Afghanistan commander gone, replaced by man with role in Tillman lies

I promise I looked for this but couldn't find anything. So yada, yada if it's a D_B.

Anyway, I was reading the NY Times this morning on McKiernan's ouster and was generally feeling like it was a good decision to replace him with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, until I got to this paragraph in the middle of the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/asia/12military.html?th&emc=th

"A West Point graduate from the class of 1976, General McChrystal is himself a Green Beret and a Ranger, as well as a veteran Special Operations commander. One spot on General McChrystal’s generally sterling military record came in 2007, when a Pentagon investigation into the accidental shooting death in 2004 of Cpl. Pat Tillman by fellow Army Rangers in Afghanistan held General McChrystal accountable for inaccurate information provided by Corporal Tillman’s unit in recommending him for a Silver Star.

The information wrongly suggested that Corporal Tillman, a professional football player whose decision to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks drew national attention, had been killed by enemy fire."

It's a given that I know little about these guys, but really this would probably be the last guy I would hire if my administration was built on promoting honesty and openness.

 

Pretty big spot, I'd say, bespeaks a certain willingness to bow to political pressure, too. I'd like to believe that Obama knows what he's doing in Afghanistan, but I still think, if everything's going to come a'cropper for him, it's going to start here.

 

On one hand, McChrystal apparently stated in his report, when recommending Tillman for the Silver Star, that it was highly likely he'd been killed by friendly fire.

On the other hand, he was still a party to the whole mess, and I find it hard to forgive anyone in Army leadership for the way that was handled.

Gates seems to know what he's doing, and he must've been pretty appalled by what he saw in Afghanistan to do this (first general yanked like this since Truman's spat with MacArthur, from what I've read). I do find it surprising someone who was even peripherally involved with the Tillman mess was given a position like this, but I don't know enough about the guy to render an opinion other than that. I certainly hope he does well for the Army over there.

 

I don't know what part the general played, but I could forgive the urge to make Tillman seem more heroic than tragic in that instance.

I couldn't forgive the urge to cover up the Army's screwups.

 

A real conservative (as opposed to the teabag kind) chimes in against the Obama strategy

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/11/conservative_historian_andrew_bacevich_warns_against

 

To be fair, probably any given officer of flag rank in the command and staff structure in the theater probably had some role, minor or otherwise, in the Tillman case. It's a small Army. I don't know whether Gates had a whole lot of options.

 

That's a legit point, as to it being difficult to find someone in that particular structure who didn't touch the Tillman matter, even in a minor way. Particularly when it comes to handing out Silver Stars, I'd think, though I have little knowledge of the actual process.

 

This whole process probably has much more to do with his unconventional background than with the skeletons in his closet.

 

Sorry, 3Bags, for my own clarification, what process and whose background?

 

McChrystal's special operations background versus his role in the Tillman mess.

 

It also seems to me that Petraeus is looking to have his own folks running things in all parts of east Asia.

 

That's probably not a bad thing. Petraeus is probably the best brand we've got going, these days.