Should General McChrystal Stay or Go?

In a Rolling Stone's article, General McChrystal's aides let loose on Obama, Biden, and everybody who is anybody on Obama's national security team.  Its obvious that General McCrystal wanted his discontent and observations with the way in which this war is being handled leaked out to all the civilian mishandlers in Washington.  It seems to me that General McCrystal started out with high hopes for a turnaround in Afghanistan but soon realized that he was placed in an impossible situation that has ended up endangering our soldiers' lives all for the sake of fghting our enemy "fairly".  When has giving our enemy an unfair advantage ever been the same as fighting a war fairly?  When has forcing our soldiers to fight with one arm around their back ever produced a win in a war?  Never.  This article shows how the new rules of engagement are helping our enemy and harming our troops who are risking their lives overseas so that we may remain free.

'Young officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.” '

Here are a couple hghlights from the Rolling Stone's article:

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.



"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"


"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"


Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."


I think that McCrystal's resignation could be the proper outcome in this situation, especially since Obama acts like a whiny child when it comes to his being criticized in any way, and after this article I can't see Obama and General McCrystal working together comfortably and cohesively for the betterment of the Afghan War.  While some political pundits are asserting that General McCrystal's lapse in judgement rises to the level of Mac Arthur's insubordination Ken Allard gives some insight why appearances are deceiving.  But, we should take into account what is best to win the War in Afghanistan.