War in Ukraine

It certainly would have said more, but it would have been held more against him as a man abandoning his command while he had troops in the field, in harm’s way. The Chairman has no command. He is a political advisor to the President. When the President does not heed your advice on a matter so grave and it blows up so consequentially, then I think the President needs a new advisor. We didn’t at the time, but now we more or less know that Jake Sullivan was standing between the President and the generals on this. So who knows if the President even got the advice, just the sense of it, or completely different information that Jake Sullivan wanted the President to have. That alone should have enough to make the Chairman put his stars on the table in June. “The conditions agreed to by the President for putting the strategic reaction force back into Afghanistan have been met. CENTCOM has officially requested permission to act. Permission has been denied without comment. The White House keeps casually telling the public all is well. The National Security Advisor is telling me not to worry about it. And I can’t get in to see the President. He will see that milquetoast who has never carried anything heavier than a pencil, but he will not see while we are on the cusp of embarrassing strategic defeat. That’s it. I’m done.”

 

I think we are just disagreeing on who should be the one to resign. I can see an argument for either but I do not really think of a GCC CG having troops in the field as being a reason they cannot resign or be fired. Happened with Mattis and Fallon being fired at CENTCOM. Also happened to Wes Clark at EUCOM. The GCC's have a Deputy CG for a reason.

 

I’m also not sure if General McKenzie knew that Sullivan was gatekeeping the SECDEF and CJCS from seeing the President directly. There is no reason he would have necessarily known that. If SECDEF was telling McKenzie, “POTUS says no” without elaborating, then why should he think anything was amiss?

 

I'm assuming that McKenzie was in the tank or on the VTC with the POTUS when they were presenting options. If McKenzie was not getting face time with the POTUS as CENTCOM CG planning for the OEF pull out, that should have been a reason to resign right there.

 

Nasty …