Quote,
“McChrystal is said to sleep little, eat less and run a lot. In one month, the reporter witnesses the general eating only once.”
———————————————————

I’m sure a lot of Americans will read this and say to themselves, “Is that what it takes to look like that on tv?”
————————————————————-

But here’s the Cardinal Sin,

“McChrystal was a key figure in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire killing and warned the Bush administration that the then-president could be embarrassed. McChrystal was also linked to detainee abuse. These two scandals did nothing to thwart his rise. The general was promoted days after Tillman’s death.”
—————————————————————

I would guesss that McChrystal was involved in the murder of Pat Tillman. 

Let’s face it, they saw a complete dope and they took advantage of it. I was in the Army.  Who in his right mind would do what Tillman did?  He was beyond a moron. 

He was just someone, a pop hero that the war machine could use to keep the war going. 

He was like most schmuck enlistees from middle class, suburban neighborhoods: high on testosterone, low on mental faculties.

Instead of asking, Was Tillman crazy?”

We should be asking, “What’s going on here?

But you gotta love ‘em.  Or so says the Right-wing.

I heard a woman caller from Tennessee this morning on C-SPAN who suggested that McChrystal’s exit was career suicide by President.  She continued, given 18 months to secure the occupation of Afghanistan, a task that would take years and billions of dollars, he saw the futility of his strategy and gave this reporter full access to his staff as they berated the Prez and the National Security cabal.
In short, the Prez had to end it, McChrystal’s role that is.

I don’t know if that’s true.  I tend to think something else, but this woman is an example of news consumers now taking a different tack.  Instead of accepting the media’s 2 + 2 equals 3 and 9/10ths, she rejected the media’s reporting parameters and thought for herself.

That might signal the beginning of the end.

I think McChrystal’s gaffe was deliberate also.  But I think it was meant to rally the congress to once again pass a billion dollar war suplemental bill for the war, this time 33 billion, that had been languishing for weeks.

As Obama said, “No one is more important than war, a General nor the President of the United States…”

That’s it.  The war is the thing.  It’s the war, stupid.

Millions of Afghans might beg to differ.  The U.S. war on wedding parties will go unabated.

Personally, I don’t think any war is worth it anymore.  Not one Afghan life.

Prolonging the war is the thing, not winning it, whatever that means.

The only thing that is shocking is that McChrystal opened up to a reporter from “Rolling Stone” a known left-leaning publication——perhaps McChrystal isn’t as savvy as he’s made out to be!  What he said is not that shocking.  Career military officers, as well as NCOs, always make fun and criticize their civilian leaders especially those who have never served in the military——that’s where Bush Iⅈ had an advantage where Clinton and Obama do not.

cyrena
Hillary Clinton was Senator for New York, you cannot get elected in NY without the support of the Israel right or wrong supporters, most of whom are to the right of Netanyahu. Former Mayor Giuliani became a rapid NeoCon to get their support, Schumer sees himself as their appointed protector. Lieberman even after being defeated in the Democratic Primary still got elected because of their money, organization and power.  Israel does not want peace in the Middle East, it would mean sharing power and returning land. It wants the US to send troops to Muslim counties to fight and die for them.  Its sick, its evil but its a fact of American political life.

By ardee, June 23 at 7:13 am #

Yes Ardee, Bush did get us into the Afghanistan war that virtually all democrats
also supported along with the vast majority of public opinion.

Nobody has mentioned McChrystal’s involvement with JSOC.  This alone should make him suspect for any and all abuses of power. 

  Looks like he left his meeting with O early.  I wonder if any press pics show his tail tucked between his legs?

****************

By cyrena, June 23 at 4:26 pm

“”“Seems like everything she touches turns to shit.”“”
*****************

For everybody except the elite handlers and her little cadre of
groupies browning their noses for her majesty. The decision to
make her S.O.S. was right in line with the other clinton bush
cabal that should never have been. There were far too many
more worthy people but the men behind the curtains just would
not allow any honest hard working people in the cabal de’ la
elite.

What is worse, her majesty will at some time make her second
bid to run for the white house and I just hope people will see
that and this subversion of iranian uranium as would an awful
presidendentress she would be and I shutter at the thought
because it would still make no change in who is leading what
and how in this country.

So Team America approves of Hillary eh? I think SHE
should be the next to go, especially after she
undermined the deal BarackO worked out with Turkey and
Brazil to take some of Iran"s uranium.

