Ret. General: McChrystal should resign if denied troops
Retired Gen. Jack Keane told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that if he were Gen. Stanley McChrystal then he would resign if President Barack Obama doesn't fulfill the request for more troops.
Partial transcript:
KEANE: Well, I can't speak to what General McChrystal's reaction will be. I can say this, if you're a general on the ground and you believe that a recommendation you made is the winning recommendation in terms of strategy, that will accomplish the goals that you have been assigned, and then, you're told that you can't execute that and ask the troops to go out and do something else that you don't believe will accomplish those goals, that gets very difficult in terms of a morale dilemma -- asking your troops to do something that you believe will fail.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you resign?
KEANE: That would be up to him to face that. That's something personal for every general.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that what you would do under those circumstances?
KEANE: Yes. The fact of the matter is, the president has a right to make decisions. One of the recommendations they get are from generals. That's the reality. The president also has a right to take information from other sources to inform those decisions.
the Pentagon?
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
I do hope that Obama withholds the troops and the McChrystal quits.
The sooner it ends the better.
for insubordination when he spoke out in the first place.
McChrystal pulled a MacAurther with that one and deserved the same treatment.
resignbe fired for covering up the Tillman murder.me-oww!
McChrystal should've been fired a long time ago.
Hell, he should be investigated and prosecuted for his role in the Tillman affair. Keep in mind the bigger picture. The Tillman cover-up was used as propaganda against the U.S. citizenry in order to help Bush's re-election.
It's a disgrace that, despite McChrystal's involvement in the Tillman case, (1) he was promoted to General a few months ago, and (2) Obama appointed him Commander of NATO operations in Afghanistan shortly thereafter.
Outrageous.
after one leaves a gummint job. In fact I'm ALL for it. That way one isn't being paid while under investigation by the very people doing the investigating.
me-oww!
..so..if an officer(in this case a general) doesnt like the order he/she is given by his/her commander,then
he should quit ??
then what,after quitting ?
go on a book tour perhaps ... ?
become a Foxnews military analyst.
...anal-ize Limbaugh.
Resignation is an honorable response to an order that one considers impossible, either in military or private life. If he says he can't do it, then he most certainly can't; he should resign and open up his slot to someone perhaps more skilled... or perhaps force an appropriate re-consideration of the objective.
I can't believe he doesn't realize the implications his comments have...
Does he think a Lieutenant Colonel who gets overruled by a general on strategy during combat should resign immediately? Should a PFC resign immediately if his sergeant doesn't accept how he thinks a fire-fight should play out?
On other words, Retired Gen. Jack Keane thinks if General McChrystal doesn't get his way he should pull a "Palin", take his
ballgun and go home.That's heroic.
Like a hammer, the military is a (often overused) tool. That tool is to be used by the President under authorization of Congress.
To the military - everything is a nail.
Amazing on what kind of standards these generals appear to have. They won't speak to why they are okay with torture when so many of their superiors, fellows and ex fellows seem to disagree so vehemently.
This is another example that history will show us about the attempted coup by a minority. They know they are lost but for one desperate attempt. Be watchful. This man is bent, and he is defending a further bent fellow that has admitted to war crimes personally. What should that tell us about the medium and the messenger?
What is it with these retired generals doing interviews and speaking in such cavalier ways!
... and can say what they want.
If active duty military disagree they are welcome to do so thru channels.
This guy should never have been hired and should be fired. Or retire before he's fired.
It worked in Korea for Truman and it should work here in Afghanistan for Obama.
A lot of retired generals think escalation is a mistake.
These generals are what used to be called, in the Good Old Days, Treasonous. This particular goober, McChrystal, would not have DARED try such shenanigans under Cheney-Bush. He'd have been pushed out of a Small Plane.
Generals: just because Obama isn't unadulterated evil, doesn't mean he's a chump.
For goodness sake, Obama, get General Clark on the phone.
It's not treason. Treason is the only crime defined explicitly in the Constitution, and being insubordinate to the President does not qualify under that definition. Stop aping the fucking wingnuts.
