America's Top Commander Exposes Obama Administration Incompetence; Walks It Back

[Lemur]

So it has nothing to do with the "paramount virtue" of civilian control of the military.

I think part of the point of civilian control of the armed forces and UCMJ Article 88 is to tamp down on a human being's natural tendency to kvetch and whinge about the boss-man. It becomes political very, very quickly, as PJ and Rolling Stone have demonstrated.

Meanwhile, our man in Kabul wants the General to stay on:

Afghanistan's president believes that U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is the "best commander" of the nearly 9-year-old war and hopes that President Barack Obama doesn't decide to replace him, the Afghan leader's spokesman said Tuesday. [...]

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the Afghan leader thinks McChrystal "is a person of great integrity," who has a very good understanding of the Afghan people and the Afghan culture. [...]

Karzai's half-brother, believed among the most powerful figures in southern Afghanistan, also threw his support to McChrystal.

"He is the first good thing to happen to Afghanistan," Ahmad Wali Karzai told The Associated Press. "He is active. He is honest. He does a good job, a lot of positive things have happened since he has come."

[Vladimir]

"He is the first good thing to happen to Afghanistan," Ahmad Wali Karzai told The Associated Press. "He is active. He is honest. He does a good job, a lot of positive things have happened since he has come."[/indent]

Which is why I hope this (heartbreaking) issue doesn't combine with footballgate to get him relieved. This reminds me of when Soviet intelligence officers would get summoned to Moscow.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think Kukrikhan's wording -- referring to him as "Mac" -- will be an accurate prediction. As did Truman, so will Obama.

His comments, at least once made public, put him clearly in contravention of the UCMJ. Since he apparently didn't intend for those comments to become public (media saavy -- NOT!), I do not believe that a court would cashier him or jail him over it, but he's clearly broken the rules. I suspect that Obama will ask him (formally or informally, I do not know) to strike his flag and retire.

Obama is the Commander in Chief. The only thing outranking that is the collective will of the people of the USA -- and it is a rare thing for that will to be employed outside an election.

PJ, your 53% quip in the OP was inaccurate. 53% voted for him to lead us, they did not vote for him to fight the war on terror on three fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan, Home) and a recession per se. If you had polled those who voted for him on those issues at the time, I think you'd have found that a hefty portion of his supporters didn't want him to FIGHT in Iraq or Afghanistan at all, but would have preferred a sauve qui peut.