I’m surprised that Jon Soltz doesn’t walk around with Depends. Seriously. I don’t think he has the brains to control his sphincter. Now, I think Stanley McChrystal needs to be punished for his bad judgment in the presence of a Rolling Stones pothead reporter, but you know what? I actually read the entire Rolling Stones article. Soltz clearly didn’t before he wrote about it.<\/p>\n
I get a lot of shit because I make fun of Soltz’ wartime experience (three months in a motorpool in Iraq or Kuwait…we don’t know which yet) but this crap he wrote in VetsVoice<\/a> is precisely why he should never be allowed to call himself a combat soldier.<\/p>\n I cannot fault McChrystal for believing in his strategy. That’s what you want out of a General – someone who gives the President strong advice, and believes what he says. But, what cannot be allowed to stand is when he believes in his strategy more than the command structure and order of the Armed Forces, and his duty to uphold it. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Think about that for a minute – read it again. McCrystal can’t be allowed to believe more in his strategy than the people behind him telling him to work that strategy. People who aren’t on the ground, ticking off the casualties, counting the IED incidents, facing the soldiers who fight the battles. From Rolling Stone<\/a>;<\/p>\n “Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we’re losing, sir,” says Hicks.<\/p>\n McChrystal nods. “Strength is leading when you just don’t want to lead,” he tells the men. “You’re leading by example. That’s what we do. Particularly when it’s really, really hard, and it hurts inside.” Then he spends 20 minutes talking about counterinsurgency, diagramming his concepts and principles on a whiteboard. He makes COIN seem like common sense, but he’s careful not to bullshit the men. “We are knee-deep in the decisive year,” he tells them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Is that dick Eikenberry going to do that? He wouldn’t do it for me when I was a buck-ass private. Eikenberry doesn’t even trust the military people in his embassy to carry their firearms.<\/p>\n Soltz ticks off the complaints from the media that he certainly didn’t read in the article about McChrystal and his staff with absolutely no context of the events (VoteVets’ trademark, by the way). Of course the most damning is this one;<\/p>\n McChrystal was disappointed with his first meeting with the President, and that he feels the President is uncomfortable and intimidated with military brass. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n He’s disappointed like the rest of us were when the President spent three months with his (pogue-ass) staff discussing Afghanistan and twenty minutes with McChrystal. The President has a paper-thin resume, and even less when it comes to military matters – just a tiny-bit less than Soltz himself. He should have blocked out more than 20 minutes for the commander of his forces in Afghanistan and the whole fucking world knows it…except Soltz.<\/p>\n Now, I’ll admit that McChrystal should have kept his mouth shut, but I can name a whole shit load of generals that don’t have confidence in Obama and his band of Perrier-drinking intellectuals as far as this war goes, but if Soltz wants them all fired, the war is going to be fought by privates. <\/p>\n I’ll bet Soltz drinks tea, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"