Gen. Stanley McChrystall, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is suffering from the same foot-in-mouth disease as Rep. Joe Barton. While Barton will remain in Congress and retain his committee posts, McChristal could be destined for an early military retirement. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the good general appears in the White House situation room to face the president and the joint chiefs of staff. CAREER KAPUT.
This morning on the Today show, Dan Goure, Vice-President of the conservative Lexington Institute, told Matt Lauer that "What you are seeing in the McChrystal behavior and his staff is a broken command structure from the top. This is a President who has a dysfunctional organization running his war. It’s not a "Team of Rivals," it’s a team of 9-year-olds, and something needs to be done about that – not just Stanley McChrystal."
Whatever happens to Gen. McChrystal, his remarks and those of his aides strongly indicate that the military holds Obama and his national security team in contempt.
Here are some highlights from the Telegraph:
In THE RUNAWAY GENERAL, a profile in the magazine Rolling Stone, no-nonsense Gen. McChrystal is described as being 'disappointed' in his first Oval Office meeting with Mr Obama, noting the president looked 'uncomfortable and intimidated' by a roomful of military personnel.
McChrystal also joked sarcastically about preparing to answer a question, referring to Joe Biden, the Vice President, known as a sceptic of the commander's war strategy, and imagined ways of "dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner."
"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" Gen McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?" the article quotes him as saying.
"Biden?' suggests a top adviser. 'Did you say: Bite Me?"
McChrystal also told the magazine that he felt "betrayed" by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in a White House debate over war strategy last year.
McChrystal also derides the hard-charging top US envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke.
"Oh, not another email from Holbrooke," Gen McChrystal said, looking at his messages on a mobile phone. "I don't even want to open it."
And an unnamed McChrystal adviser says in the article that the general came away unimpressed after meeting with Barack Obama in the Oval Office a year ago.
"It was a 10-minute photo op. Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was ... he didn't seem very engaged," the adviser said.
His aides are portrayed as intensely loyal to Gen McChrystal while dismissive of the White House and those who question their commander's approach.
One aide calls the national security adviser, Jim Jones, a retired general, a "clown" who is "stuck in 1985."
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