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
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