It was a joke. I was only kidding.

What exactly do you think would be better at this point with Hillary as president?
I worked hard for the Obama campaign, and I'm still glad I did. Does the administration disappoint me quite frequently? Of course. They all do. But I am still damn sure that a McCain administration would disappoint me a whole lot more often than the Obama administration ever does.
As for Hillary, I think she would pretty much have made most of the same decisions on key issues that the Obama administration has done, so I don't think much would be different. The only thing that might be different would be on health care. Once the polls came out showing that the majority of Americans disapproved of the reform proposal she probably would have dumped it and moved on to something else. In my opinion she has relatively few actual convictions other than to do whatever polls tell her is the most popular (at least that is how she - and her husband - typically campaigned) and I seriously doubt she would have slugged it out for a year while her approval ratings were dropping weekly like Obama did. Especially after the '93 push and what followed in '94, I just can't see her doing that. But, of course, all of this is just pure conjecture.

Not according to the Rolling Stone article.

you're most likely right. no doubt the general felt he was near the end, and wanted to explain his thinking before fading away.

i am still at work, and will read the article in its entirety at home. i just remember, back when extra troops were requested, obama didn't grant everything that the general asked for at that time.

Let's be clear. The General got the extra troops after a 3 month delay during which Obama did his damnest not to send them and then assigned a pullout date letting the enemy know the end is near. A patented U.N. move by the way.

Basically McChrystal said he needed 40,000 more troops.
The administration responded by launching a review of the entire Afghanistan strategy.
At the end of the review the administration embraced most - but not all - of McChrystal's strategy and sent roughly 30,000 more troops to the region.

miraja2's suggestion to pull all the troops out and leave Afghanistan was ignored completely.

what a depressing article.

I agree. He deserves to be fired.

I think Obama should kick his a$$ or at least get knocked out trying. :)

ya think..

after reading the article, i disagree that he should be fired. but, no one in the position to decide will be asking me!

just read this from slate:

Should Gen. McCrystal Keep His Job?


Even before "The Runaway General" was posted on Rolling Stone's website, General Stanley McChrystal hit the phones to apologize for the article, which depicts him mocking senior administration officials and dropping scathing remarks about cabinet members. The General was summoned to Washington for a dressing-down, but so far, the White House has kept mum about whether McChrystal will be fired, saying only, "all options are on the table." So the million-dollar question: should McChrystal keep his job? Technically, he could be fired: under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, "any commissioned officer" can be court marshaled for "[using] contemptuous words" against the civilian chain of command. The Atlantic's James Fallows says he should be booted, arguing that McChrystal ran afoul of the military's intolerance for "disrespect and insubordination," and potentially undermined U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. The Washington Post's Jonathan Capeheart agrees, as does Foreign Policy's Tom Ricks, who predicts that he'll be out in a week or so. "Forget about his damaged reputation," Wired staff writes at Danger Room. "By giving these inflammatory interviews to Rolling Stone, General McChrystal has risked the entire outcome of the war." At Firedoglake, Spencer Ackerman concedes that over the last few years, "the pattern of generals not losing their jobs over offenses that would get their subordinates chucked out has relaxed considerably," but still thinks that McChrystal will probably get to stay. "Firing him carries its risks," Ackerman writes. "There's only a year to go before the July 2011 date to begin the transition to Afghan security responsibility and the Kandahar tide is starting to rise. It'll be hard to fire McChrystal without ripping the entire Afghanistan strategy up, and I've gotten no indication from the White House that it's interested in doing that." If he is fired, Small Wars Journal's Robert Haddick speculates that lieutenant general David Rodriguez would be the likely choice to replace him

I guess I should have read the article before I said to fire him. My bad. :zz:

http://www.slate.com/id/2257818/

another, longer article.

In fact, nowhere in the article is McChrystal or any of his aides quoted as disagreeing with Obama's policy on Afghanistan. It would be a big surprise if they were, as Obama's strategic decision in December 2009—to send 30,000 more troops and to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy—was essentially an endorsement of McChrystal's recommendation. (It should be noted that the article's subheadline—which says that McChrystal "has seized control of the war" because he sees "the real enemy" as "the wimps in the White House"—is grossly distorting and may be responsible for some of the early misreporting before the actual article went online. Hastings said in an interview with NPR that he did not write the headline.)





Nonetheless, and this is the damning third point, the fact that it's "just staff officers" talking like this doesn't let McChrystal off the hook. In fact, the story suggests that, on some level (and how serious a level is something for Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to find out), McChrystal's operation is out of control.


but this is what jumped out at me:

The whole business reflects something else at least as serious—the fractured state of this war and the utter disunity of command. and this is exactly what i meant when i called the rolling stone piece 'depressing'.

all the talk in advance of the article made it sound really, really bad. but after reading it (and don't get me wrong, there are serious issues here) it's not what it was made out to be in my opinion. a problem? yes? insuborination.....it was certainly what i've read has been said-a gross misjudgement. but i don't think it is enough of an offense to warrant removal.

actually after reading it I have come to this conclusion also. He is much too important to the war than to fire him over this. The article wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. Did find it interesting that Hillary is the only one they respect though.

Also the fact that the man in charge of Afghanastan likes McChrystal more than any other US person makes him impossible, and irresponsible (though the article was also irresponsible) to fire. That is much more important than insubordination / ego.

i think the thing that angered the military the most about all of it was the end date. you can't tell your enemy when you're going to stop fighting! that was ridiculous. hillary (and i give her many props for this) said give them what they want-which is why they like her. war is hell, as has often been said. you fight to win-if you're not going to do that, then quit wasting time, money and lives and get the hell out. so many mistakes made over the last few years with these two wars. we should never have gone to iraq, all that did was take away from afganistan. it also has elevated iran, which causes more problems. way to go george bush!

We're compassionate killers. ;)

the article did make a good point.. what is considered a "win" in this war?

Spreading democracy. :rolleyes:

i don't know. because i really don't think it's ultimately a winnable war. as soon as we said 'we're leaving july 2011', the enemy realized they just had to wait us out. i read one article that said no one has successfully invaded afganistan since the mongol horde and genghis khan. thing is, we're not fighting a country. you can defeat a country. but we're fighting a movement that is intact in many countries...it's not a conventional war, it can't be fought in a conventional way. plus, we are dealing with civilians who don't want us there, who have to deal with tribes and groups who really run these villages, they have opposing views from us on a variety of subjects, including educating half their population. they just have to wait...within months of our leaving, it's all going to change again. we need to turn over the country to the un and get out. then the un will have to leave because the place will explode. but whether we wait one year, ten years...i don't think the outcome will be any different.

McChrystal met with the Joint Chiefs, then Obama, then "left abruptly" before the monthly Afghanistan meeting. He's gotta be out.

I understand where Obama is coming from.. but it would be the wrong move to let the guy who put the whole plan together go. especially after actually reading the article and seeing it wasnt as bad as made out to be.

McChrystal has forgot more about the military and operations than our Commander in Chief will ever know.

Relieved of his command. Replaced by petreus.