Fred J. Eckert at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considered the message and the messenger.
Money quote(s):
"Major General Peter Fuller's career-destroying offense was to publicly criticize Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for saying during an October 22nd interview with Pakistani news media that if the U.S. and Pakistan got into a war, he and Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in fighting against the United States."
You've got to figure that a three-star general has had plenty of experience in considering, and rejecting, the impulse to make career-destroying public statements. Any officer (military or otherwise) has to develop a facility for picking ones battles. Is this the hill I want to (figuratively) die on? Is this the sword I want (my career) to fall upon?
Some issues are going to be worth it. For someone in MG Fuller's position, he must have judged it was.
"General Fuller also referred to Karzai's being "erratic," expressed hope that Afghanistan's next leader will be more "articulate," said he thought Afghan government leaders are "isolated from reality" in their expectations of what America should expend in that country, and said those Afghan leaders "don't appreciate" the sacrifice that the United States is making in "blood and treasure" for the people of their country."
Retiring as a major general whose last official act was to speak the uncomfortable truth in response to a politician's dishonorable speech isn't exactly the worst way to go out.
"Everything General Fuller said that got him fired is true and needs to be understood by the public and by the media. Bear in mind that General Fuller, a man who has served our country as a U.S. Army officer for more than 30 years, was the deputy commander charged with turning Afghan's military into an effective fighting force. Knowing this, there is something lacking in anyone's sense of patriotism who does not understand and share the general's annoyance and frustration about Karzai's revealing that he would have no qualms about ordering Afghan soldiers trained by Americans to fight and kill Americans.
And yet...it is not the place of General Fuller to presume without authorization to make and conduct U.S. foreign policy. Clearly he crossed the line. Thus, it is beside the point and matters not one bit that what he said in public is true and very likely echoes what the superior officer who fired him and just about every other American military official in Afghanistan says in private." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)
Yes. And yet....
"The firing of General Fuller raises a much larger unanswered question, the question that should have been raised and discussed in the media all along from the very moment that Hamid Karzai publicly made his inappropriate, insulting remarks at which General Fuller and every other clear thinking American rightly takes great offense: what should U.S. leaders say and do when a foreign leader who owes his country's freedom, and perhaps even his own life, to American goodness acts towards America as one would act towards an enemy?"
Politics, and diplomacy, is the "art of the possible." Higher pay grades than MG Fuller's have decided to overlook (or swallow) the insult.
"When NATO and American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, explained that he was firing General Peter Fuller because of "inappropriate public comments," he may not have caught the irony. General Fuller's "inappropriate public comments" were a reaction to Karzai's wildly "inappropriate public comments" that insulted our country and are an affront to any and every American who has aided the people of Afghanistan."
11/8
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