Shut up and Salute?
At what point does a general, trained to shut up and salute the commander-in-chief, decide to take matter into his own hands? At the point where men and women are dying and the White House is not taking the mission seriously.
I happen to agree with the Washington Post’s columnist Eugene Robinson, who asserted in an article entitled, “Out of line on Afghanistan” that the generals responsibility is to shut up and salute.
However, Gen. McChrystal’s deep frustration over the actions of the president became evidently clear in his appearance on 60 Minutes. I determined that he was very upset with the president by the blunt way in which he said he only spoke to the president once. He could have said that he and the president are in contact without exactness. But to detail the exact amount of time that he spoke with the president, which was only once, knowing it would not look good for the president who had handpicked him to execute the mission, speak volumes. Let me tell you what I heard; I heard a general who is tired of shutting up and saluting while the men and women who are his responsibility are dying.
It seems to me that the general was simply shutting up and saluting the president who had picked him and outlined a mission for him in March. Realizing that his men were dying and the president was not responding, he decided to take matters into his own hands– at least that is what I believe.
When the report requesting more troops was leaked, there was a lot of hand wringing to ascertain who could have leaked it and why. I submit– without evidence, but with a gut feeling—that McChrystal may have had something to do with leaking that report. I believe he wanted to offer the American people some transparency on the unfortunate circumstances facing his men and women as they executed the president’s mission.
I believe McCrystal, like many of us, realize that the president was punting his decision on Afghanistan while Americans were dying. The president knew the left wing of his party would want nothing to do with the war but his hope was to present the health-care reform bill to quell their frustration. Since healthcare was not passed, the president found himself between a rock and a hard place.
The president obviously wants to send more troops in, but he preferred doing so with health-care reform in the bag. That equation is what left McCrystal and his men out to dry. With the new announcement that the president has won the Noble Peace Prize, it only adds fuel to the fire in his decision to send more troops.
Therefore, when we consider McChrystal’s dilemma through the above perspective, it is difficult to insist that he should have shut up and salute. A war of necessity cannot be fought with limited resources. A president that promised change cannot be controlled by the neo-left as the previous administration was by the neo-cons. Our men and women need change they can believe in and when their commander is not comfortable with what he sees from the top, he—McChrystal– has a duty to speak up and speak out for his men and women.
Tags: Afghan war, Afghanistan, Eugene Robinson, Gen McChrystal, war, Washington Post
