A hell of a mess!

When Mr. Obama was running for President I told my brother we needed someone who was bright enough to deal with all of the problems and insane enough to want to do it. The economy was in a shambles. We were also engaged in two wars. One of the wars was unnecessary, and it was causing us to neglect the necessary war. The most damning thing we can accurately say about the administration of George W. Bush is that it was the administration of neglect. Regulations that would have helped to prevent the economic meltdown were done away with or ignored. The same thing holds true of regulations that would have helped to prevent the gulf oil spill. Whether we are talking about foreign or domestic issues, there was a total lack of direction and no sense of priorities.

Mr. Bush’s failure to pursue a rebuilding program in Afghanistan and vigorously conduct the war there has made the situation much more difficult than it should have been. Like everything else inherited from the Bush administration the situation was out of hand, and none of the options left to Mr. Obama were very appealing. The frustration General McCrystal expressed is understandable, but his public criticism of his superiors is wrong under any circumstances. The first thing all military officers are taught is to defend their men from criticism and to defend their superiors from criticism. A field commander can and should be critical of strategy and tactics, but his criticism must not travel beyond the hearing of his superiors. His role is to advise his superiors and to carry out their directives to the best of his ability. If he feels that those orders are too foolish, his only recourse is to resign and then make his case in public. Every general knows there are very good reasons for those rules and why they must be followed. General McCrystal's irresponsible statements have undermined the command structure. At a time when we must carefully weigh our options, he has made himself a distracting side issue. In doing this, he has added one more problem to the many crises situations our President must now handle.