General McChrystal’s chain-of-command goes as follows:
General Petraeus (as CENTCOM) & ADM Stavridis (as EUCOM/NATO)
Secretary of Defense Gates
President Obama

Unless the President had granted the Sec Def or the NATO commander additional command authority, neither one has any authority over strategy.

The Sec Def is an administrative position and advisor to the President.

Afghanistan is outside NATO’s traditional geographical command area. It falls under CENTCOM. At most, Stavridis only has limited administrative authority over the NATO troops.

neurodoc: I presume you mean Obama, not yourself. And is Obama’s administration less experienced than that of James Earl Carter?

Leaving my potential aside, I think Carter had more experience, of course. he was a businessman, a military leader and a govenor. Going through Carters crew vs Obama’s might be alot trickier.

Here is a question (OK, more than one)for all of you military experts: What is the goal in Afghanistan? Has it even been set yet? How do we assure our national security, by nation building, by killing all AQ members, by assuring women’s rights in the Middle East, or even by defeating the Taliban? Pulling out of Viet Nam had miminal consequenses for us overall and it didn’t seem to effect Russia that much when they pulled out. Do we need to send our young into harm’s way or can we do something else?

The article also states: “Some commentators regarded the general’s London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: “As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements.”

It seems to me that this illustrates how Ackerman is using his status as a constitutional law professor to comment on matters about which he has “no business” making public pronouncements. Ackerman isn’t an expert on military affairs, the chain of command, or insubordination. He is perfectly free to have whatever opinion he wants, but he shouldn’t pretend that it has anything to do with his area of expertise.

Privately or publicly?

You don’t rate to lick his boots.

That remains to be seen. If Gen. McChrystal strayed into the political avenues regarding strategy in Afghanistan or the politically inspired lies and coverup regarding the death of Pat Tillman, he would rank relatively low on the order of bootlicking. Although one can not disregard the spectacular failures at the highest levels of civilian leadership, bad judgment — or worse, in the case of ideologically driven conduct — among people wearing uniforms has caused great misery and death in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is part of the reason the United States has fared so poorly in both countries for years. And the abuse of Pat Tillman’s memory (and the Tillman family) for political gain was about as tawdry as a human being could get.

Subordinates are allowed to disagree with higher’s tactics, even tell them so, and still execute those tactics. Its very common.

“If he is indispensable, I hope he has been issued a three-inch leash.”

Fuck you, armchair warrior. You don’t rate to lick his boots.

PatHMV really you try being supportive of what you think Obama is or isn’t for-you can use anything he told the American people about Afghanistan to get elected.

What did the people of America think Obama’s ideas for Afghanistan were?

Here is another clue-McChrystal-wrote the COMISAF trying to appeal to what he thought the Obama Administration wanted-basically McChrystal is right in the sameboat as the electorate-he believed Obama’s campaign speeches-that simple.

To start questioning the honor of the General for answering questions in that same vein of thought that has been consistent, well documented and sourced-is to allow yourself to be used to triangulate the active duty military that believe in what they are doing.

So what you are hinting at is that he is being insubordinate and acting unconstitutionally to whisper campaigns of a sudden change of stategy that is coming from “unamed sources” or loosely and just recently attributed to Biden who came up with this idea when exactly?

After McChrystal’s report….

That’s some damn trap you’ve got McChrystal in but thanks for honoring his integrity -because we all know McCrystal is the liar or shape shifter not that politician Biden or anyone else in the Obama Cabal.

So, the only way Gen. McChrystal had to get the President’s attention was to make a (weakly) public statement of his strategy.

And STILL the DOD is dragging its feet, the White House is buying time with “looking for alternatives”, and the President is not mentioning Afganistan.

Just recently he met with Gen. McChrystal for the 2nd time and spoke for 25 MINUTES with him.
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With regards to “Who is in Charge of Who”:
Yes the President is the Commander in Chief, the Joint Chiefs are on top of Gen. Petraeus, and Gen Patreus in on top of McChrystal. But Gen. McChrystal is dealing with the conflict directly, he understands better than anyone what the needs are and what should be done in Afganistan.

If you have trouble understanding how this works, here is an example: Gen. McChrystal is in charge, but he does not tell X platoon on Y mountain how to engage the Taliban in the middle of the firefight. He doesn’t tell the 2nd LT how ot engage because he knows that will get that entire platoon killed.

Oren: It’s pretty impressive you can be snarky even when the man implements your preferred policy.

Oh come on, Oren. You know Obama is Turkish. Or, whatever.

You know, they say optimists live longer than pessimists. Or, perhaps it’s that optimists are happier while they live than pessimists. :-)

By the way, I hate the emoticons. I much preferred it when we could each present our own, idiosyncratic, keyboard interpretations of the emotions we wished to convey.

Borris: I feel the love, Sarcasrtro

Oh, stop it, you two.

There is a well-documented history of hard feelings between Biden and Karzai, and a suspicion that the VP has allowed his personal antipathy to influence his stance on Afghanistan, which has been somewhat out of step with the President’s for a year or two. So Biden’s comments do not necessarily conflate with an official government policy.

The CG of U S forces in-country certainly has the right to publicly comment on a suggested course of action, when that suggested course of action remains a mere proposal, and did not originate with the Commander in Chief.

