- Gen. Stanley McChrystal
As it stands today, it is illegal for an openly gay person to serve in the Armed Forces. Being truthful with your comrades or commanding officer can get you drummed out of the service. Unless, of course, a stop-loss issue is in place, in which case the gays can be cannon fodder before they are discharged for cause. We can’t have gays serving, after all, because it interferes with unit cohesion … unless we need the as targets for the enemy for a while longer. Then it’s OK.
The highest ranking soldier prosecuted for the Abu Ghraib abuses was a sergeant, despite pretty convincing evidence officials as high as the secretary of defense condoned such behavior.
But until we hear otherwise, it is apparently fine for a general to tell the vice president of the United States to “bite me” and to insult the commander in chief of the military. On the record. In print.
If Gen. Stanley McCrystal is not outright fired — or at the very least severely demoted — I think Obama and the whole military infrastructure has a lot of ‘splainin’ ta do. Apparently, bald-faced insubordination is perfectly acceptable. So we can keep that in mind the next time a corporal spits at a major or a captain calls his commanding officer a son-of-a-bitch. After all, if a general can do it, why not an enlisted man?
It is a clear cut case of McChrystal Blue Persuasion.