It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges -- of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself.
For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. He treats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much...
Foreign policy is the realm where a president comes closest to ruling by diktat. By command decision, the war in Afghanistan has been escalated, yet it seems to lack an urgent moral component. It has an apparent end date even though girls may not yet be able to attend school and the Taliban may rule again. In some respects, I agree -- the earlier out of Afghanistan, the better -- but if we are to stay even for a while, it has to be for reasons that have to do with principle...
Problems with Obama's foreign policy aside, a few observations on griping about the higher ups: I'm just a mid-level field grader, but I'm not surprised by some of the comments that McChrystal and his aides would make privately to each other. Some griping about someone higher up in the chain of command is a given in the military, especially in wartime. Fielded units will often complain about the lack of understanding and insight from higher headquarters on issues of tactical necessity, just as the Rolling Stone article describes the soldiers' discussion with McChrystal on what they perceive as too restrictive rules of engagement. In this sense, higher ranking officers are not immune to temptations to mutter something about the chain of command or civilian leadership occasionally. People in the all volunteer force serve as a calling, and as such, they tend to be passionate in their views about what's best for the mission. When general officers make eyebrow raising comments, it's usually off the cuff at informal settings, or behind closed doors. Whatever one's private feelings, most officers avoid publicly airing these comments.
Having said all that, when those type of comments spill out so publicly as they did in this article, it's a red alarm that frustration has reached critical mass, often due to serious deficiencies in leadership. I read the entire Rolling Stone article with incredulity; it read like a big middle finger to the administration. And as empathetic as I am to McChrystal and his aides' frustrations, this sort of situation is never good for morale and never reflects well on the one who made the comments--no matter how justified you think they are in their statements. When a situation like this occurs, everyone in the lower ranks tends just to watch stunned as Officer X makes disloyal comment about Higher Officer Y, and we just look at each other in disbelief asking, did he just say that publicly? We start wondering about our own efforts in following Higher Officer Y. What's worse is these comments weren't just about other military officers--they were about the President and Vice President, and the national security staff.
The article starts off right away with back-biting rhetoric. This bit about McChrystal having to meet a French minister for dinner:
"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his chief of staff, Col. Charlie Flynn.
McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.
"Hey, Charlie," he asks, "does this come with the position?"
McChrystal gives him the middle finger.
The French are an easy target, but despite our complaints, they are our allies. We should not publicly denigrate our allies' contributions. From there, the article gets worse. Some of the choicest quotes:
Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.
"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"
"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"
Or this one:
In private, Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama's top people on the diplomatic side. One aide calls Jim Jones, a retired four-star general and veteran of the Cold War, a "clown" who remains "stuck in 1985."
And it continues:
McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal," says a member of the general's team. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He's a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can't just have someone yanking on shit."
At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," he groans. "I don't even want to open it." He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
And about the President:
Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."
When comments do not reflect well on the President or Vice-President, there's no other way to describe it except as downright disloyal. When you swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, it means being loyal to its civilian leadership--no matter what you think of them. As difficult as Afghanistan is right now, the President would be justified in cashiering McChrystal. The fact many of the comments are from his aides is not an excuse--he clearly allowed this sort of atmosphere if they're speaking so brazenly to reporters. Politico is reporting he saw the Rolling Stone article before it was published. I have a hard time believing he's surprised over the stir this is causing, and am left half wondering if he wanted this to get out deliberately. Even if he gets fired, he will at least have achieved a debate over the larger Afghan strategy. If it was never his intention to offend anyone, he sorely misjudged how its content would be perceived, and that doesn't reflect well on him, either. I think for the sake of the Afghanistan war, it's best he offer his resignation, and for the President to accept it.
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