Props for Ottomaton: Should Petreus and McChrystal be Fired by Obama?

I will agree with thumbs that Obama has proven rather weak in his leadership with his own party. I really thought he would take more charge of things, but so far he seems like a weak leader or just unwilling to get tough with Congress to push through his domestic agenda.

Even with foreign policy, there is something strange about top generals coming out and being so aggressive in pushing their own agenda and pressuring the President into making a major policy decision. It is one thing when you start hearing rumblings from military generals in the last years of a lame duck presidency (Bush), but to be so aggressive with a first-term and highly popular president, then there is something strange there I think.

 

I do. Although I give little credence to polls, they are trending toward my hypothesis.

 

Playing the "better war" card only works when you are not in power.

Now that he has shown more force there, he can either go all in and try to win the war, or just admit it was a political talking point to be critical of the Iraq war.

My opinion is either pull out completely or try to do some good. This half in half out BS is what hurt us in Iraq.

 

You keep flailing away thumbs. Even a broke clock is right twice a day.

Here's an article with a very telling difference between Obama and Bush. What's the difference you ask? Notice that Bush's EPA head is now a lobbyist, FOR the very industry he was supposed to regulate.

Do you see the difference in governmental approach here?

EPA Moves to Regulate Smokestack Greenhouse Gases

By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 1, 7:26 am ET

WASHINGTON – Proposed regulations would require power plants, factories and refineries to reduce greenhouse gases by installing the best available technology and improving energy efficiency whenever a facility is significantly changed or built.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposal announced Wednesday applies to any industrial plant that emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year.

These large sources are responsible for 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — that are released in the U.S., the EPA said.

"By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation's largest greenhouse gas-emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said. "We know the corner coffee shop is no place to look for meaningful carbon reductions."
Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced it would start developing the first-ever greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks. Those regulations, which would take effect in 2010, compel the EPA to control greenhouse gases from large smokestacks as well, the agency said.
Industry groups immediately questioned the agency's argument. They charged that the EPA was skirting the law, since the Clean Air Act typically covers any facility releasing more than 250 tons a year of a recognized pollutant. That threshold would require more facilities to fall under the new regulations.
"This proposal incorrectly assumes that one industry's greenhouse gas emissions are worse than another's," said Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

Jeff Holmstead, a former top EPA air pollution official who is now a lobbyist for the energy industry, said the agency was trying to "fit a square peg into a round hole."

"Normally, it takes an act of Congress to change the words of a statute enacted by Congress, and many of us are very curious to see EPA's legal justification for today's proposal," Holmstead said.
Jackson, speaking at a news conference at a climate change summit being hosted by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the rule was legally defensible.

"The EPA would not propose a rule that we didn't believe ... made good legal sense," she said.

The EPA's announcement came hours after Senate Democrats unveiled legislation that would set limits on the amount of greenhouse gases from large industrial sources. The Senate bill, unlike the House-passed version, preserves the EPA's authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act.

Environmentalists said Wednesday the two efforts go hand-in-hand.
"You can't have one without the other if we're going to be successful in moving America to clean energy," said Emily Figdor, director of the global warming program at Environment America, an advocacy group.
The move will probably increase pressure on Congress to pass a bill to avoid less flexible, and what Republicans said would be more costly, regulations. Supporters of the legislation have already used pending EPA rules as leverage to get Congress to act.

Senate Republicans have already attempted to block the EPA from issuing regulations to buy more time for Congress to work on a bill. At least one Republican leader, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said Wednesday that Congress would try to stop the EPA again.
___
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_epa_greenhouse_gases

 

The only "worship[ping]" that I saw was by straw men created by Faux "News."

 

Sorry to continue with the pile on but once again you are mistaking your agreement with leadership and further conflating it with success. I didn't agree with many of GW Bush's decision but I wouldn't say he didn't show leadership. He showed too much leadership in my opinion when he should've backed off and considered other advice.

Also given that the election was only about a 11 months ago its way too early to say whether this is a successful presidency or not but that wasn't the issue to begin with. The issue is whether Obama has shown leadership which he has on a variety of issues.

 

Remember though the last President also faced rumblings from generals early in his term. Remember Gen. Shinseki telling Congress that Iraq was going to be very difficult back in 2002. Tommy Franks while he didn't air his grievances publically was initially opposed to Cheney's strategy for invading Iraq also. For that matter there have been far greater feuds between generals and presidents. Lincoln's first head general, McClellan, called Lincoln a "monkey" and a "moron."

While generals serve under the President they often have different opinions about how things should be conducted. Consider that it is there job to fight the war rather than deal with the political or diplomatic consequences of how the war is fought so it shouldn't be surprising that during wartime there are differences.

To tie this back to the original topic. I don't think that Petraeus or McChrystal are trying to undermine the President or the COnstitution anymore than Shinseki was the previous Admin..

 

Good question, because they darn sure aren't Democrats.

 

As Will Rogers once said, "I don't belong to any political party. I'm a Democrat."

 

With what? A time machine?

It's amazing to me how either

1) thoroughly mis- or uninformed or

2) incredibly, earnestly, doggedly reliant on theories of time travel that a lot of our conservative buddies on the BBS are. They all tend to create wormholes throught the fabric of space-time in order to credit or absolve the bush adminstration for items which occured either before or after his term in office. (for example, in this instance, ERRA of 2009, which was introduced, passed, and signed into law after the Bush Administration was gone.)

 

Why would he fire generals for giving him their ideas? Why would he fire them for making a recommendation of increasing the troops in Afghanistan. I swear that the President was talking about moving resources including soldiers from Iraq, to Afghanistan. I thought this was a campaign promise.

