Where Liberty Dwells, there is my country

Here is Paul Hollrah’s analysis of why Gen. McChrystal granted access to the Rolling Stone reporter. I don’t know what Gen. McChrystal will do once he retires, but let us hope he challenges the community organizer.

One negative element in all of this is that Gen. Petraeus took over from Gen. McChrystal. We want Gen. Petraeus to challenge the community organizer too, hopefully in 2012. Taking over from McChrystal makes that harder to do.

The General and the Community Organizer

by Paul R. Hollrah
June 24, 2010

Channel-surfing from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN through MSNBC and Fox News,
the inside-the-beltway pundits had a field day trying to get inside the heads
of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, General Stanley McChrystal, and McChrystal’s
top aides. The one thing common to all of the analyses, by the most famous
and highly-paid talking heads in the Western World, was that they are all
wrong… dead wrong. What is certain is that they all owe General McChrystal
and his senior aides an apology for assuming that they are lame-brained
numbskulls.

The facts of the McChrystal case are not in dispute. General McChrystal
and his senior officers allowed a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine,
Michael Hastings, to have almost unprecedented access during an extended stay in
Paris. The extended stay was due, in part, to an excess of atmospheric
ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, keeping the McChrystal party
grounded for days.

In an interview with CNN, Hastings reported that he had a tape recorder in
his hand most of the time and that McChrystal was “very aware” that his
comments would find their way into print. He said, “McChrystal and his
people set no ground rules for their conversations, although they did ask that
some parts of their conversations were off the record.” Hastings
subsequently published a lengthy profile of General McChrystal on June 22, titled,
The Runaway General.

As Hastings wrote in his profile, McChrystal thought that Obama looked
“uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass during their
first meeting. Of their second meeting, an advisor to McChrystal quoted
the general as saying that it was “a 10-minute photo op.” He went on to say,
“Obama clearly didn’t know anything about (McChrystal), who he was.
Here’s the guy who’s going to run his f_ _ _ing war, but he didn’t seem very
engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”

As General McChrystal flew from Afghanistan to Washington to face Obama in
the Oval Office, the almost unanimous opinion of the talking heads was
that the comments made by McChrystal and his staff were off the cuff and
inadvertent. But to believe that is to totally ignore who these men are.

General McChrystal and his top officers are not simple-minded,
knuckle-dragging brutes. To the contrary, they are intelligent, thoughtful, highly
educated, patriots… graduates of West Point and other fine universities… who
are dedicated to duty, honor, and country. To think that such men would
be so careless as to speak unflatteringly of Obama, Biden, and other top
administration figures, in the presence of a reporter for a notoriously left
wing publication, defies logic… at the very least. To think that men who
are trained to be careful and deliberate in everything they do, could do
something so careless and so unguarded is simply beyond comprehension.

I would argue that McChrystal and his aides knew exactly what they were
doing.

From the day that he became the handpicked “spear carrier” for Obama’s
unique brand of warfare… playing at being Commander in Chief while playing to
his far left constituency… McChrystal’s life had been one of constant
frustration. After telling Obama exactly how many troops he needed to carry out
his mission, Obama dithered for months before deciding to give him just
half the troops he requested. McChrystal could not have been happy about
that.

The Obama team insisted on new Rules of Engagement designed to reduce
collateral damage (civilian casualties). Obama’s ROE required that U.S. troops
must be able to see the enemy with weapon in hand before they were allowed
to return fire. One videotape circulated on the Internet showed a platoon
of Marines pinned down by enemy sniper fire. But since the enemy was
firing from some distance behind the open window of a building, the Marines
could not actually see the weapon being fired. Although they were taking
deadly fire, they were prohibited by the ROE from putting small arms fire or an
RPG through the window opening.

Under Obama’s politically correct ROE, our soldiers and Marines were
required to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. McChrystal could not
have been happy about that.

A strict new interrogation policy, dictated by Attorney General Eric
Holder, required that prisoners must be delivered to an Interrogation Center
within twenty-four hours of being captured or be released. A great deal of
actionable intelligence was lost as a result and battle-hardened enemy
fighters were returned to the field to kill Americans. McChrystal must have
found that to be incomprehensible.

But the greatest insult to our troops in the field, and to the officers
who lead them, may be a new battlefield medal designed by the Obama team. It
is called the Courageous Restraint Medal and is awarded to soldiers and
Marines who demonstrate uncommon restrain in combat by not firing their
weapons even when they feel threatened by the enemy. Would we be surprised to
learn that the preponderance of these medals were awarded posthumously?
McChrystal must have found that to be an insanity.

I suggest that, having his best military judgments subjected to the White
House political sieve for nearly a year and a half, McChrystal decided that
he’d had enough. And when he announced to his senior staff that he was
prepared to retire they decided to push back… to make the most of a bad
situation. It was clear that, if McChrystal were to simply take off his uniform
and walk away, his retirement would be page-twenty news for a day or two
before the mainstream media and the American people forgot all about him.

They had to make the most of his retirement because it provided a one-time
opportunity to show the American people, as well as our enemies and our
allies, that the man who claims the title of Commander in Chief of the U.S.
military does not command the respect of our men and women in uniform. To
make the most of that opportunity they had to choose their messenger very
carefully.

They knew that, by openly showing their disrespect for Obama in front of
just any newsman, they may not attract the attention they desired. Like any
astute observer of the MSM, they knew that most reporters would turn on
their own mothers if it meant a good story. But they could not take a chance
that a mainstream media reporter might suffer a rare pang of conscience
when confronted with the prospect of ruining the careers of some of the most
senior officers in the War on Terror. They had to fix the odds as much as
possible in their favor so they chose to use Michael Hastings and Rolling
Stone Magazine.

During the long hours that General McChrystal was in the air between Kabul
and Washington, Obama knew that he had just two choices… both bad. He
could declare McChrystal to be an irreplaceable asset in the war effort, give
him a public reprimand, and send him back to Kabul. Or he could fire
McChrystal, sending a clear message that, at least in his own mind, he was the
Commander in Chief.

In the former case, he was certain to appear weak and ineffectual… a man
not totally in charge. In the latter case, he might at least win a few rave
reviews from the Kool-Ade drinkers in the mainstream media. He chose the
latter of the two options.

But what is now lost in all of the hand-wringing and speculation is the
fact that McChrystal and his people have succeeded in doing exactly what they
set out to do. They wanted to plant the seed in the minds of the American
people that Obama is not up to the task of being Commander in Chief and
that he does not command the respect of the men and women of the uniformed
services… from the newest Private E-1 up to the top four-star generals and
admirals.

That seed is now firmly planted and it cannot be unplanted.

From this day forward, no one will have to tell the American people that
Stanley McChrystal is a true warrior, a man’s man, and that Barack Obama is
nothing more than a… community organizer. Well done, General!