Top General In Afghan War: US Envoy Betrayed Me

[Maytime]

There's a certain sense of entitlement that I see on a daily basis that drives me up a wall sometimes, and may contribute to the distancing of the civilian population and the armed forces in terms of mutual understanding and respect. I could be wrong, but it's something I've observed over a few years of living here.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by akv

Holly,

I can't speak for Sigaba but IMHO his question is quite valid. You value supporting our troops, I share this value, there have been times in American history when the majority was quite vocal about voicing support for this value. We are currently engaged in two wars, yet on Memorial Day we have journalists infuriatingly questioning " What is so important about placing flowers on a tomb" or folks stealing a memorial cross for WW1 vets in New Mexico. I believe Sigaba is asking what has changed for the masses regarding this value and why, is it popular culture, lack of personal experience, where did we get derailed from the days when such actions would have been rare shameful outliers?

Well, I can see the value of every word you typed, however, if I remember correctly, those journalsits were put in their idiodic place about writing that, "flowers or LEAVES were being placed on a tomb"GRRRRRRRRRR

And aren't the folks stealing the cross are currently being pursued by LEO, IIRC?

And also believe that Sigaba can answer for themself. Because, even though I buried my Grandmother today, I am genuinely curious of the reply, should they choose to even give one.

Holly

[Richard]

My experience and opinion - any American's support of anything is as individual as the person making the determination - same thing applies to the idea of what exactly makes us Americans. However, YMMV...and so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[Maytime]

Originally Posted by Richard

My experience and opinion - any American's support of anything is as individual as the person making the determination - same thing applies to the idea of what exactly makes us Americans. However, YMMV...and so it goes...

I agree! IMHO, this idea will present itself come November when Americans who remain mostly silent on many current issues suddenly think, "Oh shit, maybe this is not the direction we wanted America to go." There is nothing wrong with that; that is why we have separate branches of government. We (collectively) make a mistake, We can fix it without deep-sixing the current establishment.

I digress. Was GEN McChrystal TRYING to commit career suicide when he participated in the interview? With the ROLLING STONE? I didn't expect that from him.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by akv

Is popular culture, like art representative of the values of a society, or a precursor towards likely paths?

Originally Posted by Richard

My experience and opinion - any American's support of anything is as individual as the person making the determination - same thing applies to the idea of what exactly makes us Americans.

FWIW, my view walks the margin between your view and the question posed by AKV.

Mass popular culture (to differentiate from popular culture) can frame how individual Americans shape their views both consciously and unconsciously. IMO, when these views have been in relative harmony with political and strategic discourse, the nation has benefited from strong civil military relations. By contrast, when the views are in disharmony (as they have been since the end of the Cold War), the American people start to lag behind the discussion. (Examples of this "lag" include the media, politicians, and pundits measuring America's success in GWOT by the number of casualties or the length of the war at the expense of listening to the professional judgment of the warriors who are doing the fighting.)

Originally Posted by Maytime

Was GEN McChrystal TRYING to commit career suicide when he participated in the interview? With the ROLLING STONE? I didn't expect that from him.

There may be no way to know, but it is my guess that the damaging remarks were but a portion of the discussions that the RS reporter observed.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

There may be no way to know, but it is my guess that the damaging remarks were but a portion of the discussions that the RS reporter observed.

I suspect that the book will explain all of that, or at least offer a semi-plausible explanation.

TR

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I suspect that the book will explain all of that, or at least offer a semi-plausible explanation.

TR

As these kinds of things are often determined by who gets published first, I hope GEN McChyrstal puts pen to paper immediately.

(I have no doubt that he president's comments in the rose garden were not just designed to ruin the general as a political opponent but were ultimately aimed at the history books.)

[Richard]

An interesting look at the very issue(s)...

Richard

The Culture of Exposure
David Brooks, NYT, 24 June 2010

The most interesting part of my job is that I get to observe powerful people at close quarters. Most people in government, I find, are there because they sincerely want to do good. But they’re also exhausted and frustrated much of the time. And at these moments they can’t help letting you know that things would be much better if only there weren’t so many morons all around.

So every few weeks I find myself on the receiving end of little burst of off-the-record trash talk. Senators privately moan about other senators. Administration officials gripe about other administration officials. People in the White House complain about the idiots in Congress, and the idiots in Congress complain about the idiots in the White House — especially if they’re in the same party. Washington floats on a river of aspersion.

