General McChrystal "Runaway General"

After Rolling Stone published a profile called “Runaway General” about General Stanley McChrystal, in which the Afghanistan commander criticized President Obama, Vice President Biden and Obama’s national security staff, McChrystal was fired.

Technically, Obama accepted the general’s resignation, but in reality he was fired.

Obama said today that McChrystal’s comments were not appropriate and they were disrespectful of the chain of command and civilian leadership of the military.

General Petraeus will now be the commander in Afghanistan.

You can view Obama’s speech here.

You can read the Rolling Stone story here.

Coming off the heels of major domestic legislative victories, President Obama dropped into Afghanistan to meet with leaders to press them to do more to clamp down on corruption.

The Associated Press’ Jennifer Loven has the story.

KABUL – In a surprise visit, President Barack Obama pressed Afghan leaders on Sunday to do more to rein in rampant corruption and improve their government as he got a firsthand look at the 8-year-old war he inherited and dramatically escalated.

During meetings with President Hamid Karzai and his Cabinet, Obama told them he was pleased with progress made since his last discussion with Karzai, by secure videoconference on March 15. Obama also invited Karzai to visit Washington on May 12.

Read Loven’s story.

Heather Higginbottom Domestic Policy Council

Ben Rhodes National Security Council

Despite the technical glitches, White House staff answers some pretty good questions about everything from No Child Left Behind, Iran sanctions, felon voting rights, Afghanistan, carbon taxing, the bank bailouts and more.

Answering questions: Heather Higginbottom of Domestic Policy Council, Brian Deese, from the National Economic Council and National Security Council Ben Rhodes.

It’s worth watching, so check it out.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince

There’s a lot going on right now in Pakistan. The US has a military presence in Pakistan. Some of those soldiers are private contractors. One of those contractors was Blackwater. And now after the Vanity Fair interview with Blackwater founder Erik Prince in which he revealed that Blackwater had been working with the CIA to assassinate Pakistanis.

Now read this opinion piece in the Pakistan’s The Daily revealing the increased suspicion of the US expansion of the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan.

Note: It’s the “Second Editorial” halfway down the page.

President Barack Obama

President Obama continues to make the same mistake over and over again. From bankers, to members of Congress and even the American people, Obama keeps hoping everyone will just get along and find common ground.

While Obama keeps waiting for everyone do to the right thing, unemployment continues to go up, small businesses are struggling or failing, people are dying from lack of health care, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and bailed out investment bankers are rolling in taxpayer dough.

It’s time for Obama to stop his audacity of hope campaign – what we need is action, leadership and some asses kicked (I’m looking at you Goldman Sachs and AIG).

Perhaps critics of candidate Obama were right when they said he lacked experience. He’s been in the White House for nine months and he’s accomplished nothing.

Health care reform continues to flounder in Congress.

The war in Iraq is still sucking the US Treasury dry and snatching the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

In Afghanistan, Obama is thinking about sending more troops, but he appears to be hemming and hawing over that decision.

When the banking industry, which created the current financial mess we’re in thanks to laissez-faire regulation, was on the ropes Obama didn’t take that opportunity to force regulation down their throats, but rather he handed them billions and billions of taxpayer money and hoped that they’d play nice and be cool with regulatory changes later. Wrong.

Before Congress started debating health care reform, the president should have laid out his requirements for a bill he would sign. Obama should have started out with single-payer and made the case for it. There’s a good argument to be made for single-payer, but Obama didn’t even try. Instead, he left it all up to Congress to run wild with and boy did they. Now we’re looking at heavily compromised bills that will likely result in a lot of people paying too much money for health insurance that doesn’t cover anything. Thanks, but no thanks.

And what has he done to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Nothing. We can’t win either of these wars because there is no definition of victory. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan, and neither will the US. And what’s the exit strategy in Iraq? Hope?

Obama’s hope machine has run out of gas. Hope is great, we all need a little bit of it from time to time, but it’s no excuse for inaction. This is politics. It’s partisan.

The time for leadership is now, because let’s face it, pretending that partisan politics is something that can, or should, be avoided is no recipe for success. Obama needs to stop his wishful thinking. Conservatives and liberals will not march on Washington, DC hand-in-hand singing Kumbaya – it’s not going to happen. Wake up or step aside in 2012 to make room for a real leader.

David Brooks

David Brooks wrote today: We have tried to fight the Afghan war the easy way, and it hasn’t worked. Switching now to the McChrystal strategy is a difficult choice, and President Obama is right to take his time. But Obama was also right a few months ago when he declared, “This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. … This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

David Brooks “The Afghan Imperative”

President Obama is ratcheting up the war in Afghanistan with more troops and more money. What the hell is he doing?

There was a story the other day in the Portland Daily Sun about a young soldier killed in Afghanistan. What did he die for? Does Obama really think he’s going to be able to do what Russia couldn’t do when they killed a couple million Afghanis before heading home in 1989 with their tail between their legs?

Bob Herbert said in his column today that the Bush administration screwed up the war in Afghanistan from the get-go and no amount of money and troops is going to salvage it.

Why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep repeating the mistakes of Vietnam? I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that we should have forgotten it already. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed the lives of more than 5,000 US soldiers, hundreds of thousands of civilians and more than a trillion dollars.

It makes no sense. Obama should be ashamed of himself. Every death is on his hands now. He has no excuse. This isn’t change we can believe in. Hope? Whatever.