to start a military coo.
But surely the General must have advisers or people who go through and material which is to be published not only for possible problematic scenarious which might emerge, but also for security reasons.
Therefore why did he do it, surely no one or group of people can be so complacent.
I think in reality Obama is just incensed that someone had the balls to call out his "plan" for what it really is, his ego got bruised, and so he fired McChrystal for saying it. Despite the fact that Karzai likes McChrystal and all the respect he commands among the fighting men and women there. Afterall, a general's job and purpose is fighting wars, Obama on the other hand knows jack-shit about war. Between this and the way he's [not] handling the oil spill, I really can't see him getting re-elected in 2012.
It would have been wiser, strategically, to keep Gen. McChrystal, but then Obama would have looked like a pushover, and Lord knows he can't have that.
Nope, you drawing attention to him being black in the way you did was either racist or silly- take your pick. That kind of statement reduces my respect for anyone. Hiding behind it being a so-called 'fact' is also poor. And of course the attention drawn to him being black in the campaign is equally questionable.
He didn't win because he was black. That's simply a ridiculous and untrue statement. He won because he is very good at the political game- irrelevant of colour.
Meanwhile- yes, his advisors cocked up. That interview and unlimited access was insane.
QM, that's not a very mature view. When you are given a very important political appointment and disagree with some ways it is being run, you don't "call out" your bosses behind their backs in an interview. Use some common sense. Anyone bigging this guy up for calling out the administration is being a fool.
McChrystal displayed the behaviour of a petulant teen annoyed with his teachers. People need to be better than that.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
There is a level of professionalism expected from all military personnel, especially someone like a general who is leading a war. For him to go into an interview and start calling people clowns and the like is obviously not going to stand. It makes the man look foolish and careless, it makes the mission seem undermined and questionable, and it makes the commander and chief look like he has no control over the situation. Him being relieved of duty was the only possible outcome, and McChrystal knew it, which is why he resigned.
It wouldn't have been wiser for him to keep the General. Some may have liked it more, but the spin machine would have bitten him even harder. Where as now people might say he is trying to show his strength and decisiveness by ditching McChrystal, had he kept him many of these same people would be saying that it shows a lack of confidence in his ability to run the war if he is afraid of relieving a loud mouthed general who launched personal attacks against his administration. He made the right call here.
Why do people even care? It's not like the dude was getting the job done anyway. We're not any closer to "winning the war on terror".
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Or how about calling it for what it was: A lawyer/professor that got elected to the highest public office, largely due to his celebrity image which included being African American. This celebrity image (Strong, well spoken, intelligent, highly educated, black man, in case you were wondering) was created by his campaign team, which had record setting funding.
His campaigners friggin' USED his race to gain an advantage over his competition not in just a few ways, but many ways. To call Obamas teams intelligent campaigning racist, is a bit strange.
Instead of rabidly looking for something to call racist, I think we should applaud Obama's campaign team.
Removing his race and then his celebrity image, which won him the election, loses a very large chunk of his appeal. Remove his race and he probably loses the election.
His race was such a huge portion of his campaigned appeal that I have a hard time seeing him win out against McCain. Two white men, duking it out to create the best public image for themselves...
What do you have left? One guy is a tried and true political veteran, a military veteran, and another guy is a white guy that was a professor, a lawyer, and has slightly above average speaking skills....but not much else.
I agree with your other points in the thread 100%, though.
And, Obama's decision was pretty much NOT a decision. He really didn't have a choice. I mean he DID have a choice...but, come on...there was no real choice but to "force" a resignation.
Generals have the right to say whatever they want in private but they absolutely are not allowed to insult their superiors in an interview. McChrystal should have quit and then explained why Obama's plan is stupid, something that generals have done in the past when faced with commanders they couldn't work with.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
It's a lose-lose situation for Obama. You wouldn't keep your top mechanic if he talked shit about your managerial skills among the rest of your staff, even if it meant losing a high-level of expertise for your shop.
Concerning Afghanistan, even Gen. McChrystal can't win that, unless he's allowed to do whatever he deems needs to be done, which wouldn't have happened, ever. Last person to subjugate the Afghanistan region was Genghis Khan; those tactics aren't allowed by politics in a 21th century war.
how could anyone question whether obama's race had anything to do with his election?
otherwise, /thread. as much as people should be free to express themselves, mccrystal knew this would be the results of his words and obviously political institutions don't allow for a lot of internal debate
__________________ yes, a million times yes
Last edited by tsilamini on Jun 24th, 2010 at 04:55 PM
Obviously it does, as did McCain's. While there were people who voted for Obama for no other reason than his skin-tone, there were people who voted against him for the exact same reason.
But do you think he won the election solely because of it? That the majority of voters simply voted for "the black guy." Think that is what some people think.
I think the issue is more complicated than conscious choices for or against a particular skin tone, but yes, mccain's race was also important, as were the races of all the people whom Obama offered a change from
Probably reading you wrong, but it sounds like you're implying that the fabled "white-guilt" was the deciding or in the very least a major important factor in the Obama win. No?
As said, I'm sure their were people that voted on nothing more than a skin color, for and against Obama. But I reject the notion that he won simply because he was 'the black guy'; it was hip and PC to vote black.
IMO, he won because of the "I'm not anything like George Bush" sentiment his campaign pushed, which was strongly helped by 5-6 years of the media portraying Bush negatively at every opportunity, sometimes warranted; sometimes not.
Make Obama white yet give him the same basic background; he still beats McCain in the 2008 atmosphere; for the same reasons. "Not Bush" and "McSame" angles.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
However, I believe that McCain lost because he was white. I base that on the fact that I kept hearing and reading people say things like I will not vote for that white guy. There was even a rapper (I don't know who he was) who made a point about Palin being white and from Alaska, as if that was just lame.
So, if McCain lost because he was white, does that mean that Obama won because he was black?
However, we are going off topic now. Maybe this would be better in a new thread.
Maybe I wasn't clear; I don't think McCain lost because he was white, he lost because of the "McSame" sentiment and the atmosphere around Bush in 2008.
Even if we make Obama white and McCain black, Obama still wins in 2008, for reasons noted.
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Jun 24th, 2010 07:12 AM
