Deja Vu

June 30, 2010

Sounding Off

Tags:

media,

Mexico,

Obama,

Stanley McChrystal,

war,

Zachary Taylor

2010: Recently, President Obama dismissed Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal after the release of an article in Rolling Stone in which the general was overly candid about his feelings about the administration.

How'd I get screwed into going to this dinner?" demands Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It's a Thursday night in mid-April, and the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Hôtel Westminster in Paris. He's in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies—to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany's president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him.

"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his chief of staff, Col. Charlie Flynn.

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.

"Hey, Charlie," he asks, "does this come with the position?"

McChrystal gives him the middle finger.

The general stands and looks around the suite that his traveling staff of 10 has converted into a full-scale operations center. The tables are crowded with silver Panasonic Toughbooks, and blue cables crisscross the hotel's thick carpet, hooked up to satellite dishes to provide encrypted phone and e-mail communications. Dressed in off-the-rack civilian casual - blue tie, button-down shirt, dress slacks - McChrystal is way out of his comfort zone. Paris, as one of his advisers says, is the "most anti-McChrystal city you can imagine." The general hates fancy restaurants, rejecting any place with candles on the tables as too "Gucci." He prefers Bud Light Lime (his favorite beer) to Bordeaux, Talladega Nights (his favorite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard. Besides, the public eye has never been a place where McChrystal felt comfortable: Before President Obama put him in charge of the war in Afghanistan, he spent five years running the Pentagon's most secretive black ops…

"I'd rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner," McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.

"Unfortunately," he adds, "no one in this room could do it."

With that, he's out the door.

"Who's he going to dinner with?" I ask one of his aides.

"Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It's fucking gay."

1846: While commander of the army during the Mexican-American War, Zachary Taylor was often displeased with the decisions made by President James K. Polk and would often leak personal correspondence to the press that expressed his displeasure. The “Gaines Letter” was published after a controversial armistice with the Mexicans. The generous terms for surrender would eventually lead Polk to transfer half of Talylor’s troops, effectively relinquishing him of his command

I do not believe the authorities at Washington are at all satisfied with my conduct in regard to the terms of the capitulation entered into with the Mexican commander, which you no doubt have seen, as they have been made public through the official organ, and copied into various other newspapers…Although the terms of capitulation may be considered too liberal on our part by the President and his advisers, as well as many others at a distance, particularly by those who do not understand the position which we occupied, yet on due reflection, I see nothing to induce me to regret the course I pursued.

…I considered the further effusion of blood not only unnecessary but improper. [The Mexican army] was also considerably larger than ours, and, from the size and position of the place, we could not completely invest it; so that the greater portion of their troops, if not the whole, had they been disposed to do so, could any night have abandoned the city, at once entered the mountain passes and effected their retreat, do what we could…

The foregoing remarks are not made with the view of finding fault with anyone, but to point out the difficulties with which I have had to contend.

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