American General in Afghanistan Gets the Axe

General General Discussion
1

… because he committed the ultimate and unforgivable sin of speaking the truth.

Major General Peter Fuller, deputy commander of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan and responsible for training Afghan security forces, was relieved of his duties Friday for making “inappropriate public comments.”

So what did the guy say that got him sacked?

From Politico’s website (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67653.html):

[i][b]In a Thursday interview with POLITICO, Fuller, a two-star general, slammed Karzai’s recent remark that Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in a war against the U.S., blasting the president’s comments as “erratic,” and adding, “Why don’t you just poke me in the eye with a needle! You’ve got to be kidding me. … I’m sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion and now you’re telling me, ‘I don’t really care?’”

“When they are going to have a presidential election, you hope they get a guy that’s more articulate in public,” Fuller added.

Fuller also criticized Afghan leaders as divorced from the economic realities of the United States.

“I said, ‘You guys are isolated from reality.’ The reality is, the world economy is having some significant hiccups. The U.S. is in this [too],” Fuller told POLITICO. “If you’re in a very poor country like Afghanistan, you think that America has roads paved in gold, everybody lives in Hollywood. They don’t understand the sacrifices that America is making to provide for their security. And I think that’s part of my job — to educate ’em.”

He repeatedly said the Afghan leaders don’t appreciate the sacrifice that the United States was making in “blood and treasure” for the sake of their country.
[/b][/i]

And for that they canned his ass and more than likely ended his military career.

2

Operating at that level, for the amount of time it takes to get to that level, I would have to believe the General knew the consequences of his words. I will venture a guess and say he had enough and got exactly what he wanted.

3

These generals need to learn not to give interviews to liberal news agencies. They are not friends of the military and love it when a senior officer gets too comfortable. They will emphasize anything that paints the military in a negative light. Turnovers like this can be very disruptive to the overall mission and even risk lives if the leader was effective. Loose lips sink ships and careers boys.

4

There needs to be some forward movement and accountability by the leaders in that country and I don’t think Gen. Fuller should lose his job by pointing this out!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/peter-fuller-fired_n_1077204.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk2|110149

Thoughts?

5

Honestly, I think the general’s opinions are a correct assessment of the situation. However, if his beliefs were burning a hole in his britches, he should have told them to his immediate supervisor or his mirror in the middle of the night - not to an adversarial media that will use them (successfully) to undermine a war effort. Senior military leaders do not have the luxury of criticizing their boss’ “ally” to the press.

6

I agree 100% with what he said. That being said, officers are held to a much higher standard when it comes to their political views and must abide or ride.

7

As an officer your number one obligation is to the men under your command, and if you are put in a position where under orders, you must engage in actions that cause your men to be hurt and killed over and over without progress, at some point you will snap, and say “fuck it, I’m done”

Yes, some officers are shitbags that just care about golf and schmoozing, but just as many take their mission and the lives of their men seriously and will not tow the line forever, even if it means losing their commission.

8

I’d imagine that the general’s assessment is that we’re training and arming a future enemy. He’s probably fed up with the political machinations driving a fool’s errand, carried out by our military.

Hmm, let’s see… we bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age (not very hard). We defeat them militarily, hands down. We occupy their country for pretty much a decade. We’re still fighting “insurgents”. We can’t even install a friendly leader. Despite pretty much pissing in our faces, Karzai has his greedy, corrupt hand out the whole time. Corruption in this grand adventure is on an epic scale. We’ve spent nearly a half trillion dollars (not to mention some of our best and brightest men), all for the Afghanistan leader to say he’d turn his back on us and become our enemy.

We’re way past the time to GTFO of that rotting, festering sphincter of the world. Oh, and on the way out, we need to tell Karzai that the next time an attack against the United States is planned, trained or executed from Afghanistan, the very first Tomahawk is falling on his presidential palace!

I’m proud of the general for telling it like it is. He owes it to our men, most of whom understand that continuing to prop that shithole up is beyond retarded! :mad:

9

x2 million…

10

The General said/did what he thought was right.

I believe he showed “Candor” & “Courage” while protecting his People and his Country.

11

He is 100% correct. I dont think he should have been removed for those comments, but I think he knew what he was doing.

12

Voicing his frustrations to the media did not change our policy of supporting Karzai or save any lives. Fuller did not even tell us anything that we did not already know.

As for our obligation as officers (I assume that you are also an officer with at least company CO experience based on your avitar and statements), we are to first uphold our oath of office. That oath specifies that we will support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. Article II; Section 2 of the Constitution specifies civilian control over the military via the executive branch which sets military policy through the Sec. of Defense and foreign policy through the Sec of State. It is currently our military and foreign policy to support the Karzai governmet despite its corrupt tendencies.

Having a general make statements to the media that directly contradict civilian policy makers sets a dangerous precedent unless it can be shown that the policy is unconstitutional. There are plenty of other options for officers to voice their opposition to our policy short of going to the closest liberal rag that will publish the story.

Finally, I appreciate the desire to look out for our men. My last deployment to A-stan in 2009 really tested this commitment as McChrystal instituted his vision of COIN (i.e removal of the “Keep Back” signs from our vehicles and the use of local labor on FOBs to name a few). Having said that, I learned from the McChrystal experience that going outside the chain of command to the “comforts” of the media is a quick way to get burned without affecting the origional problem in any positive way.

13

In other words: General fired for calling delusional and erratic allies…delusional and erratic.

14

I don’t disagree, but I believe there is a point when senior officers can’t deal with politics anymore. Especially when it’s getting their men killed for a terrible reason.

If you lose 40 men to protect a person who openly says they will take up arms against you, why the hell would you want to order more men into harms way for this person.

“suck it up and drive on,” has its limitations on the human spirit, especially after 10 years.

15

I think today’s military has more than it’s share of career minded yes men, who are afraid of disturbing the status quo.
We need some dynamic personalities to shake things up and make our allies as well as our enemies feel a little scared.
We don’t have that right now and it’s killing us.

We need someone who isn’t afraid to think outside of the box and isn’t afraid of stepping on some dicks!!

The worst is our CIC!! IMO…

16

And if Karzai wasn’t bad enough, we’re still handing out billions to these cocksuckers in Pakistan. Read this recent article in The Atlantic and try not to puke:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-ally-from-hell/8730/

17

Gee, I can’t for the life of me figure out why we are in debt. I know that is but a drop in the bucket but damn it, those drops add up, especially when we fund those who would do us harm.

18

I applaud him for having the courage to call it as it is. Everyone who pays taxes should be outraged at the amount of corruption and money that is being wasted in Afghanistan.

To make matters worse we are going to pull out (just like Iraq) and we will have accomplished very little because the government is fucked up, Karzai is a piece of shit and military and police still cannot function after 10 years in the country.

Why are we spending money we don’t have? Why are pumping millions of dollars of up Pakistans’ ass when they are the ones behind the Taliban and they continue to support terrorists? Why are we not using that money at home to help our own people?

19

Unfortunately this is nothing new in American politics. :frowning:

20

Punitive expeditions would be cheaper and more fun.