Are we using Star Trek technology where we have 40,000 troops in cold storage on level ten of the Star Ship Enterprise and can thaw them out in a flash?
Where are thes 40,000 troops going to come from?
We can get them like that! Just increase the sign-up bonus by $10K.
on this debate about "listening to the generals". The President sets the policy. The general tells the president what he needs to accomplish the military objectives of that policy. McChrystal would only have a valid leg to stand on by resigning if he could not possibly hope to accomplish the military objectives that President has assigned him, with the resources (troops) he is being provided. Otherwise, he should shut up and go do his job.
pretty much NEVER listened to what the generals recommended. Except in those rare occasions where it matched the PNAC policy.
Didn't Rummy tout his wise wisdom that, "we go to war with the Army we have, not the Army we want" or some such? Get 'er done McChrystal with the Army you have or get out. Right?
End the wars, dismantle the CIA and the MIC, cut the
DefenseWar Budget by 90%.statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
give everyone in the military , the same option of resigning .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
Probably not as flattering as his opinion of General McFriendlyfire.
General Coverup McFriendlyfire
FIFY
me-oww!
The book Fiasco makes it abundantly clear that under orders from Rumsfield the generals planning the second Iraq war consistently went against SOP and guidelines for the number and types of troops and supporting personell. Also, one of Richard Clark's books makes the same case very forcefully. Yet none of the generals ever resigned over these examples of massive incompetence and decisions that clearly put troops at risk for political or other reasons.
Lindsay Graham said on MTP this morning that if Obama wants to earn his Nobel Peace Prize, he should send more troops. That is how warped these guys are. Here is the video.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=3105
It then becomes the only solution to any problem, according to them. What good is all of their training if they can't use it? This is the same question President Cheney and his pet monkey, Incurious George had when their regime was in power. What good is it to be Commander-in-Chief with all of those soldiers to play with if there isn't a good shoot-em-up going on? They both knew that Afghanistan wouldn't provide the kind of war they wanted, so, they got it in Iraq, It proved to be SO successful that the generals now want the same type of action in Afg. If they don't get it, then, their morale goes down and they want to quit. Troop morale? Well, it will be whatever the generals order it to be.
they STILL sent WAY less then 1/2 the troops that competent generals and military strategic teachings called for. In both cases I believe it was only something like 1/4 of the troops that the militray teaches would be necessary. But of course cheney/bush/rumdum could do no wrong.
I think Rumsfeld ordered less troops than needed because they knew that the US could never sustain the real cost for a sufficient number of troops. In other words, they knew the war was going to be long (i.e. never ending) so they had to drag it out as long as possible. I'm not sure they really care about "winning" so much as that they could maximize profits. I also don't doubt that they hoped it would break the US Treasury so that they could claim (and did claim) there was not enough money for domestic, social spending. I'm one of those who think Bushco got everything they wanted and more
"I think Rumsfeld ordered less troops than needed because they knew that the US could never sustain the real cost for a sufficient number"
You are giving him far too much credit. Read the book Fiasco. Rumsfield had two complimentary reasons for forcing a troop level which all military experts knew was doomed to fail:
1) He had a vision to "re-engineer" the military the way various management consulting firms had claimed to re-engineer huge corporations. I used to grimace when I heard Rummy talk. He used the same buzzwords and phrases that I and my colleagues used when we sold big projects to large corporations.
2) He and his neocon pals had visions for many more wars after Iraq. Iran to start with, then either Syria or Korea. This isn't speculation or conspiracy theory if you look in the docs for the Project for a New American Century they say as much. They knew that they could only launch all these wars if they could do it with a much leaner "re-engineered" military capable of doing much more with less than previous wars.
It's worse -- Rummy evidently believed his own bullshit about re-engineering the military to do more with less. Iraq was supposed to be the proof of his contention. Not so much, in practice.
