McCHRYSTAL

Listening to Margaret Warner interview retired General Stanley McChrystal was pretty pathetic, really. Throwing him these softball questions didn't do much. There's a side that has to admire the general. Guy runs miles a day, eats one meal, sleeps four hours, an animal. The flip side of the coin is that he represents what is wrong with our recent wars. The generals give these rosy reports and we buy into them. More Americans die and we are further behind.

Some of it has to be with the lack of understanding by the civilian/political community in what has happened to us. They don't get it because they don't know, "military speak." An example:The civilian community talks about the "surge" in Iraq. All the surge did was separate the warring factions. It did nothing to stem the overall level of violence but the military presented it as somehow a magic formula. Bullshit. Then someone like McChrystal moves to Afghanistan and he, along with his fellow general, Petraeus, when Petraeus could separate himself from his paramour, touted counter insurgency. The Prez, to his credit, bought into it until he came to realize that we were talking 10-20 years. What!!! New strategy, let's turn it all over to the Afghans. McChrystal did say one telling thing in the interview: the Afghan people are scared; their government is weak and allies are leaving. I feel really badly but the alternative is worst, staying in Afghanistan forever.

McChrystal is teaching leadership at Yale and touting his book, "My Share of the Task." I hope the Yalie's are smarter than the rest of us. I blame the generals for much of our misadventures over the last 25 or so years. In Vietnam, Westmoreland said send us more troops and we'll be home by Christmas. He neglected to tell us what Christmas. When he made that statement, we had about 7000 dead GIs. A half dozen years later, it was 58,000 plus dead. My question to the General: what kind of, "leadership" is he talking about.