What Should Happen to General McChrystal?

@CarbonSystem,

Anyone in such a position would have that, and the system perpetuates it, as nearly everyone with whom he comes into contact defers to him. However, there have rarely been egos as expansive as that which characterized Douglas MacArthur. His father, Arthur MacArthur, was a genuine hero of the Civil War, the "Boy Colonel" who planted his regiment's colors at the top of Missionary Ridge, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and only the third man in the history of the United States to be promoted Lieutenant General, after Washington and Grant. Immediately after his graduation from West Point, Douglas was sent out to the Philippines, and then was sent on an Asian tour with his father, the General. His mother had equally loft opinions of her husband's worth, her own worth, and her son's worth. And that was just the start of his career.

It would be pretty hard to find any ego as large as that of Douglas MacArthur.

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@CarbonSystem,

I simply don't agree--you seem not to be well informed about the situation with which he had to deal.

1 Reply

@LionTamerX,

LionTamerX wrote:

Do you think McChrystal is a momma's boy like Mac Arthur was ?

I don't know, i don't know anything about his personal life. I think Doug was a "Momma's boy" because of the strength of his mother's personality. When Doug was in Washington, doing administrative work in 1917, Mom went over to Pershing's house and demanded to know why her son wasn't being given greater responsibilities, in the zone of the war. Pershing backed down, too. Ma MacArthur was a force of nature.

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@georgeob1,

In The World Crisis, about the First World War (and much, much more), Churchill makes a similar point. In the microcosm, he describes the unwillingness of cruiser commanders to hunt down and engage the German cruisers which entered the Sea of Marmara and then served in the Black Sea, in the very first week of the war. He makes the point again about the unwillingness of the Anglo-French fleet to engage the Turkish forts in the Sea of Marmara in the run up to the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. He points out that the worst thing a peacetime naval commander can do is damage his ship, and his career is over if he loses it. Then when war comes, duty obliges him not only to take it in harm's way, but even to knowingly risk it's loss if that is what the service demands. Many, many commanders simply can't deal with that.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I simply don't agree--you seem not to be well informed about the situation with which he had to deal.

Can you be more specific of which post you're replying to?

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@CarbonSystem,

If it was mcchrystal being incompetant and his strategy being a failure:

Then disagree all you want. I, however, am very well informed about the situation. I'm certain of that. Unless you have a handful of close friends who have been there, done that, and come back to tell me about it, then don't try and tell me about being 'not well informed'.

I consider progress actions that result in positive consequences. So far I haven't seen any substantial evidence of such.

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@CarbonSystem,

Quote:

If it was mcchrystal being incompetant and his strategy being a failure:

he had been in the job only 1 year, and much of that time was spent reformatting the effort. It is too soon to know if the current battle plan will work, it is too soon to know if any plan can work, you can't lay the current situation on the ground on McChrystal.

The plan is behind schedule, and some (many?) soldiers dont like the rules of engagement that McChrystal ordered, that is all we know at this point.

1 Reply

@snood,

Snood wrote:

He is in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and has committed an offense that is clearly punishable. The text of Article 88 states that

“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

What contemptuous words did he say about the president?

It is Obama's prerogative to fire McCrystal for compromising his policies. Obama is, after all, McCrystal's boss. But disagreement alone does not constitute contempt. McCrystal has a right to disagree with the president.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

McCrystal has a right to disagree with the president

He does not however have the right to voice that disagreement either below him in the chain of command, nor outside of it. He also does not have the right to establish a command climate where his staff feels free to speak to outsiders in a way critical of the President.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
McCrystal has a right to disagree with the president
He does not however have the right to voice that disagreement either below him in the chain of command, nor outside of it. He also does not have the right to establish a command climate where his staff feels free to speak to outsiders in a way critical of the President.

Says who?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

Says who?

Article 88 of the UCMJ (Uniformed Code of Military Justice)

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@Thomas,

didn't gen. mcchrystal RESIGN - rather than being dismissed ?
( perhaps it was suggested to mcchrystal that resigning was the appropriate thing to do - but he did resign a/t the official transcript ) .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-rose-garden

Quote:

Today I accepted General Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

mcc still has his rank and and is still on the payroll , i understand .

perhaps that's just playing with words and meanings - but that is an important part of issuing statements - isn't it ?

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I guess I was wondering if this was sort of an an act of civil disobedience by this fellla, that is he chose to speak out publicly

That's another question this case raises: Did he speak out publically? From reading the Rolling Stone article, my impression is that the Pentagon invited the reporters to follow McCrystal and his staff around as the officers went about their daily business of managing the war in Afghanistan. Because the officers are not in public as far as they are concerned, they talk with each frankly, just as they would if the journalists weren't there. So if the Rolling Stone then prints what the journalists heard, is that tantamount to McCrystal writing the article? Is it comparable to him stepping on a soap box and saying: "Vice President Bidan---who the hell is that guy?"

