By Matt Bors.
About War is Boring
War Is Boring is a collective of citizen journalists with a deep interest in world and national security. We are expeditionary, traveling to conflict zones whenever possible, on our dime — and yours. We are wary of partisan politics, skeptical of the military-industrial-media complex and free of war buzzwords. R.I.P., Old Media; long live New Media.
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Recent Posts
- The Guardian on ARMY OF GOD: “Not a Light Read.”
- Danger Room: China’s Newest Stealth Fighter May Head to Sea, State Media Says
- Danger Room: Test Pilots: Stealth Jet’s Blind Spot Will Get It ‘Gunned Every Time’
- Forbidden Planet International Director’s Commentary: ARMY OF GOD
- Danger Room: More Jets, Jamming Make Air Force’s Toughest War Game Even Tougher
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- testwebsite on Danger Room: Mali Shadow War Now Being Fought From the Sky
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- michaelkorswomenswatch on Danger Room: Army Doubles Down on ‘Garbled, Ineffective’ Next-Gen Radios
- George Weintz on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Malware
- loic on Danger Room: Test Pilots: Stealth Jet’s Blind Spot Will Get It ‘Gunned Every Time’
To be fair, BHO really only has the power to deal with one of these things. Wall street didn’t do (too much) illegal and they have plenty of republican cover in the senate to make sure we won’t get laws against what they did. Ditto on BP. Do you really think the administration can go after Bush? We already have senate candidates encouraging armed revolt (Angle (R) NV), imagine the fun if charges were brought against bush/cheney. The military is the only thing he can actually control.
If the point is the Republicans don’t believe in accountability, then the message is rather subtle. If the message is that BHO only takes the last one seriously, the message in misguided.
Recent events illustrate the enduring question – how the hell do you bolt together the two mismatched worlds of politics and war? Everyone’s sure that they need to go together, but nobody’s quite figured out how to make them fit.
This problem leads to the kind of situation where you have a wet liberal lawyer, who has probably never even touched a rifle, as C in C of the armed forces; while a special forces trained killer is expected to mince around at “fucking gay” dinners, dishing out political hand jobs to keep French ministers happy.
The comments and opinions of McChrystal are probably not remarkably different than those of many other senior officers within the US military, but most other officers probably have a little more tact and discretion.
Obama was put into a difficult and embarrassing situation where one way or another the General had to go – I very much doubt that McChrystal himself would tolerate similar public insubordination from one of his subordinates.
Perhaps there is a lesson for us all in the McChrystal/Rolling Stone incident, that sometimes if you want to do things your own way, you need to keep your big mouth shut – at least publicly.
I think that it’s a good cartoon though. What I chose to take from it (or the opinion I chose to project on to it) is that the Americans have a president who can certainly talk tough, and talk well; even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or if what he is saying is just empty rhetoric.