And, again, I may be slave to my own preconceptions but I perceive a definite change of tone when the complained-of criticism is aimed at a more liberal Democrat instead of the Evil Bush. A serving general taking a stance contrary to a proposal originating within the last administration would have been canonized by the Post. And others. But instead, we see a Yale law professor essentially arguing that the military be muzzled from public comment (!) when that comment might differ from a liberal elected official. I just cannot imagine a Yale law professor arguing that a serving general be silenced from speaking out against a conservative Republican administration proposal. In that instance, there would certainly be nothing less than a Constitutional issue (permitting the speech) at stake somehow.

But I digress. McChrystal was hand-picked by the sitting President to guide strategy in Afghanistan. Seems like he’s just doing his job, at least until the same President makes a decision (and in effect preemps McChrystal’s right to further public comment).

The VP has no line authority over a commander in the field. His job description is to preside over the Senate (which he rarely does). He makes no decisions, can give no orders.

He has as much power as the President gives him, no more no less.

It’s not like our Secretary of State can actually sign treaties — only the President can. When she speaks, however, it’s assumed that she speaks for her boss.

Another possibility is that Effendi Obama wishes McChrystal to speak out in favor of an Afghanistan surge, to cover himself with his own leftist base.

It’s pretty impressive you can be snarky even when the man implements your preferred policy.

Let’s see…

Planes flying into buildings. Open sanctuary for the terrorists who plotted that. I wonder if that answers the question…

Only for those who wish to avoid the important question. The events of September 11 precipitated the entry, but do not begin to explain how we find ourselves mired in clustermuck more than five years after arrival.

If MacArthur had publicly debated with Alben Barkley, I doubt much would have been made of it.

I hope that you are correct that Obama genuinely wants victory, but is torn as to how best to achieve it. I’m not convinced that’s true, but it’s certainly a reasonable interpretation of events so far.

General Petraeus (as CENTCOM) & ADM Stavridis (as EUCOM/NATO)

Secretary of Defense Gates

President Obama

If his comments had been approved by any of the above people he is perfectly in the clear. Note that neither VP Biden nor National Security Advisor Jones are included in that list.

Yup – that whole “surge” thing proposed by GEN Petraeus was thrown out the door the moment it was proposed. And it obviously led to nothing in Iraq…

Sarcastro: 2. Borris really needs to use “straight up” before racism.

I feel the love, Sarcasrtro ;)

As I said, I think he wants ‘victory’-at least in the sense of getting Afghanistan out of the hole and, thus, keeping Pakistan from falling in the same hole. But, he is hearing from citizens and experts that adding troops is not the way to go. (And, yes, some folks just want us to bail entirely.) Further, he is seeing matters there getting worse. My guess is that, at this point, he is genuinely torn as to the best course of action.

Of course, he will have to make some decisions, but I am not all that upset when a President is careful about U.S. lives and money.

‘As the leader of the least experienced admin we have ever seen.’

Not my take on it. I’d say the least experienced administration we ever saw was the one that left office on Jan. 20, 2008, having gone in knowing nothing and left learning nothing.

In any event, the Bush II administration either didn’t get or didn’t accept ‘sound advice,’ as we see from results.

Just being there isn’t the same thing as having experience.

Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman argues in the Washington Post that it was inappropriate for General Stanley McChrystal to announce his preferred Afghanistan strategy and publicly disagree with Vice President Joe Biden

I would suggest the reverse is true. The Constitution grants the Vice President no position in the chain-of-command and no power whatsoever over the military. In sharp contrast, McChrystal is the theater commander appointed by the Commander-in-Chief and is only answerable to the CENTCOM commander, General Petreus, and then the President himself. McChrystal owes no deference whatsoever to the Vice President.

McChrystal has every right to lobby for his plan and every duty to lobby against the idiotic and completely political excuse for cutting and running being put forward by the estimable military strategist “You don’t mess with Joe” Biden.

If the President decides to cut and run under the rubric of an “anti-terror campiagn,” then McChrystal is duty bound to do one of two things: (1) salute and say “Yes sir!” or (2) resign his command rather than implement an order that will have meant his men had died in vain.

I would hope that McChrystal privately tells the President beforehand that he will choose Option 2.

When Obama makes his decision, it will be McChrystal’s place to fall in line. In the meantime, the president is asking, “What do you think?”.

I agree with you, especially about your parenthetical ambiguity. Bush made a tremendous mistake in making democratization a victory condition, and Obama made an even larger mistake in trying to use Afghanistan to burnish his national security bona fides. Afghanistan is quite likely the worst place in the world to attempt to attempt impose America’s will.

lonetown: As the leader of the least experienced admin we have ever seen, I would think he would accept sound advise no matter where it came from. With the possible exception of Joe Biden who should be wearing a safety helmet when he goes out.

I presume you mean Obama, not yourself. And is Obama’s administration less experienced than that of James Earl Carter?

Let’s see…

Planes flying into buildings. Open sanctuary for the terrorists who plotted that. I wonder if that answers the question…

BTW, wasn’t Afghanistan supposed to be the “good war” during the campaign? Or was that rubbish designed to overlook that some folks didn’t have the stomach to do what it necessary to win?

I do not know. I am not sure all of the relevant circumstances have been disclosed yet.

That’s about where I’m at.

I hope he gets this one right (whatever that is), because the alternative is sinking into deep despair.