"...I knew this was going on at the time. The bottom line here is that President Obama does not really have the generals under control. This is a potentially disastrous portent for America's future. The president makes policy. The generals carry it out. That is the American tradition. There have been generals who thought they knew better, and perhaps they did, but that is irrelevant in a country that has valued federal political democracy above all else. The constitution makes the civilian president commander in chief of the armed forces. He has the command authority at the top, not the generals. If he wishes to fire David Petraeus tomorrow, Petraeus will be gone the day after.Petraeus is quoted as saying to his staff, "the White House is ------- with the wrong guy." If true, that is right on the edge of insubordination. The McChrystal episode evidently did not impress him.Obama gave the generals too much in the outcome of the great "policy review." They interpreted that as an indication of weakness. ..."
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Petraeus: "The White House is with the wrong guy..."
Lang on the rebellious generals:
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I think a lot of people suspected that Obama was struggling with his generals.
The Rolling Stone piece had a lot indicating as much. Like this line:
The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass.
Or another recent piece by Tom Engelhardt cities this:
In late August commandant of the Marine Corps General James Conway, due to retire this autumn, publicly attacked the president's "conditions-based" July 2011 drawdown date in Afghanistan, saying, "In some ways, we think right now it is probably giving our enemy sustenance."
So there seems to be nothing shocking in the fact that the President is getting attacked by his own generals, it has been going on since he got elected.
Gonzolegend
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