President Obama has fired the warrior’s warrior, in the mind of the Narcissus, he visualizes a great personal victory and assumes the rest of the world admires his triumph over an insubordinate General who was respected by his troops and feared by the enemy. Traits the self-conscious Narcissus, feels in his heart, are rightfully his.
Now with the symbolic head of the general in his left hand and the bloody symbolic sword of retribution and revenge in his right hand, Obama poses for the rest of the world, while silently intimating how he, Obama The Omnipotent, will deal with anyone with the audacity to let his staff mock the Obama Administration. Thus the Mighty will fall and the Giant Slayer is more than ready with summary justice to all who doubt or ridicule.
How easy it was for Obama to reclaim his perceived loss of honor, like Hot Spur’s hyperbole laden speech, in Henry IV, alluding to the acquisition of honor, Obama sees the firing of his General as necessary to maintain his personal allusions to honor and dignity.
By heaven methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac’d moon
Or dive to the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground
And pluck drowned honour by the locks
Thus Obama denies his arrogance and hubris, decapitates his popular General to recoup his pride by grasping for a solution rather than an analysis of the problem; consequently, the problem remains as a festering impaction, just beneath his overly thin skin, whose corruption will spill forth, one day, like the crude in the Gulf.
Obama will pose and employ his melodrama while maintaining a running diatribe of periphrasis, the common technique of semi-literate bureaucrats and officials who use pomp and verbosity mixed with circumlocution as a method to hide their deficiencies and pretend he made the correct decision only after deliberations and perspicuity that would have taxed Solomon’s great judgement. And while Obama tries to cast himself as the victim drowning in the grief and sorrow brought about by the cruel decisions fate requires of him, to feel justified in the ritual killing of a popular yet insubordinate General, peripeteia or reversal of fortune is waiting to start the inevitable fall from a position of prosperity to ruin and misery. Chaucer in the prologue to ‘The Monk’s Tale’ gives us a medieval view of the impending Obama Tragedy.
Tragedie is to seyn a certyn storie
As olde bookes maken us memorie
Of hym that stood in greet prosperitee
And is yfallen out of high degree
Into myserie, and endeth wretchedly
Now Obama is slowly evolving into the Machiavelian protagonist who embodies cruelty, lies, treachery, and the unscrupulous villain; and General McChrystal, whose only infraction was allowing his staff to express commonly held feelings that are held throughout the ranks of the non-political soldier, has become a cultural hero to the patriotic American. Because of his lies, arrogance, and deceit; Obama has compromised the shallow bond of trust he once had with the military; and now, our military goes through the motions of conducting a war against an undefined enemy that the White House insists does not exist for a Commander in Chief they no longer trust. While they wonder whether the United States will be strong enough to withstand the Tragedy of Obama.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
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If my understanding is correct, the diplomatic custom of killing the messenger is some 4,000 years old. Apparently there was a quarrel about trade between Egypt and the nation-state which then was found in modern-day Turkey. The rulers insulted one another with the vilest of remarks. So the messenger was executed.
Serious consideration of this policy ensued. When the death of the messenger became known, finding other persons to serve as messengers became exceedingly difficult. Volunteering for such a mission was agreeing to suicide. So the rules eventually got changed, leading to the modern idea of Diplomatic Immunity.
General McChrystal was the bearer of bad news. His subordinates determined themselves hamstrung by the inept bungling of the civilians who were “in charge” of the war. How did it come to be that military leaders no longer fight wars? When did we shift to a system in which unqualified civilians controlled the military? Since the days of Harry Truman, allowing civilians to make the decisions has led to disaster. Truman fired McArthur; the Korean War continues. Johnson fought the war in Vietnam, with the assistance of McNamara, and the war was lost. W allowed the military to fight the war in Iraq, which is now being won.
But now, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, President Narcissus (the most thin-skinned President EVER) has deemed the comments of the military staff to be insubordinate. Of course the remarks were insubordinate. The rules of engagement which require insurgents to be uniformed before they are fired upon is preposterous (the insurgents are not uniformed soldiers). The rules of engagement which prohibit return fire from occupied houses is preposterous (of course the insurgents are using human shields; in Wahabi Islam there are no civilians and any person who dies in such a firefight is a martyr to the cause).
The rules of engagement which prohibit any military activity which might cause harm to any civilians begs the question: how do you tell who is a civilian? We faced this problem in Vietnam and lost. Persons who were friendly and helpful during the day would turn up during the night carrying very sharp knives. The enemies of the American intervention in Afghanistan have profoundly sympathetic friends in the press; the main-stream media is full of persons seeking the next Pulitzer Prize for demonstrating that the United States is an Evil Oppressor.
