General McChrystal or General McCriminal?

The editors at the Times will presumably offer MoveOn a special rate for the full page ad:

General McChrystal, who goes before the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, built an impressive reputation as commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations teams in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2003 to 2008. Highly trained and motivated task forces under his command captured Saddam Hussein and called in the air strikes that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Successes like these could help turn the tide in Afghanistan. But there are other, more disturbing aspects of that record that the Senate also must consider. Special Operations task forces operated in secret, outside the normal military chain of command and with minimal legal accountability, especially during the years Donald Rumsfeld ran the Pentagon. General McChrystal’s command substantially overlaps this troubled period.

A special operations task force that operated in secret? You don’t say. Operating outside the normal chain of command and with minimal legal accountability? So McChrystal did exactly what SOCOM is supposed to do, and because the New York Times editors didn’t have the means or the opportunity to expose these state secrets in a manner that could truly undermine national security, they want justice. It’s sort of amazing that the left’s reaction to McChrystal hasn’t been closer to the way they treated Petraeus when he returned to testify on the surge in September ’07. After all, McChrystal was the man who approved Pat Tillman’s Silver Star. His men paintballed detainees. And now he’s being rewarded with a fourth start and a theater command. It’s almost like Obama is rewarding his generals for inflicting violence and death on our nation’s enemies and shielding his own men from embarrassment and political attacks.

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