Quote Originally Posted by MattC86 View Post
But is there not any concern about McChrystal's time ...
(Not from me...)
... is that not a detriment to us?
(Not an ounce more so than all the Iraqi and Afghan deaths that McKiernan presided over.)
...appointing as commander of U.S. forces a man who has some questions to answer about his past.
age of 40 who does NOT have questions that can be asked about their past...

Very serious comment. War isn't nice and I provide four quotes that many will see as pointless aphorisms. Aphorisms they may be but they are far from pointless. Numerous Scholars, Politicians and ordinary people would really like to believe these statements aren't true. They are.
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

War is at its best barbarism."

William T. Sherman
McCrystal did what he had to do as he saw it at the time. No one can ask for more than that -- you can expect more but you're unlikely to get it.

That said, I'm still not convinced he's the best guy for the job but that's on practical warfighting grounds, not on moral grounds. There is no morality in war, it is all immoral, every particle of it. Attempts to be excessively moral in combat kill more people than speed and force will. All wars are immoral but some are necessary. Once you commit, to be nice is to create more problems than you solve. A lot of US problems in war stem from those who dispute or ignore the comments quoted above.

The necessity of these two wars arose from the moral failure of four successive US Presidents to take necessary action to defend US interests. Where is the criticism of those four?