Gates wants to be loved instead of feared.
All is lost.
These people think nothing of killing each other over a piece of dung.
Is it just me, or is the timing of this sacking (with the expressions of regret from Obama and Clinton just last week about civilian casualties) just too much of a coincidence. Methinks the next general will be expected to do wonders with his hands tied behind his back.
Remember the Left’s exhaultations of Gen Shinseki for suggesting more troops would be needed in Iraq?
I thought General McKiernan....... was tight with GEN Paetreus!!
Wasn’t LTGEN rodriquez with the 80th Airborne... and that is when the war started going bad in AFGHANISTAN??
Afghanistan is starting to look, smell and taste like Vietnam. osamaobama like Johnson is heading down the path to defeat. I hope that the Taliban and OBL have not read “The Art of War”.
I agree with everything he said. This was probably a good move, but they could have just announced that Mc Kiernan had requested retirement for personal and family reasons.
There's a lot of Merit to what Mike Yon wrote. However he is missing a very key piece to this whole situation:
McKiernan grew up as a tanker and as such, thinks as a tanker does - which is mostly Kinetic actions.
McCrystal, On the other hand, grew up as a Ranger/SF guy. COMPLETELY different mindset on how to conduct operations and targeting.
McKiernan did a superb job in Iraq back in 2002/2003 when significant force-on-force activities took place, and he did so with a hand tied behind his back (recall 4th ID and the Turkey debacle). This was conventional war.
He's now (or rather used to be) in Afghanistan - which is a completely different fight - mostly small unit action stuff and very Unconventional warfare. Not his kind of warfare.
With McCrystal in charge now, and oh by the way, he's be in Afghanistan before, it's his kind of fight. He knows the ground, the tactics and the threat. This is his kind of fight.
Consider this: you may well have a really good hammer, but you would not use a hammer to conduct surgery - you would use a scalpel.