The Military cannot build nations. Nations have to build themselves. The Military is only able to eliminate those who stop nation-building.
This war is lost. Obama will see to that.
Skookum if your reasoning had any validity Obama would have canned him after the first time he mouthed off. Obama gave him a second chance and he blew that one. McChrystal violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he was LUCKY his resignation was accepted, he was lucky he was brought before a court martial.
@Mr. Ryan
Obama has sacrificed a general who, at one time, supported him enough to give him his vote for president. The general was hand-picked by the Obama admin. to take over there. The left, including you, may see this as necessary costs of doing business, meaning do not criticize your boss or you get canned. We, on the conservative side of things, see this as a petulant action by the boss whose feelings are too fragile to take any criticism, thus he must get rid of the one making the critical statements. In other words, the general had the guts to tell Obama that he had no clothes on, yet Obama, rather than reflect on his choice of dress, mutes the one person telling him the truth about the situation. I suppose that you must think that a good business or government must be full of “yes” men in order to function properly. That could not be any more wrong than it is.
@ Skook,
Against what appears to be the common clamour of the MSM, I still maintain that Obama made the wrong decision. McChrystal was not “insubordinate” – he’s been doing his job in an impossible situation, and his troops were showing justified frustration in front of a reporter. He’s very simply a victim of the Commander In Chief insufferable ego, and the court jesters in the MSM call this evidence of narcissism “brilliant.” This is insane.
Have you noticed that there is a new verb that has joined the White House press corp’s lexicon?
Now the narcissistic leader “SUMMONS” people to the White House, whether they’re the head of BP, a General, . . . basically anyone coming anywhere near the Oval office is SUMMONED. Good Lord, . . . What a peculiarly pathetic, sycophantic term.
Medieval indeed, . . . well done Skook.
Skookum, if you are not making a ton of money as a writer, you are in the wrong business. You whip those posts out like nobody’s business.
By the way, did anyone see the article in the WashPO about the new financial bill coming around?
It mentioned a 600 trillion derivatives market. Does anyone know if that is accurate?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062500675_pf.html
@ jlfintx,
The actual global number of total derivatives is actually almost twice that.
The numbers are beyond understanding, in the sense that so much debt is way beyond the pale of any definition of common sense.
To put this mess (global love of debt) in perspective, the world’s GDP is about $70 trillion or so.
Barry, thou needst to go screw thyself.
I doubt if there are many career military officers who would condone such behavior, were it to occur anywhere below them in their own chain of command.
Obama did exactly as he should have done. It was what his position as Commander in Chief required of him. If you openly cross your superior you should expect to be summoned. Without firm and measured responses reasserting the primacy of the hierarchy of command authority, military order and the effectiveness of the entire military establishment will simply evaporate.
I’ve read that the only organization accurately tracking this is something called the Bank for International Settlements. As of May 2010, they put the size of the over the counter derivatives market at $615 trillion.
http://www.bis.org/press/p100511.htm
That area of trading is largely unregulated.
Greg – REf#8 – Ordinarily what you stated is correct. However, the military is operating in uncharted waters. This is the first time in history they have had to answer to a CIC who is also a traitor. Suggest the citizens of this nation address this problem, before they are forced to do it. Something about unlawful orders and domestic enemies.
In my humble opinion, General McChrystal will be judged a moral and honorable general for standing up to Obama’s incompetency and pathetic pretensions of leadership. Although the morale of our troops will suffer because of the absurd notion of a disinterested dilettante leading our nation, it is better for them to realize we have a fool and a fraud as a CinC that they are being asked to die for than allowing them to be maimed and killed under the absurd notion that there is competent leadership in Washington. General McChrystal has revealed the incompetency that is Obama and his administration; for that, fact we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Unfortunately, soldiers assume a war is won on the battlefield; however, for a war to be won it must be won on the battlefield and in the peace accord. (General Tzu Sun) To assume an affirmative action Community Organizer has the ability to conduct a peace is nothing but lunacy. McChrystal fell upon his sword to illustrate to America Obama’s incompetency.
McChrystal may well be moral and honorable. That’s not the issue. If he had serious issues concerning the conduct of the war he should have taken them to the Commander in Chief. If they couldn’t come to terms he should have resigned to make his point. That would have been proper conduct.
Oh yes… because as we’ve seen over the past long azz 18 months, this POTUS “listens” soooooooo well. /snark
He made Obama appear the ultimate fool by allowing his precious ego to be bruised and relieving America’s greatest living General to save face and made the opinions of his General’s Staff known to every semi-literate fool in the world. Obama handled the situation in a predictable manner and exposed his precious but vulnerable ego to all but the most simple minded ideologues of the world. McChrystal has exposed the shallow immature personality of Obama and the distancing of public figures from Obama has just begun; only the simple minded ideologues will choose to be associated with the worst President as a permanent record in history.
