You can say it nicely:
The president has not spoken publicly about Afghanistan in any serious way since December, and one wonders whether he has the nerve to act, in respect to Gen. McChrystal, like a serious commander in chief. If he leaves a wounded—and therefore more malleable—commander in place, he will have shown a calamitous weakness masquerading as political cleverness.
For the rest of us, there is a lesson about re-establishing fundamental norms of civilian-military relations. For years both political parties have used generals as props. Democrats cheered when disgruntled generals snarled at Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Republicans, to their equal discredit, played up military disquiet with President Bill Clinton and may do so again in this case.
In wartime, generals become public heroes. In some cases—in Stanley McChrystal’s—they really may be heroes. But that does not change the fundamental imperative of maintaining order and discipline. And if doing so means relieving a hero of command, so be it.
Or you can say it not so nicely:
It appears Yon’s criticism of the general was prophetic. Yon also wrote on Facebook: “Unless McChrystal basically denies the article, he must be fired. If he is not fired, I will start calling him President McChrystal because Obama clearly is not in charge.”
But the point is the same: the credibility of the president is in question. And that always has to be resolved in the president’s favour, if his is not to become a failed presidency.
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[Incidentally, is anyone else mystified by the way Michael Yon seems to have started going for generals' scalps? I don't follow his work all that closely, but I remember really liking his narratives of close-up combat in Iraq in 2005 or thereabouts -- stories not properly told by the mainstream press. But now... are there delusions of grandeur here? (Well, if the scalps are gotten, I suppose they aren't delusions. But do we really want personnel decisions influenced by a freelance journalist, however gifted?)]
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Oh, and regarding conservatives’ reactions… I cannot agree with my old college classmate’s take or National Review’s. Bill Kristol and John McCain get it — he’s got to go.
I am only marginally in favour of giving him the heave-ho, but 99% of the world (including, unfortunately, yourself) have the reasons backward. They think it’s because he was insubordinate or disrespectful—which, on the face of the comments in that article—he was not.
The actual facts as presented in the article show that he merely failed to reprimand or rebuke his staff when they were disrespectful. That’s still a failure of command, but it’s a failure of leadership and dereliction of duty. Still a firing offence, but a different order of magnitude from the general himself being the source of disparaging remarks.
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Yon has occasionally useful reporting, but about a year or two ago he started believing his own hype and anybody that didn’t kowtow to his wishes = dark sinister agenda to subvert the war and waste American lives.
He had a really unpleasant run-in with Cdn commanders and on the basis of that, argued that Cdn leaders were covering up massive operational failures. Didn’t pan out.
Had to come back and correct myself. Looking into it now, i realise Yon’s run-in with CF brass was actually with Gen. Menard. Whom we now understand did discharge a weapon negligently, and did have an affair with a subordinate, and was relieved for it–so Yon was correct to allege misdeeds there.