If the White House doesn't like the transparency of embedding journalists with the military, stop embedding them and give press conferences instead. If the White House does like that kind of transparency, and the authenticity the embedding produces, it shouldn't complain if what the journalists report is authentic, rather than marketing propaganda. Either way, I'm not buying that McCrystal disparaged Obama in public---let alone that he did anything illegal.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

let alone that he did anything illegal.

do you think that you have the factual knowledge of American Military Law sufficient to make that statement??

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hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Says who?

Article 88 of the UCMJ (Uniformed Code of Military Justice)

No it doesn't. Article 88 of the UMCJ only prohibits contempt. Disagreement and criticism are not contempt.

In Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Congress wrote:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

I am not a lawyer. But judged as a matter of common reading comprehension, this is a regulation of style, not content. Article 88 says nothing about disagreement. And it most certainly doesn't prohibit that he "voice that disagreement either below him in the chain of command, nor outside of it." Article 88 also doesn't say antying that even approaches your statement: "He also does not have the right to establish a command climate where his staff feels free to speak to outsiders in a way critical of the President." That's a part you just made up. (And by the way, it's the "Uniform Code of Military Justice". The Code doesn't wear a uniform; it's just the same (i.e. uniform) across the entire US military.)

Hamburgboy wrote:

didn't gen. mcchrystal RESIGN - rather than being dismissed ?

He did indeed. I was responding directly to Snood's initial post; McCrystal's future was still an open question when Snood posted that.

hawkeye10 wrote:

do you think that you have the factual knowledge of American Military Law sufficient to make that statement??

In this case, yes. All the knowledge I needed was easily acquired by reading the one paragraph that makes up UCMJ, article 88. And article 88 was the only law that McCrystal was alleged to have broken.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

In this case, yes. All the knowledge I needed was easily acquired by reading the one paragraph that makes up UCMJ, article 88. And article 88 was the only law that McCrystal was alleged to have broken.

The President and nearly everyone else has made the connection between standards for behaviour as outlined in article 88 and the responsibility that McChrystal had to set a good example and to set the proper command climate of respect for civilian rule over the military. I dont see anyone agreeing with you that McChrystal was free do so what he did. ADM Mullen for instance said that he was nearly sick when he read the Rolling Stone piece, the comments attributed to McChrystal and his staff being so far beyond the pale.

Edit: so far as I am aware McChrystal himself has made zero effort to defend his actions. He has said that he was wrong, and that he was sorry for his mistake.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

The President and nearly everyone else has made the connection between standards for behaviour as outlined in article 88 and the responsibility that McChrystal had to set a good example and to set the proper command climate of respect for civilian rule over the military.

Has he? I thought McCrystal offered his resignation, and Obama merely accepted.

hawkeye10 wrote:

I dont see anyone agreeing with you that McChrystal was free do so what he did.

That wasn't the question we just discussed. The question was whether McCrystal broke the law.

hawkeye10 wrote:

ADM Mullen for instance said that he was nearly sick when he read the Rolling Stone piece, the comments attributed to McChrystal and his staff being so far beyond the pale.

So what? It isn't against the law to sicken Admiral Mullen.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I dont see anyone agreeing with you that McChrystal was free do so what he did.

I agree with Thomas on this point. I'm glad he spoke his mind.

I'm also not surprised that he's caught a lot of **** for it. And if Obama wants to can him for it, then I'm not surprised about that either.

If legal action is taken against him, then my opinion on the matter may change.

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@maporsche,

Quote:

I agree with Thomas on this point. I'm glad he spoke his mind.

I need to know the motivation before I decide. The top three choices are:

1) he is a political idiot

2) he wanted to shake things up because as it now stands the situation is hopeless

3) he wanted out, to be replaced.

Only number 2 is defensible in any way.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
If it was mcchrystal being incompetant and his strategy being a failure:

he had been in the job only 1 year, and much of that time was spent reformatting the effort. It is too soon to know if the current battle plan will work, it is too soon to know if any plan can work, you can't lay the current situation on the ground on McChrystal.

The plan is behind schedule, and some (many?) soldiers dont like the rules of engagement that McChrystal ordered, that is all we know at this point.

We do know the situation didn't improve in his one year. We do know the afghan people were disliking americans more and more, the exact opposite of what his plan was supposed to do.

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What Should Happen to General McChrystal?

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