@ Skook,
On this subject, one of the elements we should be most anxious for real insight on, is why an intelligent and capable leader of men and women like McChrystal allowed Michael Hastings inside his inner circle for a month or so.
How did this really happen?
Obama used the “Civilian Control of the armed forces” excuse to get rid of McChrystal, when there was no reason to invoke his action, even if he was in his right to get rid of McChrystal.
Um, you need to re-check your history….Mac got canned for violating a Direct order,,,,, one that caused China to POUR red army soldiers into Korea, to the extent conventional warfare would be all but impossible for us to win. Harry didn’t want to start a NUKE conflict.. so we got what we got. Had Mac done what he was TOLD to do, things might have turned out different.. we’ll never know for sure now will we. The big Diff is, McChrystal didn’t disobey anything….. he just “dissed” a thin skinned guy, who doesn’t know what he’s doing anyway (be it right or wrong under UCMJ) …. in Contrast, HT did know, AND had the nads to do what needed doing at the time, Japan and Nukes made sense…. Korea and nukes did NOT! Readers Digest version….
I am hoping Petraeus will loosen the insane ROE restrictions on our soldiers.
McChrystal was so deep into his self delusion that he held the lives of our soldiers second to those of Afghanis. He was seriously disconnected from the reality our soldiers dealt with on a daily basis.
I see this as a little more complicated.
1. McChrystal screwed up. He allowed his staff to talk to a writer who was suspect. Dumb and dumber. If they can’t keep their mouths shut what else are they blabbing about?
2. Everybody in the military says any general above one star is a part time politician; some just aren’t good at it. Petraeus is.
3. Was somebody after McChrystal? No more than usual. Again, the reporter was an incoming round, McChrystal and his people didn’t duck. Maybe whoever sent him knew he weakness (talking too much) and just exploited it.
4. The whole effort was doomed from the start. McChrystal said he need “X” number of troops for this to work, unlike GWB, Obama sends him half. It’s over. I know this from my own experience in police work and running/participating in task forces. You need ten, the bosses give you four- even though they know better- and you still go out because you are a good officer. But you know you are doomed to failure. What you hope for is a break. If it doesn’t come, soon the backbiting starts and it had started.
5. The deaths being caused by the new ROEs was causing a steady bleeding of bad news. Emails, then anecdotal stories, then reporters filing articles all said the same thing “Obama’s leftist way of fighting is getting our sons killed.” Somebody had to pay for that little error.
6. As much as we all like and respect both generals, they are human and prone to error. First of all, thinking a “surge” will work in Afghanistan like it did in Iraq is silly. They are as different as night and day. It would be like saying the goal is to dig a trench. One place is a hard floored desert so you go and get a backhoe and you dig a great solid trench. But the other place is a Louisiana swamp. You can dig a trench, but the mud and water will flow right back in. What you need is to drain the swamp, dry it AND THEN dig the trench. A lot harder. Did the generals know this and that is why they asked for twice the troops than they got? Did the politicians- as we know mostly dumber than a bag of hammers- not get it and choose the cheaper, easy to sell to the voters option?
7. Could it be as simple as Afghanistan is a distraction to us and to Obama, and he is using it as such while he crushing our way of life here? Remember FDR, LBJ and Wilson. That would mean he gives a hoot less about that country or the young lives, on both sides, that are being lost. If so, and Petraeus knows that, he may be just working the politics in order to keep his soldiers as safe as possible. God knows, he has little to work with as far as the ethical qualities of either government go. Afghanistan’s government is corrupt and only looking out for number one. Our government is almost as bad, with its effort to steal the nation blind, cripple the economy and make Chavez absolutely blush with envy as it ignores the rule of law, decency and civil order.
In the middle of all of that stands that poor young soldier, taking fire and yelling to his Sgt. “Sarge, do we fire back or not? I almost got hit with that last volley!” That is the real tragedy. I can vote out the dumbasses in D.C. I can’t vote back to life a young American soldier.
I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think McChrystal wrote the rules of engagement. It is losing those young infantrymen through the stupidity of the rules of engagement that got to McChrystal, in my opinion. How can an honorable man face himself in the morning after losing our young soldiers because of handicapping them out of the political motives of the Won.
It is a stupid waste of life to fight a war with no intention of winning; of course, if your main ambition is to improve your golf game, it probably doesn’t concern you.
Skookum, the ISAF ROEs current directives (tho we don’t know the absolute specifics out of necessity) are “…are consistent with NATO publication MC 362/1 NATO Rules of Engagement.” McC’s predecessor, McKiernan, tightened up on the ROEs via NATO orders back in Dec 2009. McC tightened them further in July 2009 because of criticism of collateral damage.
