Slightly Hilarious: McChrystal Bans Fox News

Didn't we think the exemplary rock-solid, magnificent warrior, General Stanley McChrystal was surely a conservative? Before the Rolling Stone article, did you assume the General was not happy with the COIN strategy of insurgency, largely meaning "winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people?" Wouldn't you think the mighty General commanding the Afghanistan war would want his troops to have a supportive view from back home of the war they are fighting? Did you know that around McChrystal's headquarters, he banned Fox News? Apparently, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, and maybe - Christiane Amanpour are his kind of war reporters.

Stanley McChrystal

Not only is the hearing of free speech denied, but junk food as well - although I want to make it clear that pizza must not...cannot, be defined as "junk food," and to do so is heresy:

General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of Special Forces in Iraq, who runs eight miles a day, eats one meal and sleeps for only four hours a night, has given orders to close the junk food concessions on Nato bases.

No longer will the fighter pilots at Bagram or Kandahar airfields be able to ring Pizza Hut to deliver. Once General McChrystal has his way, the Whoppers will be off the menu: Burger Kings at both locations are to close. Even the newly opened TGI Friday’s on the boardwalk in Kandahar is to close its doors once its contract expires.

So, our "other" valiant warriors, out there fighting a deadly war to protect the locals, at the expense of their own lives, cannot decide on their own nourishment. If the mess hall is providing nourishing meals, why not give the troops the choice of food and news? Ah...the answer: a Liberal General thinks them incapable.

Marc Ambinder confirms that General McChrystal's vote for the president helped bring this dreadful administration to the White House:

Even more about McChrystal: now it can be told. The story about him voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really. This puts to rest another false rumor: that McChrystal deliberately precipitated his firing because he wants to run for President.

When the Rolling Stone article broke, I expressed dismay that this fine General could approve of this version of COIN. As I began researching the Rules of Engagement for Afghanistan, who wrote them, and who supported them, I could not eliminate McChrystal from the column of enthusiastic supporters. Today we know that he and Obama were joined at the hip. The Lonely Conservative has more.