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Didn't Get the Memo

General McChrystal gets off script:

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that it remains the goal of U.S. troops to capture Osama bin Laden alive and “bring him to justice.”

The comment by Gen. Stanley McChrystal to reporters was in contrast to remarks made a day earlier by U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who told Congress that the chances of capturing bin Laden alive were “infinitesimal” because he would probably be killed by U.S. forces or by one of his own fighters.

Sorry for interrupting General, but the Attorney General is on the line.

And he sounds angry.

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11 comments to Didn’t Get the Memo

  • Vetting. A natural process, that allows excellence to excel. I believe, there was a shortage of that vetting process when Mr. Holder was advanced.

  • Bill K.

    Confucius say: The poor general will soon develop PresBOpia.

  • grandpa bluewater

    Well, one or the other will go.

    But at the moment they need the General and it’s just a smile and a shrug by the AG’s boss to blow it off.

    Really, a General is small potatoes in the game of big casino in progress.

    Is the AG clean? Unless he isn’t, my guess he’ll stay as long as his boss.
    Which is longer than the need for the general may last.

    Question is, who would want to look for dirt – very quietly, and is good enough at it to do it on the QT? Not to mention use it effectively if something gets dug up.

    Hell of a plot for a political thriller in all of that somewhere.

    “The universe is not only more complicated than you imagine, it is more complicated than you can imagine.”

    • SteveC

      Grandpa Bluewater – Dude – where’ve you been? “Is the AG clean?” This is the guy who worked to pardon the murdering Puerto Rican terrorists in New York to get support for his being pushed up the employment ladder by his friends, the Clintons. Then, he just happened to be the only person in the Attorney General’s Office who, in the words of the genius Holder himself, ‘didn’t know who Marc Rich was’ when he failed to do his job and object when Clinton pardoned that crook, too. There are other instances of malfeasance and lack of qualification for the job he holds, but then, that was before the left took over the top jobs in our government where such activities are now viewed in a different light.

      Short answer: Holder is not qualified for the job. But neither is his boss. We’re screwed.

    • Is the AG clean? Unless he isn’t, my guess he’ll stay as long as his boss.

      Let’s just say he’s tarnished. Badly.

  • Joe in N. Calif

    “Bring him to justice” could be a three round burst to the head.

  • BN

    Easy folks.
    The goal is get him alive, however, chances are he’ll be dead though. Both men are quite correct – it’s all in the wording.

  • Wasn’t there something about Unity of Command and Principle of the Objective here, a little while ago? You’d think think they’d _pretend_ to have unity of command, at least in public. Maybe I’m just naive, and don’t understand how things work at the high levels. (I do have my suspicions.)

  • grandpa bluewater

    SteveC:

    I’m quite sure you have your facts right.

    It is one think to know about questionable conduct by a politician. It is quite another to use that knowledge to bring him down.

    There is a higher level. Know something and use it so well he immediately resigns, gives up politics, and leaves town.

    But first you need to get in the closet and inventory the skeletons.

    At the other end of the stick, sometimes very bright men chose to be very obtuse to get something done despite seniors of questionable competence. That is a strategy that may be unexpected or undetected, but it is not for the faint of heart, given the galloping ambition that you can postulate in a 4 star.

    If you were a cynic.

    • Yup, it is possible for a smart man to pretend to be dumb, as Dwight Eisenhower did (he had to quit playing poker as a young officer to avoid stripping his fellow officers of all of their money) and of course not possible for a dumb person to pretend to be smart and get away with it.

      It does take balls, and not caring what other people think, to keep a good opinion of one’s self in his head while dissimulating and playing dumb socially, while simultaneously doing deep heavy politics as Eisenhower did in the US Army, and the Western Allies. He wasn’t just a goddamned golfer.

  • virgil xenophon

    “If you were a cynic.”

    Perish the thought…

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