 

glynch, were you bored today? Thought you'd "stir things up" a bit? Come on, man, "those guys" aren't subverting the constitution and you know it. They aren't forcing the President to do anything Mr. Obama doesn't want to do. The guys in question are doing what most generals have done throughout history, which is ask for as much as they think they can get away with asking for, and hoping they'll get lucky and get most of it, never expecting to get everything (even if they really think they need more).

"I learned in elementary school as a point of pride that we have civilians in control of the military, not the opposite. The war mongerers seem like they will spare no constitutional basic to push their agenda."

How do civilians NOT have control of the military? Come on, glynch. You pumped out this stuff, so why don't you explain how these "war mongerers" have busted through the constitution and pushed the President aside? Inquiring minds want to know. One here typing with two fingers wants to know. I don't buy it. If anything, you are taking aim at the wrong people. It's not the generals. As I just said, they are doing what generals have done since time out of mind. You want a target? It is civilian. The civilian defense industry and their lobbyists and their money, pumping into the campaign coffers of both parties, just like Baccus and Nelson raked it in from big pharm and big insurance, rolling over so fast that they had to grab a Dramamine patch.

Obama can fire them as easy as picking up the phone.

 

I'm going to be honest, and say I agree with Sam, which I next to never do. I was under the impression that Republicans thought it was a failure, but now it is being attributed to Bush?

 

Yeah I dont see the subversion angle, obviously they are just stating their opinions and making demands based on what they see on the ground or think will work. I just think these generals have been too loud so early in a first term presidency of a POPULAR young president, who clearly came into office with as strong a mandate as we have seen in a couple of decades or more. If there was any reason as to why, I would have to pin it on the fact that most generals are either republican or they think Obama is too week or unsupportive of the military compared to the previous president. A lot of it is perception so those guys may perceive Obama to not have the stomach to finish the Afghanistan fight.

The problem I will argue is that the fight now is really in Pakistan, and the Afghani campaign is more or less irrelevant at this point and we would benefit from pulling out or just stationing all of our troops on Afghani-Paki border to seal it and then have the Pakistani troops blanket the border areas and do the heavy lifting there, and we provide air support when needed. The only plan I see working in countering the Al-Qaeda fighters is squeezing them in from BOTH sides and pounding away until they are wiped out.

 

That's why I'm here, glynch, to push back senility.

 

from the WaPo:

[rquoter]
A General's Public Pressure

By Bruce Ackerman
Saturday, October 3, 2009

The president, the Constitution tells us, is the commander in chief. But is it true?

In a speech in London on Thursday, Gen. Stanley McChrystal publicly intervened in the debate over Afghanistan. Vice President Biden has suggested that we focus on fighting al-Qaeda and refrain from using our troops to prop up the government of President Hamid Karzai. But when this strategic option was raised at his presentation, McChrystal said it was a formula for "Chaos-istan." When asked whether he would support it, he said, "The short answer is: No."

As commanding general in Afghanistan, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements. Under law, he doesn't have the right to attend the National Security Council as it decides our strategy. To the contrary, the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 explicitly names the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the National Security Council's exclusive military adviser. If the president wanted McChrystal's advice, he was perfectly free to ask him to accompany Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when the council held its first meeting on Afghanistan this week.

But Obama did not extend the invitation, even though McChrystal was leaving Kabul and could have gone to Washington easily. Instead, Obama asked the general to report to the council via a brief teleconference.

News of McChrystal's position had been leaked to Bob Woodward and was published in The Post early last week. But it is one thing for some nameless Washington insider to engage in a characteristic power play; quite another for McChrystal to pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy. This is a plain violation of the principle of civilian control.

McChrystal seemed curiously blind to this point. He emphasized that the president had "encouraged" him to be blunt when making his grim report on Afghanistan. But future presidents won't be so encouraging if they know that their commanders might create political problems if they think that their recommendations will be overruled. Instead, they will insist that their commanders tell them only what they want to hear. Confidentiality is a condition for candid communications between commanders and the commander in chief.

McChrystal was almost cavalier in dismissing this point. After praising his superiors for encouraging straight talk, he laughingly suggested that "they may change their minds and crush me some day." This is precisely backward: Generals shouldn't need to be told that it is wrong to lecture their presidents in public. Perhaps McChrystal was misled by the precedent set by Gen. David Petraeus, who strongly supported President Bush's military surge in Iraq in 2007. Though Petraeus publicly endorsed the surge, this happened only after Bush made his decision. Petraeus was backing up his commander in chief, not trying to preempt him.

Nevertheless, precedents have the habit of adding up. Unless McChrystal publicly recognizes that he has crossed the line, future generals will become even more aggressive in their efforts to browbeat presidents.

We have no need for a repeat of the showdown between President Harry Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArthur over Korea. Truman faced down his general the last time around, but it was a bruising experience.

Though McChrystal may feel "crushed," he should show more self-restraint. Indeed, his breach should provoke a broader discussion of the meaning of civilian control in the 21st century. It may well make sense for the Pentagon, or a special commission, to frame more concrete guidelines so that we may avoid future breaches.

The writer is a professor at Yale Law School.

[/rquoter]

 

Our generals should know what Obama wants, and should know that requesting another surge would make him look more like Bush. How dare our military generals, who know about warfare and it's requirements, put the military needs in conflict with Obama's image.

Do any of you really believe that firing the generals would make the generals look more like the cause of military failure, than Obama?
What is this, professional sports?