While he is obviously passionate about his point of view I think he would have been more persuasive if he had made his argument based on the competing strategies rather than personalities. Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey were believers in the "small footprint" strategy. To some degree that strategy worked in Afghanistan and was a failure in Iraq. The failure was not recognizing that the different battle spaces required different strategies.

While Yingling's passionate argument may effect his career, there have been some generals who have advanced because of their willingness to challenge positions of superiors. Norman Schwartzkopf did it as a young officer in Vietnam and Rifle De Long did it as a field grade officer with General Zinni. When you do it, it is important that you be right, obviously.