ANOTHER "TRUMAN-MACARTHUR" MOMENT IN THE OFFING?

When military commanders butt heads with their civilian superiors, there's going to be trouble... for the military commander. This is especially true when the civilian superior is the president.

The most famous example would be in 1951 when Truman fired General MacArthur. The two men had "slightly" differing opinions on how the Korean war should be fought, and when MacArthur made it known, Truman fired him. The decision for Truman was easy, the political fallout was another thing, altogether. After all, MacArthur was a national hero, an institution. Truman survived, MacArthur did not.

On Wednesday, when General McChrystal goes before the president to explain his comments in a just released Rolling Stone article, the history of military-civilian clashes might be revisited. That is, with General McChrystal no longer being the top commander in Afghanistan.

I have read the article and can not see McChrystal leaving Washington with his job intact. But, then again, Washington is a different place these days and it's quite possible that Gibbs has a way to spin this so Obama still appears to be in charge.

Fundamentally transforming America is a full-time job, and the president doesn't need his military commanders stepping out line at this critical juncture.

Bite me.

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4 MORE GIs KILLED AS OBAMA CONTINUES TO DITHER ON TROOP POLICY--updated

Months ago, Obama settled on an Afghan strategy. But when his top General requested an additional 40k troops, Obama seemed to forget about his previous decision and went completely blank. He has not made a decision on troop increases nor has he settled on what his "new" strategy will be. In fact, Obama has had 10 meetings with his advisers and still no decision has been reached:

Meeting in the Situation Room
Obama held the 10th meeting of his Afghanistan strategy review since mid-September on Monday night, with a large cast of foreign policy and military advisers, to go over that revised information from war planners. The two-hour Situation Room session was aimed at discussing "some of the questions that the president had, some additional answers to what he'd asked for," Gibbs said.

Not only has Obama's top General requested more troops, NATO has asked that all allied nations send additional troops as well. It's clear that more troops are needed, however, Obama is having some difficulty seeing the need.

Is Obama unable to make the tough decisions a war requires of a CIC, or is he and his closest advisers playing politics? Either way, more and more American GIs are dying as a result of these delays.

During a 24 hour period on Sunday, four more American GIs were killed. Some Afghan soldiers died too. This is nothing short of criminal. Your members of congress are having trouble dealing with this problem because they are too busy talking about an issue near-and-dear to their hearts: health care.

Well, I know of at least four GIs that no longer have a need for health care.

***UPDATE: Marathon Pundit reports on Obama's decision.

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The Brits criticise Obama's delays.

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