David Petraeus is Named as McChrystal’s Replacement

David Petraeus is Named as McChrystal’s Replacement President Obama has chosen to replace General McChrystal with David Petraeus as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan. I have heard many negative things said about the president’s decision but there are several clear reasons why he made the move that he did.

First of all is the issue of the off handed remarks made by General McChrystal about several members of the Presidents staff. We won’t go back into that one again, we beat that horse to death yesterday.

There are some other mitigating circumstances that we need to look at in order to get a more complete picture of why General McChrystal was replaced. When I look back at the progress of the troop surge I see operation which was a failure. This operation was carefully planned and General McChrystal was given everything including all of the equipment and manpower that he said that he needed to complete the operation. Remember that our president has promised the American public that he would bring the troops back quickly. Well McChrystal just wasn’t making it happen. The beginning portion of the troop surge has been a serious dissappointment. The Taliban has become emboldened by their perceived victory in that operation.

General Petraeus was instrumental in turning the war in Iraq around. In other words he got results. This is what President Obama needs in order to keep his promise to the American people. General Petraeus is familiar with every aspect of the war in Afghanistan and has a track record of success in a very similar operation.

There is one thing that I learned while I was in the Army and I’m sure that my custom military ring customers will agree with me. You can get away with all sort of trash talking if you are getting results. If you are not getting the job done don’t rattle any swords or throw any stones.