During my coverage and commentary on Operation Iraqi Freedom And Operation Enduring Freedom, I never liked David Petrarus or Stanley McChrystal. As for the campaigns (because that invariably comes up), I didn’t agree with OIF1 or in other words the initial invasion of Iraq, I did agree with OIF2 and OIF3 because 80-100 jihadist fighters were coming across the Jordanian and Syrian borders per month to fight U.S. troops who might have crossed American borders instead if we didn’t finish the campaign, I agreed with the initial stages of the campaign in Afghanistan, but when I saw that we had busted the Northern Alliance with were courting the Pashtuns, I opposed the remainder of the campaign, and when I saw the complete debacle we made of both campaigns, I called for total, immediate withdrawal from both theaters. Now that roadblock is out of the way, let’s proceed.
Aside from the campaigns, Petraeus and McChrystal are part of the class of generals who believe in COIN and waging “armed social work.” Their rules of engagement were a function of that, and the rules got many good men killed and maimed. You may drive or walk right by young men who are getting along with no legs or arms, but I don’t. I stop, sometimes shed a tear, and beg forgiveness for not finding the son of a bitch who started all of this and cutting his balls off and feeding them to the dogs.
Petraeus and McChrystal won’t cease and desist showing us what kind of men they are either. Just recently we learned that they don’t take their oath to the constitution seriously, or better yet, they lied when they took their oath. They are leading the charge on gun control for the progressives.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus is teaming up with former astronaut Mark Kelly to form a gun-control advocacy group that “respects the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.”
Kelly has made frequent appearances on the 2016 campaign trail with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as well as his wife, former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who sustained a serious brain injury after being shot in Tucson in 2011.
Petraeus and Kelly are joined by other military veterans, including retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal and retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, in launching the “Veterans Coalition for Common Sense.” The group’s stated purpose is to urge lawmakers to do more to prevent mass gun tragedies.
Shamefully, there’s even a Marine in the mix.
“I believe that our Constitution affords responsible Americans the right to own guns, but we need to keep dangerous people from having easy access to guns. Felons, domestic abusers, even known terrorists can buy a gun here without something as simple as a criminal background check. This has to stop,” retired Marine Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney said in a statement. “Our laws don’t support responsible gun ownership, and far too often guns fall into the hands of dangerous, irresponsible people.”
So let’s rehearse what I said about Stanley McChrystal when he first came out as a gun controller progressive.
But the irony is that McChrystal, who issued the most restrictive rules of engagement ever promulgated on American troops, waxes know-it-all on what it takes to keep our people safe. He can micromanage the campaign, release a bunch of inept, bureaucratic, PowerPoint jockeys into highly protected mega-bases to command the troops under fire in the field, turn so-called general purpose troops into constabulary patrolmen, and become a laughingstock when his juvenile staff turned party-animal with Rolling Stone. But he didn’t manage the campaign in such a manner as to keep our children in uniform safe in Afghanistan. If he didn’t do that, why should I care what he has to say about anything else regarding my safety?
This is what happens when media stars think they know something about policy. So here is a suggestion for Mr. McChrystal. You go read the lamentations at this article from the families and widows of SFC Kenneth Westbrook, Gunnery Sgt Aaron M Kenefick, Corpsman James Ray “Doc” Layton, and others in the Ganjgal engagement. You know the one I’m talking about, even if others have forgotten. You and I will never forget. The one where they left our men to perish without fire support because of your rules of engagement. You sleep with this reality, if you can, you ponder on those men and their lives morning and night, and you lament with the widows and families. And then you tell me why I should give a shit what you have to say about anything, much less what it takes to keep my children or loved ones safe?
I don’t retreat one iota from what I said there. McChrystal, with his ROE, is a murderer. I don’t give a shit what he says about anything. As for Petraeus, he is an adulterer and that during deployment when men under his charge were suffering and dying.
I’m glad those are the best two men this ungodly bunch could come up with. Those two men should be embarrassments to the gun controller crowd. It gives me amusement and pleasure to have them as enemies. Sometimes good things do happen.
