A Disturbing Pattern: Obama Fires Top Generals

The disturbing pattern: Obama rids America's military of yet another top general

By Andrew Malcolm
Posted 02/20/2013 09:02 AM ET

It's a developing pattern of this Obama White House.

Barack Obama cashiered yet another battle-seasoned American general Tuesday, even as the war in Afghanistan continues along with numerous other serious global threats to United States security.

This is the fourth senior officer Obama has forced from the country's service.

All four were tied somehow to the Afghanistan mess that Obama has long argued was the most important war. Each departure was staged as a resignation. They were usually tied to some personal indiscretions to save face for Obama, who would know of indiscretions as a product of the corrupt Chicago Democrat machine.

There was Gen. David McKiernan, the four-star who lead U.S. ground forces during the successful lightning Iraq invasion. He was asked to resign command of allied forces in Afghanistan just four months into Obama's presidency in 2009. Never fully explained, but the implication was administration dissatisfaction with the war's progress.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a special ops veteran who was McKiernan's successor. He resigned when his staff was quoted making derogatory comments to an embedded journalist about the administration in general and VP Joe Biden in particular. If mocking Megamind Biden is worthy of resignation, then most of America needs to step down by lunch today.

Gen. David Petraeus, the archictect of the surge and successful counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq, was demoted from Central

Command to return to lead the Afghan war. After that successful tour Obama named him director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which required his military resignation after nearly four decades of service.

Obama and Biden were too busy to attend the traditional farewell ceremonies for such a general officer across town. But they were willing to let Petraeus take a large part of the fall for their unexplained absences during the 9/11 terror attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi and denied the consulate's repeated pleas for rescue.

Then somehow word got out that Petraeus, regularly rumored as a Republican presidential candidate someday, had an affair with his biographer. He "offered" to resign and, by golly, Obama felt he had to accept.

Now, comes Marine Gen. John Allen, the latest Afghan war commander. He did such a good job in that military quagmire that Obama named him to lead all U.S. and NATO forces in Europe. But then somehow word leaked that Allen had engaged in flirtatious e-mail exchanges with a married socialite in Tampa. A Pentagon investigation declined any misconduct charges.
 But Tuesday Obama announced that unspecified health challenges have emerged in Allen's family requiring his full attention and Allen has resigned the NATO nomination, which Obama feels compelled to accept. While, of course, deeply appreciating Allen's long service to the country. One more gone. No mess. Never Obama's fault.

What's particularly striking is Obama's meticulous demands over the conduct of top military commanders, those general officer boots on the ground with decades of experience at the front lines of leading our troops, guiding the nation's national security protection and assisting the enemy to die for their cause.

And yet the Democrat is beyond tolerant of widespread and costly incompetence among his civilian Cabinet officers.

Can you say Solyndra? Energy Secy. Stephen Chu, for instance, cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars with ill-advised government investment backing of some three dozen alleged clean energy companies, some connected to Obama bundlers, many now defunct, other beneficiaries of taxpayer-support now sold off cheaply to China, of all places. But Chu too is leaving with exuberant praise from the Chicago Democrat.

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder keeps his job as the country's top law enforcement officer after claiming blissful ignorance of his department's illegal gun-running operation supplying hundreds of weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Whose members subsequently killed scores of people, including at least one American.

Who would ever hold a top administrator responsible for such deadly malfeasance, as long as he was clueless about what was going on
in his own department?

And if you doubt Holder's story, too bad. Because Obama has conveniently claimed executive privilege over documents sought by House investigators concerning when Holder new what about the "Fast and Furious" operation.

Or Homeland Security Secy. Janet Napolitano, whose alleged security inspection tours to cities across the country just happen to coincide frequently with the performance schedules of her real passion, civic operas in the cities she's visiting at taxpayer expense.

Now Obama seeks as secretary of Defense a former senator named Chuck Hagel, whose main attraction to the president is that he was once considered a Republican. That could provide a modicum of political cover as the president goes about gutting the defense budget to fund his other spending priorities. Obama has already retired one of the nation's 10 nuclear carriers.

And although Obama now professes great telepromptered loathing for the huge March 1 defense cuts, those sequester budget-cutting gimmicks were actually his idea two years ago.

Hagel, a staunch critic of the Mideast's only democracy, Israel, which Obama professes grand respect for, had quite likely the worst

Senate confirmation hearing in modern history. His ignorance of U.S. defense and diplomatic policies was appaling. Democrats had to help with "I think what you meant to say, senator,...." Hagel said he'd learn on the job and he wasn't really going to be a commander anyway.

For all the show of professed post-service support for troops by Obama and wife Michelle, his relationship with the military all along has been tenuous at best. Always at a distance, separated by barriers.

Look at photos of Presidents Bush and Obama greeting troops. The connection with one is obvious, the disdain of the other visible.

True, Bush served as a jet pilot in the National Guard. And Obama's sole military connection, back in his first presidential campaign, was to tell at least one crowd that he once considered a military career. If that's really true, he obviously decided against it, probably a wise decision given his admitted frequent use of illegal drugs.

Not widely publicized at the time of last month's inauguration, but Obama parade officials ordered the bolts removed from the rifles of all soldiers marching past the president, encased in his bullet-proof reviewing stand. An insult at worst. And hardly an inspiring sign of the commander-in-chief's trust and confidence in the military volunteers he orders into combat.

Given the assumed political preference of troops for a Republican, Obama's reelection campaign fought to place legal hurdles in the way of military absentee ballots last fall. Although witnesses told of Maj. Nidal Hasan shouting "Allah is great" during the Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 service members, the Obama administration still insists on calling it a workplace incident, not terrorism.

For obvious political reasons, Obama has also insisted the Pentagon implement policies not universally accepted by military volunteers, including full integration of openly gay troops and assignment of women to physically-demanding combat roles. There is also talk now of curbing military retirement benefits as well as the ranks of all services.

Perhaps these are all just coincidences. Or perhaps this is the second-term "flexibility" Obama promised the Russian president in their whispered exchange in Seoul 11 months ago.