Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates Fires McKiernan; Replaces Him With Torture Expert, General Stanley McChrystal In Controversial Move
This news was broken just minutes ago by Slate’s Fred Kaplan and is surely destined to become the latest controversy in the Blogospheres and perhaps even in the mainstream media. Controversial? Why? Well, thanks to some quick research by Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish, within minutes of this press release, we learn General McChrystal has, perhaps, somewhat of a “spotty past” when it comes to the topic of torture. In other words, it appears President Barack Hussein Obama has ordered the firing of an incompetent nincompoop just to replace him with a “torture czar” with icewater running through his veins. Yeah. That’s going to work.
What does this mean for Team Obama now? Obviously, as Mr. Kaplan points out, President Obama has now bought the war in Afghanistan from former (again — thank God) President “Surge” W. Bush and he now holds the title for it. Whatever happens from here on out, the buck stops at the foot of President Obama, PERIOD.
One last thought for now before I close this column and leave it for the commentators: what should we now expect from all of these presidential releases of torture documents -slash- “memos” now that it appears General McChrystal MIGHT just turn up in page after page after page? Will President Obama simply black out this “man’s” name and release any and all “releaseable” documents pertaining to the Cheney-Bush torture years? Or, will he simply not release any incriminating pages containing the general’s name? Or, better yet — will he take a gander and simply say “Oops, my bad — wrong guy”?
We can hope for the latter, or we can hope the information dug up by Andrew Sullivan is “much ado about nothing”? Or do we just not give a damn any longer? I don’t know about you, but I DO give a damn and I’ll be paying attention to this one…
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See Also: Drudge Retort (Moderate Left) offers a “shoot from the hip” discussion as always; McQ of QandO (Libertarian Right) says this is a good move; James Joyner of Outside The Beltway (Centrist) seems to be more comfortable on the proverbial “fence” on this one at this time; Paradox of The Left Coaster (Left, of course) is torn… just torn…
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8:17 am on May 12th, 2009 1
Big whoopty doo
10:37 am on May 12th, 2009 2
This is enormous news. Shake-ups at the top usually indicate problems throughout an operation. Remember musical CEOs at Enron, Citigroup, etc.? Do you think Bush Sr. would have asked Norman Schwartzkopf to resign? This is the strongest indication yet that things are coming apart at the seams in Afghanistan, which really should not surprise anyone with any sense of history. I blogged some months ago that Afghanistan would be Obama’s undoing. You’re right: He owns it lock, stock, and barrel now.
Just as disturbing is the replacement. It shows that for all their happy talk, the Obama administration is not nearly as concerned about the erosion of the America the Global Good Guy brand as they should be.
12:37 pm on May 12th, 2009 3
Agreed. Things have been deteriorating steadily in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention also in Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea, China, and others) since about January 21, 2009. This is huge as CharlieHipHop points out because it reveals how seriouos the problems have become. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other militant groups appear to be gearing up to re-live the glory days they enjoyed under the last democrat president. We The People sent the adults home and now the kids are in control again. God help us!