A fatal error

Denis Healey, the late British Member of Parliament famously once said, “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” It appears that President Barack Obama may not be familiar with that quote as his most recent action with regard to Gen. Stanley McChrystal will surely come back to bite him in the derriere.

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In an earlier column I opined that the president wouldn’t dream of ousting McChrystal because he could cause a lot of problems for the president and the Democrats if he no longer had a career to worry about. That he actually relieved McChrystal of duty over an upcoming Rolling Stone Magazine article goes a long way toward explaining just how thin-skinned and narcissistic the president really is. Let’s face it; a lot of the alleged criticism against administration functionaries is based in harsh, cold reality and is rather well earned. Joe Biden really is a nobody that can’t seem to open his mouth without inserting his foot. And Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s own Gen. ‘Buck’ Turgidson, really appears to be stuck in the ‘80s. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has actively undermined McChrystal’s efforts, one suspects, out of jealousy because Eikenberry’s military career was totally lackluster compared to that of McChrystal. And yes, the White House is squishy and wimpish on defense, much more interested in talk than in action. So the ‘trash talk’ attributed to McChrystal and his staff is probably true. The Rolling Stone article does not contain one direct quote attributable to McChrystal in the plethora of negative comments alleged to have been made by the general’s staff about members of the administration. Not that it matters, as it’s been an open secret that McChrystal has not given high marks to the administration for its competence in military affairs. But the point is that McChrystal is a soldier’s soldier with an impeccable career and probably one of America’s foremost experts on asymmetrical warfare and as such Obama was foolish to relieve him of duty. It betrays a vindictive streak that puts personal standing above the “common good,” with which the president appears to be endlessly preoccupied. Firing McChrystal may have felt good at the time it was done, but the long-term effects of that action will be serious and far-reaching. First of all, it shows al Qaeda and the Taliban that there is an inherent weakness in the way the war is being prosecuted. Much like the public announcement that America would be out of Afghanistan by July 2011, dismissing the most capable general to prosecute that war over being ‘dissed’ is folly. Then there is the issue of troop morale. America’s most accomplished airborne division, the 82nd, is now landing in Afghanistan to enter the fray. One wonders how they feel about the Commander in Chief dismissing a distinguished theatre commander over a magazine article published by a counter culture news outlet. Many of us card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy were wrong in our prognostications about how Obama would react to McChrystal at their White House meeting, believing that Obama was shrewd enough to understand that ousting McChrystal would speak volumes more about the president than it would about McChrystal. Naming Gen. Patreus (whom the Left, including Obama himself, loathed and called Gen. Betray-us during the Iraq surge) as McChrystal’s successor was probably the only smart thing the president did today. But firing McChrystal was a bone-headed act that will cost the White House dearly in both the short and the long term.