The Redhunter

The President will meet with the general tomorrow, and has said that he won't make any decision until after they talk: "I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor -- showed poor judgment, but I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions."

The most famous incident in which a president fired a general was, of course, when Truman dismissed Douglas MacArthur. The general had criticized the president's limited war strategy, particularly his desire to avoid involving China.

Forty years ago, in another incident that caused much controversy at the time, President Carter fired General john Singlaub over comments the latter publicly criticized the President's decision to withdraw troops from Korea.

MacArthur and Singlaub deserved to be fired. McChrystal's offense is different, but he deserves to be fired nonetheless. However, my guess is he'll probably survive with a reprimand. Most likely the story we'll hear is that McChrystal offered his resignation and the President refused it. Obama will calculate that he simply cannot afford for things to go any more wrong in Afghanistan.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit said that:

McChrystal's greatest crime is speaking the truth -- that the White House is unserious about this war, and that its foreign policy team isn't up to the job. And if he were saying this about a Republican administration, the press would be hailing him as a great hero, speaking truth to power.

Nonetheless, serving generals aren't supposed to speak this way about their civilian masters, and so if the Rolling Stone reports are true, he should probably be sacked.

Exactly correct. Singlaub was right and he still deserved to be fired. Truman was right with regards to China. Whether McChrystal is right or not is irrelevant because we simply cannot have generals criticizing their civilian bosses in public. The editors of National Review make the point that firing McChrystal will not advance us towards victory in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly true, and also irrelevant.

That said, Reynolds makes another point that is dead on correct:

Under a Republican President, it's listen to the generals. Under a Democratic President, it's all about civilian control of the military.

As always, Victor Davis Hanson has wise things to say, so I'll close with him:

Many have commented on the unfairness of it all, and made good points:

a) Obama, having demagogued the Iraq war, and campaigned on a "let me at 'em" in the "good" war in Afghanistan, has done his best to renege on his 2008 chest-thumping (e.g., not meeting with McChrystal for months; setting arbitrary withdrawal dates that turn the war into a "wait them out" process; publicly rebuking in embarrassing fashion the Karzai government; insulting the British enough so that they and other European countries will soon be leaving -- not wishing to stay on when they also know we're going to pack it up soon, and so on).

b) McChrystal has not said anything more defamatory than what Obama himself, as a U.S. senator, said about the surge or Predators, and nothing that approaches the slanders of a Sen. Durban, Kerry, or Reid.

c) We don't always fire generals who mouth off -- especially those so closely identified with the current efforts at the front. Patton was given several chances; Arleigh Burke was saved by Truman despite his campaign against the Pentagon's civilian head.

d) Obama is in a terrible dilemma. If he doesn't fire McChrystal after a second indiscretion, he perhaps looks weak. If he does, it endangers the current effort in Afghanistan and looks like he's silencing an officer for having legitimate worries.

e) The howling media is hypocritical. Yesterday's officers who took on Bush in the "revolt of the generals" were deemed courageous. Today's critics are slandered as near-treasonous when they dare reproach Him.

f) It would be very frustrating for a gifted and devoted general like McChrystal to work for Obama, given the latter's indifference, contradictions, and clear anti-war stance as a senator.

No matter, nonetheless. The issue is not whether McChrystal is a great officer (he is), but one of judgment. One does not openly criticize civilian overseers to the press, however justified (and there are plenty of justifications). Nor does one allow a climate in which subordinate officers feel emboldened enough that they loosely trash an administration to the press. If one really wishes to warn the public about a growing crisis in Afghanistan brought on by ignorance, egos, and duplicity in the administration, one surely does not talk to the likes of Rolling Stone. The proper way is to send warnings in private channels up the chain of command to the Pentagon and then to the White House. And when one feels the level of ignorance is overwhelming the chances of success, then one resigns and goes public to warn the nation. One cannot otherwise have it both ways.

No one wants to see McChrystal go, but senior officers and their staffers simply cannot ridicule civilian overseers, even if casually and in jest. We don't know all the details or the veracity of the journalists involved, so it would be foolish to rush to judgment, but something will have to be resolved within the next 48 hours or so.