I've never been in the military myself but I have worked with them quite a bit as an IT consultant. The stereotype of all military people as cigar chomping war mongers is not accurate. There are some like that but not all, not even most. The US military has often resisted sending this nation to war.
As far as your specific example you talk as if Cheney was a military man which he was not. He was a chicken hawk. He did everything he possibly could to avoid any kind of military service, especially service that would get him involved in the Vietnam war. When he took us to war the generals in the Pentagon were some of his strongest opposition. They had Standard Operating Procedures for how to do a war like Iraq. They knew how difficult it would be and that the hard part was not defeating the Iraqi army but occupying the country afterward. Cheney and Rumsfield had to replace several generals and browbeat others in order to get their insane war plan which was destined to fail put into action.
Keane has given McChrystal an out. He should take it and see where it leads him.
until after he's pouted, stamped his feet, held his breath and used a Vicks inhaler to make himself cry just like that patriot Glenn Beck.
/snark
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MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
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THERE'S A KILLIN' TO BE HAD AT MAKING WAR!
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
"...well, c'mon Wall Street, don't be slow,
man, this war's a-go-go,
there's plenty of money to be made
by supplyin' the Army with the tools of
it's trade,..."
Replace "Viet Nam" with "Afghanistan" and it's business as usual.
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Retired Gen. Jack Keane speaks for future Generals yet to come...
... But first you need a war to move them up the ranks, YES?
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
"...c'mon General, let's move fast,
your big chance has come at last.
Let's go out and kill those ragheads,*
'cause the only good Arab* is one that's dead.
You know that peace can only be won, if
we blow 'em all to Kingdom Come!"
*updated to reflect the current situation
First, Keane is not in the least credible and, second, McChrystal should resign because he is a criminal.
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Retired Gen. Jack Keane speaks for the weapons manufactures...
... Because you can't use your new bunker-buster during peace time!
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
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Retired Gen. Jack Keane speaks for the future soldier memorialized...
... Because without war, you can not morn their senseless loss!
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
"...Come on mothers throughout the land,
pack your boys of to Afghanistan.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
send your daughters before it's too late.
You can be the first one on your block
to have your kids come home in a box."
*updated for the new reality
Not playing "Devil's Advocate", and I understand that the Pentagon has an excellent propaganda department, but how is this general speaking out any different than the generals who publically spoke out about Rumsfeld?
Back in 2006, there was an article posted at AlterNet quoting seven high-ranking military men who where saying things like:
Back then I said apparently we abandoned the whole "the lowliest civilian outranks the most highly decorated general" thing.
So seriously, how is this different?
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
urging an incompetent civilian (Rumsfield) to resign is NOT the same as urging a General to disobey orders he doesn't like.
The interview I watched did not include 'urging a general to disobey orders', but rather that a General who believes that the orders he received were wrong, should resign.
Both situations involve the military questioning civilian authority.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
Resignation is not disobeying an order; it is a legitimate protest against an order one believes to be illegal or impossible.
if only the troops had the same option.
is apparently a brat who wants to kick and scream and hold his breath when he doesn't get his way.
He took an oath, it didn't go away when he was made a general.
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
His pension should be canceled and he should be jailed for treason for counseling another soldier to disobey the order of a superior officer simply because he doesn't agree with it.
again that you can't win this kind of war. Research the Maroon Wars. The wars went on for hundreds of years. Your have small numbers of fighters who belief in their cause in difficult terrain that can live off the land. You simple can't find them all and you can't kill them all. I don't believe that the Afghans are better soldiers. They are afraid of their women so they get no repect from me. But the circumstances are such that unless you are willing to exterminated them to a man you can't win. Offer them a peace treaty that says no El Queda and women get to go to school and they can have their Islamic state and we will leave them alone. They will take it.
Sit down, shut up, and obey your orders or GTFO of the military.
STFU! There's a comment for you...
Typing an insult is not a comment, but the last refuge of a person with nothing to contribute to the conversation.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
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Retired Gen. Jack Keane Says:
To date: Afghanistan has NOT been lead by a winning recommendation nor strategy. If it had, we wouldn't be here EIGHT YEARS ON debating which recommendation and strategy will succeed.
p.s.
