McChrystal’s Rolling Stone star turn ordinarily should bring his career to a close. Many have noted Gates fired former CENTCOM Commander Admiral Fallon for by comparison benign comments in 2007. Still, in this spineless administration?
This tawdry tale of McChrystal’s insular, contemptuous and undisciplined coterie has been in the general air for some time. Some even reported earlier. One has to expect a certain amount. Choosing McChrystal in the first place ensured his command would embody the special operations community’s penchant for exclusionary, tribal combativeness. But it has been a relatively open secret that McChrystal took it all to new heights. Few, however, tried to put all out there. A lot of it is arcane inside baseball stuff, death to big web page counts. And then there’s the risk. For those without convictions and moral compass, the terrifying questioned loomed — what if McChrystal pulled off the blatantly impossible?
Taking on the utter dysfunction of the American war effort offers no percentage in 2010. This is a war Establishment Dems always wanted since 2002 – ask Senator Graham and his tiny notebooks. Didn’t Obama sprinkle hope and change over escalation? And from the Right, aren’t Americans killing dark people and defense contractors happy? 1,000 deaths? 139 Americans die every day on the crumbling interstate system – and they’re not all in Toyotas.
Journalists and pundits hear people talking openly about dysfunction beyond belief over wilting reception celery. So? How does that help them scramble to keep their jobs, columns, grants and access? Bring that morsel to a newroom in free fall or watch a rival write a front page story on the iPhone for huge page count hits? The WaPo did just that, ‘reporting’ on whether senators or congress people prefer Blackberries to iPhones. So imagine starting a story with ‘in embattled Helmand Province’ – boom! There go the surfers to a link about Sandra Bullocks’ divorce. Who the hell really knows or cares where Helmand Province is? Is it in Wisconsin? A few observers did try — to their credit. Dismissed as annoying buzz killers, or defeatist, embittered wonks re-fighting Iraq. The kind of people who still swear it says “I buried Paul.”
So Team McChrystal had to commit seppuku themselves. An appropriately decadent ending for a general out of time and place, contemptuous of the decadent Power he serves. The tableau Rolling Stone presents is about far more than the immediate personalities. We see in microcosm the morphology of fading American Power from the kid on the ground to the Speech-Maker-In-Chief. A lurching, clueless political entity in a terminal spiral. Historical analogies are always suspect. We’ll avoid a direct reference to a particular circumstance and refer in general to the Hapsburgs in decline. It’s hard to see how the current military-contractor-civilian culture can be returned to a healthy and effective vector. Or whether America cares.
What will Barry do (WWBD)? It’s patently obvious he is not in charge of this war any more than say, BP. He may preside. He may exhort. But he is not, contra the tiresome liberal refrain, Roosevelt as Commander in Chief. McChrystal’s dismay encountering this detachment is understandable. But the far more political (and loathed quietly by those with stars on their shoulders) Petreaus knows one rolls with it. Petreaus’ immediate concern is his own brand viability. COIN’s fraudulent intellectual foundations are absurdly clear to those who choose to look. Yet Petreaus just had to ride the Obama slipstream. Didn’t the president after all use the ‘victory’ word? 2011 might as well be tomorrow. What do you think is going to happen?
American retreat is inevitable. One can’t envision this crowd (let alone their predecessors) pulling off a graceful exit. Decadence, besides inertia, often presents its own seductive internally consistent logic. For example, inside McChrystal’s piece are nuggets of truth and stark honesty. In the fun house mirror of high decadence, these are the worst offenses. Obama does not have it in him to commit himself personally and fully to the immersion necessary to fight us clear to a new place. Like he promised he would in the campaign. This is more than about salvaging a failed war or tending to the Gulf. Judging from what we can observe, Obama just doesn’t even see decadence around him. Oh he may say ‘Washington is broken’ to Nancy Pelosi. A petulant child’s complaint.
It ultimately may not matter what he sees. We just don’t think the guy’s got game.
Comment says
Big day for Conrad and Skilling.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/supreme-court-rules-in-fa_n_623964.html
Comment says
We have no idea if this is true – but it sort plays into our theory that everything Les Gelb says is wrong. So if Gelb theorizes that Stan is just mad at Dems, then it stands to reason that Stan actually is a Dem:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/mcchrystal-banned-fox-new_n_623884.html
Comment says
Sorry to harp on this but Gelb is almost always wrong – so he an anti-compass – this is a classic quote that he made that could have come out of Tweety’s mouth : “I don’t want to see another change of command in Afghanistan. Booting Gen. McKiernan was enough for one war. Perhaps, somehow, the White House can work it out …”
It’s amazing what Pundits really think about on days when 10 American soldiers lost their lives.
Comment says
For example here is Gelb – as a typical self-hating Dem that he projects on to others: “Many Democrats supported George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, only to split off soon thereafter.”
Very true – Gelb was a bomb Iraq cheerleader. Then he wanted to split the country in three so as not to upset the Turks.
Comment says
Les Gelb is one of those liberal hawks who always project weakness when they think they are showing strength, so we were reassured when we saw his column headline in Daily Beast exhorting Obama to keep Stan.
Comment says
Indeed – that whole posse is just reeks of Tweetydom. Tweety feels most threatned by bloggers on the left that criticise him – He still whines too about the Steward mocking – He cannot understand why they don’t appreciate his sloppy doc against tea party. He’s a bit like Tucker, in some respects.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Tweety’s gushing suck up to McCain, Boehner, Graham, King and that whole crowd a foreshadowing.
Comment says
Tweety just said Truman is loved by all Republicans and is the “most” respected.
rkka says
The outcome of this war was baked in by February 2003, at the very latest.
All that remains to be seen is if a Dolchstoßlegende is under intensive development at Heritage and AEI. I have little doubt there is.
Comment says
So Stan just stepped into Cafe Terminus in the virtual Gare St. Lazare and ended what was left of western civ.
RedPhillip says
Why would you want to? You don’t cure a cancer like that; you extirpate it. Whether or not the disease has metastasized so completely throughout the body politic as to render any cure either fatal or impossible is another question. (Myself, I have no hope at all. Your results may differ.)