What we are seeing is rotten leadership in the top ranks of the military. The professional military leadership that was in place when Bush took power advised him professionally and resisted his madness in the one legal way open to them–they retired. But every organization has its yes men–like Ollie North–who suck up to politicians in hopes of jumping ahead of more competent and dutiful men in the chain of command. These are the types who flourished under Bush. They are the ones who were preapred to say that Rummy’s “transformation” was a good idea and that Iraq could be invaded and held with a few thousand troops in a couple of weeks. They were the ones who, when ordered to torture, went to find the nearest thing to torturers that the military had. They said and di what they did, not because they believed it was their duty but because they thought it was their best opportunity.

These are our political generals now, our new McClellans and Macarthurs. I fear that the danger is not a coup, but a willingness to play political games of all kinds, games that generals are never good at. Politicking detracts from the generals’ real business, the defense of the country and the wellfare of the troops. This is why we have a military leadership that is prepared to accept keeping the footsoldiers in the meatgrinder for another two decades and is willing to hide war criminals. This is why we have no war plan.

How do you fix this? Easy. You retire them or reassign them, depending on how annoyed you are. But, unfortunately, Obama has thus far lacked the backbone required.

I am sure when he is not attempting a soft coup for himself or his handler McChrystal is a heckuva guy.

If you fire him you feed his ego. Box him out. Let him rot in a different post and with a security clearance level where he can’t do any harm and keep an eye on him. Give him a new boss and new surroundings and if he sneezes in an offensive way – then you fire him. And clean house now because he probably isn’t on his own.

Military men do not have the same freedom of speech as civilians do. It is illegal for commissioned officers and servicemen of all ranks to engage in public political action. Officers can recommend a course of action to their superior. But they cannot discuss the recommendations with third parties or criticize a superior’s decisions publicly.

So why is a General allowed to give policy interviews? More importantly, why is he willing to?

Officers used to take the civilian chain of command very seriously, sometimes to extremes. My grandfather was a retired colonel who refused to vote while he held a commission. He felt that, as an officer, his duty was to follow the orders of the people’s chosen commander-in-chief, not to tell the CinC what to do. The CinC, had to answer to the voters, not the troops.

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Army Lt. Gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal is well-known in Washington for his clandestine operations work in Iraq and recent nomination as commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

But around here he’s just known as Allen, a well-mannered, intellectual history buff who runs, hikes and bikes religiously.

The man President Barack Obama has tasked with turning around the war on terror is a member of a well-known family in the Chattanooga area. Lt. Gen. McChrystal is the son of Mary Gardner Bright of Lookout Mountain, whose aunt and namesake founded the Bright School in 1913.

“I feel like his roots are sort of here,” said Lucy Bright Thatcher, Mary Gardner Bright’s first cousin, who still lives on the mountain. She hosted the lieutenant general last summer. While here, he visited his mother’s childhood home and the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

He’s intelligent, driven and perfect for the job, according to Margaret Thompson, of Chattanooga, who, as Mrs. Thatcher’s daughter, grew up alongside Lt. Gen. McChrystal and visited him at West Point.

But it will be interesting to see how he takes to being in the spotlight, Ms. Thompson said.

“He’s very humble,” she said. “He’s totally about his men.”

The 54-year-old has never lived in Chattanooga, but he spent several summers in the area as a child, joining a few local baseball teams while he was here, Mrs. Thatcher said.

more at link

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Father: Maj Gen Herbert Joseph McChrystal, JR (WWII,Korea,Vietnam); apparently the son or nephew of Herbert Joseph McChrystal SR (b) 1895 who may also have been a military man. There is also a HJM III, perhaps Stanley’s brother.

A man of McChrystal’s reputation (Camp Nama) is so opposite to what most of us see as needed in Afghanistan that it has caused me to puzzle about the real reason he was sent there…was it possibly to get rid of him by sending him on an impossible mission?

That line of thinking leads to Gates, as Rayne and others have commented above; and Gates the former Director of CIA, is silent. Gates under Reagan/Bush; Gates under Bush/Cheney…IMO he should not have been kept on when Obama became president. Next thought is: Why was he kept on? I’m dangerously close to concluding that Obama has found that he is the tail, not the dog.

Oh, and by the way, he got shitcanned too.

And pearl clutching. Also.