Was I Right About McChrystal, or What?

Last October, I questioned Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s fitness for command, but first an update.

President Obama plans to decide the fate of his top commander in Afghanistan Wednesday after a firestorm over remarks the general and members of his staff made that were contemptuous of senior administration officials.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has prepared a letter of resignation, though President Obama had not made up his mind whether to accept it when they meet Wednesday morning.

“I think it’s clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment,” Mr. Obama said after a cabinet meeting Tuesday. “But I also want to make sure I talk to him directly before I make final judgment.”…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Here is just the conclusion of Michael Hastings’ article in question.

…Back in Afghanistan, less than a month after the White House meeting with Karzai and all the talk of "progress," McChrystal is hit by the biggest blow to his vision of counterinsurgency. Since last year, the Pentagon had been planning to launch a major military operation this summer in Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city and the Taliban’s original home base. It was supposed to be a decisive turning point in the war – the primary reason for the troop surge that McChrystal wrested from Obama late last year. But on June 10th, acknowledging that the military still needs to lay more groundwork, the general announced that he is postponing the offensive until the fall. Rather than one big battle, like Fallujah or Ramadi, U.S. troops will implement what McChrystal calls a "rising tide of security." The Afghan police and army will enter Kandahar to attempt to seize control of neighborhoods, while the U.S. pours $90 million of aid into the city to win over the civilian population.

Even proponents of counterinsurgency are hard-pressed to explain the new plan. "This isn’t a classic operation," says a U.S. military official. "It’s not going to be Black Hawk Down. There aren’t going to be doors kicked in." Other U.S. officials insist that doors are going to be kicked in, but that it’s going to be a kinder, gentler offensive than the disaster in Marja. "The Taliban have a jackboot on the city," says a military official. "We have to remove them, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t alienate the population." When Vice President Biden was briefed on the new plan in the Oval Office, insiders say he was shocked to see how much it mirrored the more gradual plan of counterterrorism that he advocated last fall. "This looks like CT-plus!" he said, according to U.S. officials familiar with the meeting.

Whatever the nature of the new plan, the delay underscores the fundamental flaws of counterinsurgency. After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there. Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. "Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem," says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. "A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we’re picking winners and losers" – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population. So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word "victory" when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible. Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge.

Inserted from <Rolling Stone>

I encourage you to read the article.  This is just a tiny part.  What it does, however, is demonstrate that McChrystal’s policy is failing.

Of course, we can depend on the GOP to blame Obama and the author, not the insubordinate general.

In response to General McChrystal’s seemingly insubordinate comments about President Obama, Vice President Biden and others, conservatives on the Hill are flirting with the idea of…getting McChrystal’s back. While almost no elected officials, save retiring Rep. David Obey (D-WI) are actively calling for McChrystal’s resignation, members of the GOP’s right flank are walking right up to the line of defending him.

"The thing that’s regrettable is that the whole thing with the magazine was released, because here’s a guy who’s undoubtedly the most qualified person to take on all these difficult things over in Afghanistan," Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) told reporters this afternoon. "It’s regrettable that it all happened through Rolling Stone, I think that’s the main problem there, and I still can’t figure out how that happened."

"I know him, I’ve been with him in the field, there’s no one as qualified as he is to run the show in Afghanistan," Inhofe added.

Over in the House, Minority Whip Eric Cantor chalked the whole thing up not to McChrystal’s questionable judgment as an officer serving under civilian rule, but to McChrystal’s (presumably understandable) frustration with the Obama administration… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

I can agree that McChrystal is frustrated, and I can understand that frustration.  One of the prime maxims of a counterinsurgency strategy is that maximum possible success is directly proportional to the quality and integrity of the government being supported.  In this case, that is the corrupt Unocal puppet that GW ChickenHawk installed, Hamid Karzai.  Supporting a government with scant quality and zero integrity, McChrystal never had a chance.  In this situation, he should have never pushed for a counterinsurgency strategy.

Here’s Keith Olbermann with a Special Comment:

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This is the first Special Comment of his I’ve seen, with which I do not completely agree.  I’m more inclined to think Obama should fire him, although the notion of sending McChrystal back, as a whipped dog, to oversee the immediate withdrawal of all troops does sound sweet, too.  Obama is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.  If he fires McChrystal, I expect McChrystal to be on the 2012 Republican ticket for President or VP.  If he keeps him, he will further alienate his base, and the GOP will call keeping him an admission of incompetence by Obama.  Also, I just don’t see how he can keep him without completely undermining the chain-of-command.

Obama’s mistake in all this was to appoint McChrystal at all.  Back on 10/7/2009, I was writing in the context of McChrystal trying to box Obama in by presenting his strategy in the UK, before even discussing it with Obama,  I was also discussing McChrystal’s role in covering up the death of Pat Tillman.  Because Tillman’s letters home had been critical of the war, I thought it possible Tillman may have been silenced to protect the image of a Bush/GOP poster child for war.  This is what I said:

I ask you this.  How can we depend on this man, given his recent track record, to tell Obama the truth?  Doesn’t his recent speech in the UK, trying to sell his plan, even before discussing it with Obama, reveal that he has an agenda of his own?  Do you share my fear that this man will commit war crimes on his own, and that Obama will be blamed for them?  Why is this man in command?

Was I right or was I right?

In conclusion, regardless what Obama does with McChrystal, it’s clear that the plan is not working.  As long as we’re supporting a corrupt GOP puppet, no plan will work.  It’s time to end the bleeding.