Instead she’s slapped more sanctions on ‘em, and now
they’re pissed and won’t allow continued inspections.
Seems like everything she touches turns to shit.

Afghanistan, Iraq or any other imperialst ventures the USA has attempted are, when clearly examined, only justifications for supporting and supplying what is basically a corrupt and venal life-style.  Oil dependancy and overconsumption are the gluts that wil, finally and thankfully, choke this empire to its well-deserved death.

Just as the war in Afghanistan cannot really be won, so it cannot be lost.  So having a goofball-Patton type in charge really doesn’t make any difference.  It is theater, made necessary not by conditions in Afghanistan but by conditions within the ruling class of the U.S.  The actors are in their roles because they seem adequate to their roles, not because they accomplish things in the real world.

Well for one thing Washington is no different than it was in Vietnam, the same plutocracy that got is in there is directing this one.

I don’t trust the judgement of someone who eats once a day and in the mean time runs 7 miles/day and sleeps only, by deliberate choice, 4 hours/day and looks like a skelton.
Poor eating coupled with too much physical exertion can definitely clouds someone thinking and judgement.
Also, the war in Afghanistan is a dumb unnecessary war.

Numbers eight and ten are the only items on the list that matter. The rest are completely trivial or irrelevant.

“McChrystal was a key figure in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire killing and warned the Bush administration that the then-president could be embarrassed….The general was promoted days after Tillman’s death.”

——————————————

“We will not question the reasons for our being here or allow any personal beliefs to interfere with our job. My hope is that decisions are being made with the same good faith that Kevin and I aim to display. … I hope [this war is about] more than oil, money & power. … I doubt that it is.”

- Pat Tillman in his journal, March 13, 2003

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/tillman/

LostHills, June 23 at 12:41 am #

Obama is a fool for being suckered by these four star neocons. Shitcan Bush’s
generals and end Bush’s war if you want to regain the world’s respect,
Mr.president.
************************

FINALLY!  Someone else figured out that Bush got rid of every sane and rational general and admiral and left us with a set of crazy Dr. Stangelove-types!  Every general who said that Bush’s policies weren’t working and show signs of sanity were uncermoniously shit-canned!

Obama needs to do a major overhaul of the military’s top brass and get these arrogant would-be Pattons and MacArthurs out of there!  We don’t need coup-desiring neo-con fascist creeps.

In case you wondered why Canada is leaving by July, 2011 this piece should enlighten you.

Marshall, June 22 at 9:34 pm

A neat sidestep of the historical fact that Bush ( who Marshall loves above all else) got us into this mess, though Obama has made some very, very poor decisions, mostly to continue Georgies strategies).

G.Anderson, June 23 at 1:56 am

The same tired rhetoric I heard about Vietnam ...we could win this war if only Washington wasn’t filled with ( take your pick: Commies, incompetents, crooks and liars, whatever…) There are absolutely no heroes here.

Maybe Stanley McChrystal’s a little Pissed about,  how many of our kids are getting their assess shot off, while Washington loses the war back home.

Obama is a fool for being suckered by these four star neocons. Shitcan Bush’s
generals and end Bush’s war if you want to regain the world’s respect,
Mr.president.

Let’s see.  Too much to ask for a sane replacement to pull the plug on the war in Afghanistan?

Perhaps the pressure of being responsible for pursing a war without end, a war without the possibility of winning is unravelling and revealing the true nature of the Beast?

A Culture of Unaccountability:
  1. Highest officials organize, supervise, and extend offshore prisons where torture is permitted, yet those officials are not tried and found guilty.
  2. An illegal war is extended against a backward county in the Middle East. including illegal incursions into a neighboring country. 
  3. A just-previous war in the area failed after killing tens of thousands. Insufficient efforts at reparations still continue. Soldiers who return home carry untreated, often permanent aftereffects.
  4. Policies of occupation,  deprivation and disproprtionate warfare by a nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East against a destitute neighbor are promoted, extended and sanctioned with weapons shipments and propaganda.
  5. Meantime, severe problems of high unemployment and poverty, unjust use of public money, risks of economic meltdown, deterioration of infrastructure, climate damage and corporate malfeasances continue unabated.
  6. The people responsible for maintaining decent democratic law and practices are traumatized by fear, threat and ignorance and seem unable to respond with positive action. 
  7. The military establishment feels entitled to continue spending indefinitely the lion’s share of the country’s money on violence and even to scorn and encroach upon the civilian and judicial branches in order to assure that violence supercedes diplomacy and peaceful alternatives.
  8 Corporate power increases out of proportion to public needs and shows no signs of moderating its greed, using money to bribe and corrupt civilian officials on a routine and uncontrolled basis.

