Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sacked
In the US military, one of the surest ways of getting knee-deep in trouble is to publicly criticize your chain of command. So it probably shouldn't be surprising that General Stanley McChrystal has been relieved of his command over US forces in Afghanistan following the criticisms he and his staffers made of Vice President Biden, Karl Eikenberry, and National Security Adviser James Jones to a reporter for Rolling Stone. Yet the incident underscores what I've long perceived as President Obama's ignorance and indifference towards military affairs.
Very rarely during US military history has a president relieved the commander of US forces in the middle of a large offensive. Yet that's exactly what has happened with General McChrystal and President Obama, in spite of the offensive in Marja and the impending offensive in Kandahar. President Lincoln changed commanders several times during the civil war because of a stagnant and failing war strategy. President Truman relieved General MacArthur in Korea, because MacArthur took the extreme step of calling for nuclear escalation against Communist China in what was supposed to be a "UN Police Action." Should US forces in Afghanistan have to pay the price because their commander and his aides had the gall to refer to "Vice President Bite-Me?"
Maybe there are legitimate reasons to change commanders at this difficult stage in America's toughest war. General McChrystal has recently drawn the ire of former green beret and embedded reported Michael Yon (a true straight-shooter who tells what the soldiers are seeing on the front lines, without a partisan axe to grind.) McChrystal's restrictive rules of engagement didn't win him much love amongst the troops. It's a difficult but necessary task in counterinsurgency warfare to tell soldiers they have to put themselves at increased risk in the name of intangible goals like "winning hearts and minds." Still, the leadership shuffle has everything to do with insubordination, and no bearing whatsoever on a detached commander-in-chief's perspective on a war he never wanted to fight. Whoever leads US forces in Afghanistan will have to face a futile timetable that calls for success by mid-2011 before Obama's phased withdrawal begins.
There is never an easy way to change combatant commanders in the middle of a fight. Even for General David Petraeus, the change in leadership represents time lost. It leads to additional chaos and confusion on the battlefield which get people killed. We really should question the judgement of President Obama if he should punish a general officer during the middle of a war over an issue of petty name-calling. There is an appropriate time for punishments after the general has returned from theater, his tour of duty complete. But my fear is that the soldiers under McChrystal will pay a far heavier price in blood for their commander-in-chief's wounded pride.
