McChrystal's auto-immolation

I wonder why he did it?  Why did McChrystal allow the comments ("kvetching", David Brooks calls it) to be on the record?  And he did that.  Indeed, Michael Hastings, the writer of the piece, the Runaway General, said that he passed a draft of the article to the General and his staff and they cleared it.  Nothing makes sense except that McChrystal thought so much of himself that he was "unfire-able".  That's certainly what Hastings thought.

Brooks said that Hastings made the "kevtching the center of his magazine profile".

Well that's also not quite right.  The troops have said they like that the article brought out into the open new ROE - Rules of Engagement - that have so hamstrung the troops that they are in greater danger.  The new ROE which drastically restrict air and artillery cover, are supposed to be part of wining hearts and minds and not inciting more at-home terrorism.

But the Times Square bomber didn't get the memo, or understand the change in policy, for part of his gripe was that American were killing Muslim mothers and children in Afghanistan.  The fact that they were -- according to the McChrystal ROE -- trying to limit those to nothing, cut no ice.