Thank the Lord for our First Amendment right to say any damned thing we want about our government and our politicians. And thank the Lord for people clever enough to come up with signs like this one.
Browsing Posts in Politics
The hen pecked POTUS showed us his stones yesterday by dumping GEN McChrystal. And don’t get me wrong on this, I agree the General had to be fired. There was no way around that one. You can’t be a general and allow your staff’s (and your own) feelings to become a matter of public record. That’s not how the game is played. McChrystal knew that.
Bottom line: He was running a bluff and it got called.
We all swear an oath to defend the Constitution and the United States against all threats both foreign and domestic. If you’re willing to agree the Taliban is a threat to the Constitution and the United States then the guy best suited for stopping them was put out on the street. Obama is an uncanny campaigner and could get himself elected Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan if he tried, but he’s a lousy leader.
See, this has been coming for a while now. McChrystal forced POTUS to send more troops to Afghanistan last year by leaking his request. Something politicos do all the time in the Beltway. Obama didn’t understand how treat that action as a military problem so he dealt with it as McChrystal knew he would, by treating it as a political issue. POTUS compromised and gave the Commander 75% of what he’d asked for.
McChrystal 1 – POTUS 0.
So when the General needed more time, and honestly more troops, he went on the record again. But POTUS ain’t politically dumb. He recognized the gambit and threw his Ace of Spades on the table. He fired his General. And he was Obama’s General.
MCChrystal 1 – POTUS 1.
Now we get to see who the real winner is going to be. Obama has demoted GEN Petraeus from the head job at Central Command to be in charge of ISAF. No amount of spin can cover up this being a step backwards for Petraeus. And no amount of spin can hide that Afghanistan is not Iraq. There is no one sector of the country that you can pile troops into and get results. Afghanistan has been in one war or another for the past 40 years. Hearts and minds will not be won by next summer’s deadline to withdraw. Our grandkids are going to be building schools and digging wells in Afghanistan.
So now we wait and see. Can GEN Petraeus make our longest war more palatable? Or will his career and reputation fall apart because POTUS still doesn’t see the big picture?
TC
Why am I in Iraq? Because this guy deserves a chance to grow up safe and free like we did.
Is there any better reason for a man to do a thing?
