Today, President Barack Obama meets with General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan over an international controversy generated by an article appearing in Rolling Stone magazine.
Written by Michael Hastings, the article is full of quotes depicting a general and his staff disdainful of Beltway politics and politicians – including those in the White House – vis-à-vis this nation’s military commitments in Afghanistan. That is why the general will have his resignation in hand when he meets President Obama this morning.
However, although the President most assuredly will take the general to the woodshed privately, I am doubtful about what many pundits say will also happen – that McChrystal will be fired. The mission in Afghanistan, despite its dubious and non-credible objectives, needs to be concluded.
That war, like the one in Iraq, is not being fought to achieve a decisive victory. It is, for many reasons, a war that we are losing because there is no will in Washington to do what it takes to succeed.
We Americans know that. It is why we don’t want any more American casualties incurred in a far-away land administered by the corrupt, contemptuous, and untrustworthy leadership of Hamid Karsai.
It was very naïve of General McChrystal to give journalist Michael Hastings unfettered access to him and his staff for what turned out to be a very damaging article. Nonetheless, President Barack Obama has bigger fish to fry, and this is no time to change war horses in mid-stream.
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