Perspective: A sad day (OneNewsNow.com)

Perspective: A sad day (OneNewsNow.com)

The flap about General Stanley McChrystal's "resignation" was nobody's finest hour. But there are some painful lessons in all this that go beyond any of the individuals involved -- the general, the president or any of the officials at the Pentagon or the State Department.

What is far more important than all these individuals put together are the lives of the tens of thousands of Americans fighting in Afghanistan. What is even more important is the national security of this country.

It is certainly not politic for a general or his staff to express their contempt for civilian authorities publicly. But what is far more important -- from the standpoint of national security -- is whether what those authorities have done deserves contempt.
My hope is that General McChrystal will write a book about his experiences in Afghanistan -- and in Washington. The public needs to know what is really going on, and they are not likely to get that information from politicians.

This is, after all, an administration that waited for months last year before acting on General McChrystal's urgent request for 40,000 more troops, which he warned would be necessary to prevent the failure of the mission in Afghanistan. He got 30,000 eventually -- and a public statement by President Obama about when he wants to start withdrawing American troops from that country.