Posted by Tina
General Stanley McCrystal’s official statement following his resignation:
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment – and a desire to see the mission succeed – that I tendered my resignation. ** It has been my privilege and honor to lead our nation’s finest.
Newsbusters has a video interview with Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone talking about the McCrystal article on Al Jazeera – English:
Michael Hastings, author of the now-famous Rolling Stone magazine article “Runaway General” that captured several gotcha moments resulting in Obama relieving General Stanley McChrystal of his command, appeared on Al Jazeera English on June 23. He offered some startling insight into Obama’s failure to grasp what he was actually getting into with this Afghanistan strategy known as the counterinsurgency strategy. ** Hastings was asked if McChrystal had perhaps gotten the whole strategy wrong, but Hastings explained it was the President that didn’t know what he was really getting into. ** “I think that ship had sailed last year,” Hastings said. “I think once the decision was made to do a counterinsurgency strategy, they had a pretty clear idea in mind what they wanted to do and I think this is quite interesting. I think this is one of the issues Obama didn’t really understand what counter-insurgency meant and when the military said they wanted to do a counterinsurgency strategy that that actually meant 150,000 troops. Obama thought he could get away with just sending 21,000 over and getting a new general.” ** Later in the interview, Hastings accused Obama of not dedicating a lot of his time into putting the counterinsurgency strategy (or COIN) in place. Instead the Rolling Stone reporter said Obama was looking for a quick way to fill a campaign promise with roughly a seventh of the troops needed to successfully implement the strategy.
Interesting. Now Obama has chosen General David Petraeus, a man he grilled when Bush was president as he took the opportunity to blame Bush for what he considered a wrong mission. Funny, it’s the same kind of mission he’s now adopted (and apparently refused to adequately support with boots and cash) for Afghanistan.
The alphabet media deemed Obama’s choice of Petraeus as brilliant…no surprise there. The Genral is a fine choice.
I hope this event penetrates the Presidents ego a bit and he can learn something from the experience. The job he has taken on requires more of him than he has been willing to give thus far. What will he do when General Petraeus gives him his assessment of what it will take to win? Will the President continue with his nonchalant uninvolved stance or will he be bold and give our troops the support from the top that they both need and deserve?
The President has done what he had to do for now. The most we can say is it’s a start.