Did Retired Gen. Jack Keane ever explain the difference between an ORDER and RECOMMENDATION?
Does Retired Gen. Jack Keane ever parse what he terms as success and failure?
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Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
And fire McChrystal. Honestly Obama is quickly proving the stereotype of Democrats that they have no spines. Firing McCrystal would go a long way into proving that Obama is not going to take shit from his underlings.
You Clown on the right have had since 1980 till this year to get it right (remember Charlie Wilson), you had that fool regean then daddy bush then the the Racist Nazi Christians with the War Criminals bush and the Gutless Spineless TRAITOR cheney all three Anti American all three TOTAL failures other than rewarding the failures of the defense industry with more contracts.
Look he tried a McCarthy and like the WACKO RIGHT FAILED, The General is appointed the PRESIDENT is ELECTED, not like the last dismal failure that was Corporate approved and Supreme Cort appointed and Ballot Box Fixed, The man you are serving under is your BOSS so if you and your right wing Racist Nazi, supporters. If the Failure and clowns on the right do not like it Leave you bogus inbred morons, you McChrystal should resign period as if I was still active you wouldn't even have cracked a sweat calling for my court Marshall for insubordination, so tell those Anti American party of NO Wackos to get lost.
Conscripting the rich would get the Military out so fast, heads would spin!
"Well, it's one, two, three, what'r we fightin' for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop Afghanistan.
And it's five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why, WHOOPEE!!
We're all gonna Die!
I can't help but wonder where all of the protesters are for this war? I guess, since there's no draft, the college kids don't have anything to protest against.
If you don't get your way, throw a fit and go home.
So retired General Jack Keane advocates that, as an Army flag officer, if you believe that your troops are being placed into an un-winnable situation by the Commander-in-Chief, you should abandon your troops on the battlefield and retire to go make the big bucks as a defense contractor or as a military "analyst" to the cable networks???
I bet there were a lot of soldiers who were glad to see this piece of s&#t retire...
McChrystal/USA/NATO-allies is attempting to enable civility in an uncivil/theocracy. President Obama wants to take out the fundamentalists, whom are not much different the the fundamentalist we have here. Why do you think Mush Limbaaaa stated... "We all agree with the Taliban and Iran". I see this as a challenging endeavor in a Sharia environment.
Sharia is the body of Islamic religious law. It is the legal framework within which the public and private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence and for Muslims living outside the domain.
Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia.
Atheist, Patrick Daniel Tillman (November 6, 1976 – April 22, 2004):
Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones revealed that in the days immediately following Tillman's death, U.S. Army investigators were aware that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, shot three times to the head. :-/ Who says... There are no Atheists-In-Foxholes?
PBS: As a general, as a military man, how do you fix that?
McChrystal: I think I don't fix it. I think I help the government of Afghanistan, and then the international community is helping them as well. First we provide the ability to help them have security, because you can't build governance until you have security. ... The people look for that, and they look for the things you associate with governance: rule of law; the ability to know that land that they own is not going to be taken away; the ability to get to market; all the enablers for economic progress. And then development comes [in] and helps support that.
[Religiously, Afghans are over 99% Muslims: approximately 74–80% Sunni and 19–25% Shi'a (estimates vary).]
Will the world retreat and let the incivility continue un-abated? I would like to see a fair effort with more assistance from our allies, but that's just not the case. Absent that, the task is despised by to many people for one reason or another, most whom I believe are operating from the heart instead of their head on the issue.
Relations between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran are very strong. The two nations share the same language and culture, and both countries are part of Greater Persia. Shiites and Sunnis get along well in Afghanistan which causes no religious tensions between the two nations. Iran is a consistent donor towards Afghan reconstruction.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
any military commander that finds he/she cannot carry out the mission directives/orders of the CINC should immediatly resign.
if they do not they should be sacked.
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