This politicized back & forth is very unfortunate. You expect it from the politicians and of course there's always some bureaucratic maneuvering between military as well, but this is just a shame. The civilian officially in the Obama administration and the military leaders are engaging in this cat & mouse "I got you back" game only to the detriment of the mission in Afghanistan. It's true that some of these moves are meant to gain more strategic leverage/influence and then perhaps to allow greater wiggle room to achieve success in the battlefield but at this point the administration & the military are both drawing attention away from the fight where OUR SOLDIERS have bullets, mortars, & IEDs coming straight at them. It's a terrible shame that we'd allow this BS to get us sidetracked while these young men put their lives on the line. Put the politics aside for them. You expect this kind of stuff from the administration but c'mon General: don't play this game and keep a tighter leash on your aides.

And how about staying on subject Sir Mixxalot. We know you want people to read & praise your work but instead of redirecting the comments section, how about you start a blog or something. I suspect you fear that no one will read it unless it's put right in front of them.

when you commented on the rolling stone comments as sophomoric, i considered that fair, as that biden snap was pretty sad. however, i take issue with your characterization of pres. obama and his staff as "famously thin-skinned."

you brought up the fox example as evidence, but you failed to make the connection between this sacking and his famous lack of ability to take criticism from the brass. how is this different from any other president, recent or otherwise? what other examples do you have?

i appreciate your criticisms of obama. as the loyal opposition, i respect you and the rest of your team's contributions to fp and the general discourse. and i expect sg to attack obama, as the past loyal opposition would attack bush. however, when you make personal characterizations like you did, the burden of proof falls upon you to prove them. and you did not. from the evidence you presented, sacking 1 general for talking out in 1 year (maybe it'll be two for two tomorrow!) is the same as being "famously thin-skinned," but i'm not convinced.

Poor General McChrystal! With his bosses General David Petraeus and Admiral Mike Mullen as well as Defense secretary Gates justifying Pakistan’s ‘terrorist connections’, Mullah Mohammed Omar’s QST trail from Quetta to Kandahar is operating unimpeded.

McChrystal himself had warned about Pakistan’s sheltering of Taliban terrorists in his August 2009 report to Obama: Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) based in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, is the No. 1 threat to US/NATO mission in Afghanistan. At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Mohammed Omar (Afghan Taliban Chief) announces his guidance and intent for the coming year‘.

But US can not even use its drones to destroy QST that is causing daily deaths of US/NATO soldiers in Afghanistan since 2002! That shows Obama’s continuance of Bush’s mollycoddling of Pakistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to justify Pakistan’s terrorist connections, alluding to a “deficit of trust” between Washington, DC and Islamabad. Mr Gates also said there was “some justification” for Pakistan's concerns about past American policies. Gen David Patraeus, rushed in with an apologia for his Pakistani friends, by claiming that while Faisal was inspired by militants in Pakistan, he did not necessarily have contacts with the militants. Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.

All American officers in southern Afghanistan know that they cannot prevail in the ongoing military operations, unless Taliban strongholds across the Durand Line in North Waziristan and Baluchistan are neutralized. Adm Mullen and Gen Patraeus evidently do not want to acknowledge that hard options have to be considered if their soldiers are not to die at the hands of radicals, armed and trained across the Durand Line.

With McChrystal’s hands tied by his bosses and Pakistani ISI financing Afghan Taliban insurgency from US financial aid as narrated by Matt Waldman on 6/13/2010 in a report titled 'The sun in the sky' published by London School Of Economics, US military’s Kandahar operation and Afghan mission is headed for failure.

An interesting post to go through. As said "President Obama's awkward relations with his senior military commanders have just taken a turn for the worse - much worse. A new article for the Rolling Stone, released in advance to reporters, dishes all sorts of current sports news gossipy dirt on what General McChrystal - or more precisely, what McChrystal's staff - really thinks about the key principals on Obama's National Security Council team."

Since the late 1940's when Ho Chi Minh set up shop in Vietnam, the West has found counter insurgency - guerilla - warfare beyond its reach or grasp. Even so before Ho, the fact was evident in the case of Mao Zedong in China, who overcame Chiang Kai Shek's establishment wealthy backers in China and the backing of Western Powers from abroad.

Post WW2 the Brits were smart to quit after the obvious became, well, obvious. The French being more dense had to experience Dien Bien Phu then Algeria before they would overtly quit. Both actually self immolated in the Suez Crisis of 1956 - Britain as the direct consequence deciding to follow the lead of the US, the French decidiing always to move in the opposite direction (well, the 1991 Gulf War excepted).

While the United States never has had any empire to retain, it does have interests to protect and promote that are varied and extensive, direct and indirect. One can hope but not trust that our national leaders, civilian and military, eventually can learn from the decades of mistakes in counterinsurgency warfare, both strategic and tactical, to finally at long last create a viable response to it.

Hope but not trust.

Obama of Generals? bad you!

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Taliban -- like them or not -- as the primary vehicle for restoration of Pashtun power in Afghanistan, lost in 2001. Pashtuns are also among the most fiercely nationalist, tribalized and xenophobic peoples of the world, united only against the foreign invader. In the end, the Taliban are probably more Pashtun than they are Islamist.

-- It is a fantasy to think of ever sealing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The "Durand Line" is an arbitrary imperial line drawn through Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border. And there are twice as many Pashtuns in Pakistan as there are in Afghanistan. The struggle of 13 million Afghan Pashtuns has already inflamed Pakistan's 28 million Pashtuns.

-- India is the primary geopolitical threat to Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Pakistan must therefore always maintain Afghanistan as a friendly state. India furthermore is intent upon gaining a serious foothold in Afghanistan -- in the intelligence, economic and political arenas -- that chills Islamabad.

-- Pakistan will therefore never rupture ties or abandon the Pashtuns, in either country, whether radical Islamist or not. Pakistan can never afford to have Pashtuns hostile to Islamabad in control of Kabul, or at home.

-- Occupation everywhere creates hatred, as the U.S. is learning. Yet Pashtuns remarkably have luxury rolex watches not been part of the jihadi movement at the international level, although many are indeed quick to ally themselves at home with al-Qaida against the U.S. military.

-- The U.S. had every reason to strike back at the al-Q

All American officers in southern Afghanistan know that they cannot prevail in the ongoing military operations, unless Sazky Taliban strongholds across the Durand Line in North Waziristan and Baluchistan are neutralized. Adm Mullen and Gen Patraeus evidently do not want to acknowledge that hard options have to be considered if their soldiers are not to die at the hands of radicals, armed and trained across the Durand Line.