McChrystal most likely on the way out..

[August]

Originally Posted by krashkart

Heh. I didn't know that about Abe. Or maybe I did and simply forgot. How big of a role did Lincoln play in the Civil War, as far as deciding where and how to employ the military?

He left most of it to the Generals and his secretary of war just like every other successful wartime president.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by August

He left most of it to the Generals and his secretary of war just like every other successful wartime president.

Rgr

[Zachstar]

There is a VAST VAST VAST difference between whistleblowing and mocking a superior.

First of all whistle blowing is usually done with name off the record. And evidence slowly provided to blow the cover once and for all. Whistleblowers want the activity stopped and not articles in a paper glorifying them.

Mocking a superior openly is arrogant and serves no real purpose other than to create a firestorm and destroy morale. Well that and try to end up an "adviser" to Fox or MSNBC...

The "Fired for speaking his mind" argument is completely bunk.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by krashkart

Yeah, sums it up pretty well indeed. That little snippet from the article joggled me a bit: pretty good evidence that politicians have no business conducting warfare... as if the conflict in SEA wasn't proof enough already.

They have no special business in war indeed, for them it is just like any other part of the daily routine of theirs. The fundamental difference between a state of peace and a state of war is something that they are not really aware of, since they tend to translate everything into terms that they could grasp with their schemes of political, bureaucratic, PR daily work. That leads next to so serious distortions like trying to judge military needs by standards of peacetime, since war for them is just another aggregate phase of "peace".

That necessarily must end in foul compromises that then get sold as "success" by the PR experts that excel in spelling failure as victory and explain that by adding that precious special chnage of perspective to the story that before was sold as unshakable determination and non-negotiable demands. I totally object to that. Peace has it'S set of moral values and categories, and war has a cojmpeltely different one, dicated by very different needs and demands. messing both sets up means to mess up either "peace" (it'S possible freedom gets turned into a dictatorship), or "war " (by fighting it in an undetemrined, half-hearted way that makes sure that the objectives do not get acchieved while the enemy, if he does not make the same mistake, enforces his own objectives instead).

Platapus asked the right questions about Afghanistan. If you try to find answers to them, you realise soon how very much confused and disconnected from reality Western thinking about Afghanistan is.

Trapped in the Afghan maze.

Originally Posted by Platapus

My trade off is to get the hell out of AF!

What exactly is the mission in AF?

Kill UBL?
Exterminate the Taliban?
Contain the Taliban?
Convert the Taliban?
Bring "Democracy" to AF?
Drive Al Qaeda out of AF?
Destroy Al Qaeda?
Bring "peace" to AF?
Secure the Southern Pipeline?

What exactly is "victory" in AF? I wanted to ask Bush this question and I would like to ask Obama this question.

The thing is, they still don't think they have to define the goal of the war. The war IS the goal. After a decade of war it is kind of strange that there really is no clear goal outside the war itself, isn't it?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by krashkart

Isn't it already a requirement that a candidate must have served in the military at some point? Or did that all change?

There has never been a requirement for a candidate for the office of President to have served in the military. Nothing has changed.

Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5 of the Constitution lists all the qualifications to be President. No mention of any military service.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

The thing is, they still don't think they have to define the goal of the war. The war IS the goal. After a decade of war it is kind of strange that there really is no clear goal outside the war itself, isn't it?

As far as I knew, before I gave up really caring about the war, the goal was to kill Bin Laden. At the time I think that was what a lot of Americans wanted (correct me if I'm wrong here, mates). He managed to slip away and since then there has been absolutely no goal that we can understand. What the Washington boneheads want out of the whole ordeal is certainly not being reported to us, and we are left with little more than to debate the possibilities.

Originally Posted by Platapus

There has never been a requirement for a candidate for the office of President to have served in the military. Nothing has changed.

Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5 of the Constitution lists all the qualifications to be President. No mention of any military service.

Ah great, thank you for clearing that up, Platapus. For some reason I thought there was a requirement. I should read up more.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Now the goal seems to be (from what I gather) mostly cleaning up and trying to get things running before we leave. But that's just from what I know, which is even less than what I know about nuclear reactors. Maybe someone more knowledgeable and with more experience can correct me...

[SteamWake]

Whatever the goal is (which is sad that they dont have a clear cut goal) things are not going well.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100624...20100624111912

[Zachstar]

Time to get more drones in there then...

[SteamWake]

Oh lord you cant make this stuff up...

As the media gushes over what a brilliant appointment Patreous (a bush appointee) was...

Taliban endorses General Petraeus, say new US Afghanistan war chief 'not smarter' than McChrystal

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...smarter_t.html

[SteamWake]

One more bump with a little humor

[gimpy117]

He got the can because you don't hold such a high rank and publicly criticize the Commander and Chief. When you reach such a high level you are held to a higher standard. A normal grunt may get a talking to...but a general? that's obviously a HUGE no-no.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

He got the can because you don't hold such a high rank and publicly criticize the Commander and Chief. When you reach such a high level you are held to a higher standard. A normal grunt may get a talking to...but a general? that's obviously a HUGE no-no.

Once again he resigned.

Rumor has it he couldent keep from laughing while doing so.

[August]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Once again he resigned.

Rumor has it he couldent keep from laughing while doing so.

Well of course he resigned. Obama as the CiC could have convened a Courts Martial against him for insubordination and he would have had a case too.

Accepting his resignation allows McChrystal to keep his rank and retirement pay. It what is always done in such situations. Take Truman/MacArthur for example.