The system is basically set up to maximize kvetching. Government is filled with superconfident, highly competitive people who are grouped into small bands. These bands usually have one queen bee at the center — a president, senator, cabinet secretary or general — and a squad of advisers all around. These bands are perpetually jostling, elbowing and shoving each other to get control over policy.

Amid all this friction, the members of each band develop their own private language. These people often spend 16 hours a day together, and they bond by moaning and about the idiots on the outside.

It feels good to vent in this way. You demonstrate your own importance by showing your buddies that you are un-awed by the majority leader, the vice president or some other big name. You get to take a break from the formal pressures of the job by playing the blasphemous bad-boy rebel over a beer at night.

Military people are especially prone to these sorts of outbursts. In public, they pay lavish deference to civilian masters who issue orders from the comfort of home. Among themselves, they blow off steam, sometimes in the crudest possible terms.

Those of us in the press corps have to figure out how to treat this torrent of private kvetching. During World War II and the years just after, a culture of reticence prevailed. The basic view was that human beings are sinful, flawed and fallen. What mattered most was whether people could overcome their flaws and do their duty as soldiers, politicians and public servants. Reporters suppressed private information and reported mostly — and maybe too gently — on public duties.

Then, in 1961, Theodore H. White began his “The Making of the President” book series. This series treated the people who worked inside the boiler rooms of government as the star players. It put the inner dramas at center stage.

Then, after Vietnam, an ethos of exposure swept the culture. The assumption among many journalists was that the establishment may seem upstanding, but there is a secret corruption deep down. It became the task of journalism to expose the underbelly of public life, to hunt for impurity, assuming that the dark hidden lives of public officials were more important than the official performances.

Then came cable, the Internet, and the profusion of media sources. Now you have outlets, shows and Web sites whose only real interest is the kvetching and inside baseball.

In other words, over the course of 50 years, what had once been considered the least important part of government became the most important. These days, the inner soap opera is the most discussed and the most fraught arena of political life.

And into this world walks Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

General McChrystal was excellent at his job. He had outstanding relations with the White House and entirely proper relationships with his various civilian partners in the State Department and beyond. He set up a superb decision-making apparatus that deftly used military and civilian expertise.

But McChrystal, like everyone else, kvetched. And having apparently missed the last 50 years of cultural history, he did so on the record, in front of a reporter. And this reporter, being a product of the culture of exposure, made the kvetching the center of his magazine profile.

By putting the kvetching in the magazine, the reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority. He took a successful general and made it impossible for President Obama to retain him.

The reticent ethos had its flaws. But the exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important.

Another scalp is on the wall. Government officials will erect even higher walls between themselves and the outside world. The honest and freewheeling will continue to flee public life, and the cautious and calculating will remain.

The culture of exposure has triumphed, with results for all to see.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/op...me&ref=general

[Sigaba]

The Culture of Exposure
David Brooks, NYT, 24 June 2010

IMO, Mr. Brooks's piece certainly provides food for thought. However, I think his take is flawed in two respects. First, the "reticent ethos" was not just practiced by journalists. In the past, officers in the armed services were well aware that they needed to draw the line between their professional and personal views of their fellows as well as civilians. As an example, folks are still trying to figure out what Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur really thought of each other, when they had those views, and why.

Second, while too much can be made of clashes of personalities, those conflicts are worthy of public attention if they impact peoples' abilities to do their jobs professionally.

And also, there's the matter of Mr. Brooks's intellectual consistency. Source is here.

CNN RELIABLE SOURCES

Two New Books Examine Hillary Clinton's Life; Democrats Back Off Deadlines for Troop Withdrawal

Aired May 27, 2007 - 10:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Scrutinizing Hillary. Two new books examine her tumultuous marriage to Bill Clinton, the affairs, Jennifer Flowers, and the rest of her career. Big news, or old news?

<<SNIP>>

She stood by her man during the Jennifer Flowers uproar. She didn't want to stay home and bake cookies.

And ever since then, Hillary Clinton has been the subject of intense media fascination and relentless media scrutiny -- never more so than when she decided to seek the job that her husband held for eight years.

Now she's the subject of two new books -- one by Watergate sleuth, Carl Bernstein, the other by veteran "New York Times" reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta.