Per a Congressional Research Service Dec 2009 release about NATO in Afghanistan, the UN Security Council governs NATO’s responsibilities in Afghanistan, and the ISAF is a NATO led force. NATO generally operates strategy by committee, and no single commander calls the shots. Therefore I have to assume that any ISAF ROEs are a product of NATO rules, tempered perhaps by any additional agreement with the Karzai government. However to lay them solely at the feet of McChystal is not entirely accurate.
UPDATE: In two places in the CRS document, they cite that the ROEs are written by NATO, and that many member forces have been putting pressure on the higher ups for more flexibility with them since Nov 2006.
Petraeus, knowing this is a serious bone of contention for many reasons, not the least of them being the ability to effectively wage war, has stated he will be reviewing the ROEs. The real question is, just how much power does a single commander have to overrule the NATO criteria, plus any side arrangement with Karzai. As I’ve said before, it remains to be seen how Petraeus will tackle McChrystal’s problem while under the same nanny int’l constraints.
Thank you, Mata, an excellent job of explaining a dubious situation. I am in a mining camp outside of Dawson City by about 30 milesF, along Hunker Creek, and reception is dubious. I will be staking claims today.
These rules of engagement seem the most dubious of all. In previous wars we targeted civilian populations; if we take the time to recall Nagasaki, Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, and Tokyo a certain number of civilian casualties will come to the forefront, actually it is doubtful whether there was a military objective in any of the above cities.
Now, we are so sterile and politically correct in our approach to war that we are willing to sacrifice our own sons and daughters to prove to the world how we are morally superior to our enemies. It is a form of political correctness that shows a false sense of morality to the world and allows those of us who exist in a fantasy world to live day to day thinking we are ethically and morally superior; while hiding the fact that war is all about killing your enemy, at least until he has had enough and surrenders.
Fighting wars managed by people who are horrified by the act of killing the enemy and who may be sympathetic to the enemy borders on lunacy; yet we are more than willing to waste our young people fighting under ridiculous politically correct notions of Rules of Engagement.
A true warrior, who balances the objective of the mission with the lives of his men, will have trouble justifying grinding up the best military in the world to appease corrupt politicians trying to score political advantage among those who consider winning a morale failure and who possibly don’t really want to defeat the enemy.
I think General McChrystal is probably the most moral of all the players in this game. The only way he could have accomplished his goal in a more obvious method of making a statement would have been to call Obama an idiot and an enemy to this country, and that may have hurt his country and our troops, thus it was not the best option for a gentleman and a warrior.
He let it happen and played his hand, knowing full well the implications.
Perhaps we should let politicians lead our troops overseas, politicians like Frank, Pelosi, or Obama; we could then have a much tighter control of the political correct Rules of Engagement and we could win wars correctly with complete idiots in charge or should we let professional generals conduct wars to win and accomplish our missions.
JR, it is impossible for me to research anything in this remote location, maintaining a feeble connection is nearly impossible except for a few minutes at a time. As I read earlier, McChrystal ad his staff was grounded in Europe by the volcano with the freelance writer that wrote the story. There was no covert action of the writer to gain their confidence, apparently there was friendship and camaraderie for an extended period of time.
McChrystal could have shut the situation down with a few words to his staff, but chose no to, I think this reluctance to control his staff was deliberate. It is ironic that a free lance writer chose Rolling Stone, perhaps the mag pays well for articles, but it is primarily a fan mag for those of us who put musicians on a pedestal. A sad bit of irony that the general’s staff expose their inner feelings toward the administration to one of the most rabid anti-military groups and one of the biggest lint brained supporting groups for Obama.
Having worked as a free lance writer, I personally would have chosen a Leftist mag with more clout and a bigger check book and I hopefully would have written an article more sympathetic to our fighting men and their objectives along with their frustration of the political machine that opposes them.
@Skookum:
Would the journalist have contracted with RS before he embedded or did he sell it to them after obtaining the information? Could it be possible that McChrystal and his men didn’t know RS would ever be involved?
Another interesting event, Michael Yon was booted from Afghanistan under McChrystal’s command and was reinstated and offered an embed the day he resigned. Hard to believe one had to do with another, but.
MATHMAN: no.1 it was realy a perfection. bye
Missy: Excellent questions, I think in traditional terms. It seems unlikely that a free lance writer could anticipate such a ‘scoop’; but in this bizarre world of Obama we only ask for problems if we think in traditional terms. I am up here in the Yukon and I am fortunate to maintain a connection long enough to type a comment, let alone research a topic; but you are a pretty dog gone good sleuth! Let me know if you find any revealing facts. Skook.