UPDATE: McCrystal has been relieved of command.
As President Barack Obama prepares to meet with General Stanley McChrystal, it’s worth noting the circumstances surrounding one of the most ridiculous acts of insubordination–and abject stupidity– ever exhibited by a commander during wartime operations. The General’s behavior makes his staying aboard a toxic deterrent to the overall success in Afghanistan.
McChrystal’s problems did not begin with his flippant attitudes toward leadership. The General’s back story includes not only a remarkable ascent to leadership in the Afghani theater, but the unremarkable dark chapter that is the Pat Tillman cover-up. McChrystal’s leadership during that time period remains under a cloud of suspicion, and it has sullied his previously iron-clad reputation. From Jon Krakauer:
McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan during Army Ranger (and former football star) Pat Tillman’s death. McChrystal was the one who approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that he had died in fratricide and not, as originally determined, enemy fire.
This was once a big embarrassment for the army and, to a lesser extent, McChrystal himself (though he has copped to making an innocent mistake). But when the general was elevated to top spot in Afghanistan this past spring, relatively few publications revisited the affair.
In an even more eerie twist, Pat Tillman’s mother wrote a letter to the Obama administration and members of congress, when she heard of McChrystal’s impending appointment to the top spot in Afghanistan. Mrs. Tillman called the lack of deliberation about the General’s promotion “disgusting.”
The president’s decision on the fate of McChrystal casts the entire Afghan campaign in doubt. As the troop surge falters, and the direction of the war remains in doubt, dismissing the top commander at such a difficult stage is risky at best and dangerous at worst. McChrystal’s new found propensity for honesty is leaving the administration with a no solid options. However if the general believes he has no true support from civilian leadership, then the prudent move would be to remove him.
Nowhere is the chain of command more important than in the military. It is the absolute difference between life and death. Obama would be best served exhibiting real leadership here– strengthening that chain of command– and instilling some sense of direction and authority back into the minds of troops who are desperately reaching out for it. The armed forces and this campaign cannot abide such a deeply split military-civilian power structure.
Update II: President Obama will speak on the McChrystal situation at 1:30 PM EST today.
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