Stanley McChrystal Versus Robert E. Lee
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 5 months ago
Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal recently wrote an article in the Atlantic to announce that he had taken a portrait of Lee that his wife had saved up to buy him when they were first married, and thrown it in the trash.
What an ass. That’s the sort of respect he has for gifts his wife gives him.
Besides, when it comes to the morality of the men, Stanley McChrystal still hasn’t done what I demanded he do.
On July 11, 2021 at 10:48 pm, Big Country Expat said:
When I was in Afghanistan as a contractor, all the PXs theater wide stopped selling Monsters, smokes and chew. Word was McCrystal (who was known as a psycho-ascetic) was behind the banning of energy drinks, dip and cigarettes being sold in the PXs theater-wide.
LOTS of disgruntled folks b/c of it… The final word was his CSM took him aside and told him “Bad enough the Taliban want you dead sir, but now the men want you dead as well… bets reverse course or you’ll be the highest ranking frag ever!”
Jes’ sayin’.
On July 12, 2021 at 12:40 am, Jimmy the Saint said:
Year Zero requires sacrifices from us all. What a brave comrade! A good example of our New Soviet Man!
*eyeroll*
On July 12, 2021 at 2:18 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
The other day down at the local outdoor sports/FA emporium, I was talking with a gentleman, a U.S. Air Force veteran and retired SNCO. A guy who’d done his twenty and got out. One or two other people were there also. Regulars in this small town.
By-and-by, the subject of senior U.S. military officers, specifically the most-senior flag/general officers, arose. Specifically, those individuals who appear to have sold out to the powers-that-be and gone full-on communist. Current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army General Mark Miley was the officer mentioned, but it just as well could have been someone like General David Petraeus or General Stanley McCrystal.
This well-spoken and kindly gentleman told me with absolute assurance that his oath to the constitution and the republic had never expired, and that theirs – those of general officers – hadn’t either, whether they were still in uniform or not. He then went on to reassure me that they wouldn’t dare to betray their oaths as they appeared to be doing, and that they were only “playing possum” or faking it. That they were really on our side.
Not wanting to be impolite, I said I had my doubts and left it at that and our conversation ended.
I had mentioned in passing that at the Nuremberg Tribunals in 1945-1946, when a number of senior Nazi general/flag officers had been tried, many of the accused had tried the so-called “Nuremberg defense,” i.e., “I was only following orders” and thus cannot be held liable for my actions or those under my command. I simply mentioned in passing that this tactic had not worked at Nuremberg and it would not work today, if it came to that.
I cannot be so sanguinary as that retired USAF man. Why? For a number of reasons.
First, culture is upstream of the military. The composition of the people in the military – including the senior officers – is no better than the quality of the pool of people from which it draws in mainstream society. The America of today is vastly more-corrupt, degraded and morally-compromised than the America of fifty, seventy-five or one-hundred years ago. Although our nation still produces outstanding young men well-suited for positions of leadership in the military, for many reasons, it does not do so to the same extent it once did.
The decline in the quality of American culture in recent decades must inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of officer trainees and cadets, and ultimately, in the caliber of the officer corps itself. The service academies were once something very special, one of the jewels in the nation’s crown, but today, they are, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from civilian diploma mills in terms of the quality of the individuals they turn out.
Second, the Cultural Marxists have had the armed forces in their sights for a very long time, because the armed forces were one of the last and strongest bastions of conservatism and traditional America left still unconquered. Finally, it too was taken down by the communists: Today, the service academies not only tolerate – but welcome – open communists in the ranks of their students, but also all sorts of other groups that have no business being in officer training school – militant feminists, black power radicals, the usual victim’s rights racketeers, etc.
Women have been forced into the ranks of some of our finest combat units and forces, over the objections of the men in them, and so now we have Little Suzy Snowflake in the Marine Platoon Leader’s course, Rangers, and in special ops. It’s a real Charlie Foxtrot, if you take my meaning.
Third, I am pessimistic as to the loyalty of the general/flag officers because they are inherently political. No one ascends to general/flag rank without the “advice and consent” of Congress, which means passing a vote by the members of that institution. Once back in the old days, approval was largely a formality – but thanks to the SJWs, that’s no longer the case.
People who don’t check the “right boxes” don’t get approved. Which means dissenters from the cultural left’s ideological orthodoxy don’t make the jump from O-6 to Brigadier General or Rear-Admiral (lower-half). Consequently, the system selects against the very kind of men it ought to be promoting to high rank and senior positions of leadership, instead elevating mediocre time-servers, ring-kissers and perfumed princes of various sorts, yes-men to the powerful pols on the ‘Hill. Guys who don’t blow their noses without first holding their finger aloft in the political wind to see which way it is blowing.
BTW, I’d love to be proven wrong and be forced to pen a retraction and full-apology in this space, or one like it…. but I am not holding my breath on that one.
On July 12, 2021 at 9:30 am, Fred said:
Qualified Immunity is the Nuremberg Defense. But, at least understand that swat blowing up your neighbor’s house is only concerned that they are drinking the floridated water because the government cares about their teeth. It’s for their own good.
On July 12, 2021 at 5:04 pm, Bradlley A Graham said:
Retired Army Gen. Stan McChrystal was the latest to sing the praises of Hillary Clinton.
In an interview on 5/21/2014 with Huffpost Live host Alyona Minkovski………
” I knew her slightly when she was a senator, deeply respected her as secretary of state, really enjoyed the partnership we had. So I think that was one of the relationships I will value forever, the respect I had for her and she had for me.”
Stanley the Shit Bird.
On July 18, 2021 at 10:54 am, TRX said:
> Nuremberg Tribunals in 1945-1946, when a number of senior Nazi general/flag officers had been tried, many of the accused had tried the so-called “Nuremberg defense,” i.e., “I was only following orders” and thus cannot be held liable for my actions
—
That was German law, as promulgated by Fuhrer Directive. All authority in the Third Reich flowed from the top down, by statute as well as custom. As long as you could prove you were following the orders of an official superior officer or Party member, you had no personal responsibility. While it sounds bizarre to Americans, it wasn’t really all that different from how things worked under the Kaiser.
The defendants’ objections were that they were following the written law of the land, and that it was unfair to charge them for things under foreign law that never applied to them.
The Tribunal’s response was, essentially, “sucks to be you.” The four Justices were operating under accepted conventions defining ‘war crimes’, not the laws of any specific country.
> or those under my command.
In which case, if something you ordered came back to bite you, the people you told to do it would be held blameless; in the Reich, those who gave the orders also took responsibility for those orders.