On 7/10/2010 6:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
wrote in message
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"Don wrote in message
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The General and the Community Organizer

by Paul R. Hollrah
June 24, 2010

snip

The article presented the ROE as representing McChrystal's philosophy of
winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan population. Also, I smell BS
here since we are still using drones to kill people, that is not
consistent with the rules as explained in this article. WRT the number of
troops deployed, GWB wasn't supporting the Afghanistan effort either. I
think McChrystal's bailing out was more than about Obama, he could see
that the whole effort was bound for failure.


McChrystal didn't "bail out." His wife said he is devastated. He just
screwed up, big-time, and he knows it. So do most of the high-level military
officers who have been asked about it.

The article is a pile of home-brewed fluff.



I say a look at the evidence shows pretty much what is the truth here.
McChrystal was the guy who was behind the cover up of the Pat Tillman
friendly fire incident, where instead of owning up to his death by
friendly fire they tried to make him out to be a hero killed by the
enemy. I say that shows he's not afraid to lie. Then he blabs like an
idiot all his complaints about the civilian leadership to a reporter.
That's just plain stupid. So going by those moves he's shown to be
stupid and a liar. That's just the fact. So it seems credible that
McChrystal did himself in and not on purpose. He didn't go out the way a
general would want to.

Then you have the problem of the ROE. The military strategy is not to
defeat the Taliban like you would a normal army. Everybody knows we
don't have the army to do that. That's why we are using the COIN Counter
Insurgency strategy instead. A key part of that strategy is to win over
the civilian population and by doing so deprive the Taliban from having
them helping them. The most important part of winning over the civilians
is to be sure not to kill them. If we took a lax standard for civilian
deaths it would be counter productive to our COIN strategy to win the
war. So by the design of Petraeus and McChrystal strict rules of
engagement are required so as not to drive the civilians over to the
Taliban. Blaming those rules of engagement on tying the hands of the
troops is a lot of hogwash. The troops always want to shoot first and
ask questions later. If we let them do that it defeats our COIN plan. So
when you add it all up it's clear that it wasn't the ROE or the fact the
war is not winnable that caused McChrystal to lose his job. It was
really stupid, what I'd call "rookie" mistakes on his part. In other
words, he did himself in and has nobody to blame but himself. Blaming
Obama is just scapegoating.

Hawke