RE Point #8:  “McChrystal was a key figure in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire killing and warned the Bush administration that the then-president could be embarrassed. McChrystal was also linked to detainee abuse. These two scandals did nothing to thwart his rise. The general was promoted days after Tillman’s death.”

I’ve been working on a document about precisely that subject and happened to finish it today, just before I heard the news about the “Rolling Stone” article.

If you’re interested, take a look at “The Emperor’s General” —President Obama and the Whitewash of Gen. McChrystal’s Role in the Cover-Up of Pat Tillman’s Friendly-Fire Death” at

It’s posted at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com along with other docs about Pat Tillman and other’s involved in covering for McChrystal (e.g. Senator McCain, Senator Levin, Senator Webb, the NYT’s Thom Shanker, and Andrew Exum at CNAS)

“I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President [in the context of a democracy governed by elected officials]... I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.”
~Harry S. Truman, quoted in Time magazine

The article makes a point of highlighting a supposedly tainted McCrystal’s rise
during the Bush administration.  Is this the same McCrystal that Obama hand
picked to lead the war despite all this and what does that say about Obama’s
judgement?  Not to mention that this same guy has little respect for Obama’s
national defense team… not surprising given that the clown Biden is on it.

It makes no difference what ranting, puffed up, narcissistic, hard drinking, pseudo tough guy runs the U.S.‘s Afghan murder machine. McChrystal sleeps only 4 hours a night and eats only 1 meal a day?  So what?  It’s all over for us there, though not for the Afghans who will have to endure more years of homicidal U.S. inspired John Wayneism and trash talk.  McChrystal is a shit and so is any possible replacement.  Obama is a shit as well who will, no doubt, award himself the Medal of Freedom.  I most definitely want to see that: Obama putting the medal around his own neck and talking to himself in the third person.  What an insane, fucked-up nation this is!

Mary Tillman knew.

McChrystal is a disgrace. And he has no excuse. He
was given full support by the President, and he
failed. Now, he’s demeaned himself into taking cheap
verbal shots at compatriots.

He has reportedly “offered to resign, but has not
officially submitted his resignation.”

Coward.

This revelation about McChrystal is nothing more than another celebrity story in
the world of war entertainment.  It is irrelevant and distracting from the central
issue.

When Obama said early on in his campaign that he would expand the war in
Afghanistan, what did people think?  The hope of many was that he was just
posturing in order to get right wing votes. That’s called wishful thinking.
Immediately after winning, Obama surrounded himself with war hawks, the type
of people who, because of ideology and/or career goals, have continued to
support violence abroad.

The problem is they haven’t succeeded in accomplishing their misguided goals
which were to install puppet governments in Afghanistan and Iraq and leave it
up to them to keep the population under tight control and in line with US
interests -as in Saudi Arabia. That was their best hope in regard to the “war on
terrorism.”

Afghanistan (and to a certain extent also Iraq,) is not one country but many
“countries.”  They have a history and a culture.  No Holbrook, H. Clinton, 
McChrystal, the death of US soldiers and Afghans, or any military spending can
or is entitled to change that. No surprise then if the Obama Cabinet gets
chaotic.

Sometimes, it takes years, even decades, to assess the actual harm that a
government has produced. The present government has already done enough
harm by omission and commission.  Given the self-interest and the corruption
that the two ruling parties continually exhibit, can we honestly say that one
party is really better than the other?

Think before you vote.

Graveyards are full of irreplaceable people.

If McChrystal is representative of the military leaders our nation is putting out then a top to bottom review is in order.

His hands have American blood on them and I see him as a liability and a rallying point for those imperialistic minded corpratists bent on controlling the world.

The General needs to be retired so he can open his own dojo somewhere or join one of the numerous tax exempt “think tanks” where troublesome malcontents can think up ways to further screw this country.

Kinda like PNAC did.

****************

As I have said before, with o’s penchant for getting revenge and
retribution for those who don’t kiss his feet, he will throw them
under the bus, but it very well could be that those aristocracy
making the ‘killing’ from america’s perpetual wars, may not want
mccrystalmeth gone as he most likely is a boon the weapons
industry’s profits.

To me it rides on 50-50 on his status as o goes behind the
curtains to receive his orders.