The Bernstein book, according to the "Washington Post," says that, while in Arkansas, Hillary personally interviewed at least one woman alleged to have had an affair with Bill Clinton and contemplated divorcing him, and even thought about running for governor out of anger at her husband.

The Gerth-Van Natta book says Hillary's team hired a private investigator to undermine Jennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed."

It also questions whether, as senator, she read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in 2002, before voting to authorize the war.

What should we make of these microscopic examinations of the former first lady's life?

Joining us now to talk about this and a number of other issues, E.J. Dionne, columnist for the "Washington Post" and a professor at Georgetown University; Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief of the "Chicago Sun-Times"; and in New York, David Brooks, columnist for the "New York Times."

David Brooks, does all this digging into Hillary Clinton's personal life and her marriage to a formerly philandering president -- which was already getting plenty of media attention -- is that going to now come to the front of the agenda?

DAVID BROOKS, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": I think it should, actually.

You know, we have this issue in the media where we try to cover fresh news, and this is stuff that's hardly fresh. And frankly, so far, from the "Washington Post" story on Friday, there's no evidence there's any major bombshells.

But the issue is character here and what sort of person Hillary Clinton is. I think she's been a very fine senator.

But all of us have concerns about whether she's self-righteous, whether she's overly ambitious, overly controlling. And that stuff matters to a president.

So, I think it's a legitimate issue, but it involves breaking the normal media code, which is, only cover the freshest and newest material, because this stuff is hardly new.

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by Maytime

I digress. Was GEN McChrystal TRYING to commit career suicide when he participated in the interview? With the ROLLING STONE? I didn't expect that from him.

I read the article sitting in B&N. there were lots of direct quotes from the general and they were taken from formal and informal settings. His direct quotes made him seem totally lacking in self-discipline, wallowing in an ego trip that was fueled by a staff that idol-itiz-ed him.

Read it for yourself. You can't miss it on the news stand, Lady GaGa's naked ass barely distract you from her bra made of M-4s.

Maybe the final insult by RS to the General, Lady GaGa got the cover and he didn't.
Actually, the more I think of it the more I'm convinced he really was hoping to make "the Cover of the Rolling Stone". It's the music he grew up with, seriously.

"On the cover of the rollin stone......
. . . fresh shot, right up front, Man.....
I can see it now, we'll be up in the front....
Smilin, Man......
Ahh, beautiful......."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ux3-a9RE1Q

[Utah Bob]

The reticent ethos had its flaws. But the exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important.

Yes. It's chased both good and bad people from public life. When you expose every character flaw to the light of day it's difficult for the masses to determine if the person in question should be pilloried or excused.
Everyone is flawed in one way or another. Sometimes those flaws are exposed at the worst possible time.

Up until now McChrystal had pretty much been the darling of the media. Quick to give interviews, articulate, dashing and energetic. Then he steps on an IRD (improvised reporter device) and Kablooey!

[plato]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

IMO, the question of questions is what is the basis of civilians' respect for the warriors that protect our freedoms? Does that respect come from a genuine understanding (to the extent possible) of the cultures, values, and professionalism of the armed services? Or is that understanding shaped more by the myriad images in mass popular culture?

Possibly neither. I'm not sure how many of *us* understand the culture of the armed services. I know how the elephant looked from the place that I stood observing it, during my particular time, before it undoubtedly moved.

It's the soldier, the individual soldier. That comes through in every story, every movie, every interview. The men who stand where legs used to be, without a whimper, the ones who went forward to pull back that injured comrade, the ones who went forward to help and didn't make it back.

Many here discuss strategy and politics, training based on lessons learned under fire, since for them the nobility of the American Soldier is a given. Others who haven't seen it at least have the opportunity to watch portrayals of soldiers dying for the sake of other soldiers. No greater love .........

[abc_123]

You know, I'd love for GEN Patreaus to turn around and state that "after a closer review of the situation on the ground" that he agrees with GEN McCrystal's original assessment that, 40K troops were needed, but due to the current situation that his assessment is that now he needs an additional 15K above current levels and slap that publically down on the table.

THAT would drive the WH into convulsions.

Whether that is needed or will make a difference, I don't know, but it would be justice on so many levels.

[Richard]

Then he steps on an IRD (improvised reporter device) and Kablooey!

That's an IED - Inflammatory Editorial Device.

Richard's $.02

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by Richard

That's an IED - Inflammatory Editorial Device.

Richard's $.02

Much better!