The Big Question: Is it ever OK for a general to disagree in public?

John Feehery, Pundits Blog Contributor, said:
It is important that the chain of command remain paramount in an organization like the military.  Once a decision is made, the job of the generals is to salute and carry out the mission.  But the interesting thing about this current crisis between McChrystal and Obama is that there is very little daylight between them on policy.  This is not a policy dispute at all.  It is not an insurrection.  It is one bad article where the general himself was not quoted saying anything disparaging about the President.  Should the President fire McChrystal, it says more about Obama’s lack of leadership strength than it does about the General’s lack of loyalty.

Brad Delong, professor of economics at the UC Berkeley, said:
When he thinks that shifting the terms of public discussion are important enough to end his career: resign, then dissent.

Bernie Quigley, Pundits Blog contributor, said:
Not if he likes his job. Nothing sends the cold willies up the spine in a free republic as a general gone rogue or countervailing the commander in chief. The military is about the systematic following of orders in a universal pattern. We turn to it when everything else fails. If the participation mystique slips in it destroys that. General McCrystal frayed the edges. What was he thinking in talking to Rolling Stone? Was he trying to make the war hip? Make himself relevant to the leftover-from-the Sixties crowd? Not only was it feckless, it showed a perspective so out of touch with the times that it calls his judgment into question. As out of touch with the times as Rolling Stone magazine.

Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said:
Of course it is both appropriate and sometimes necessary for a military officer to publicly disagree with the president.

What is inappropriate is for military leaders to be disrespectful and even childish in their behavior towards the nation’s elected leadership. This story is not about a heroic act of marching into the Oval Office and “speaking truth to power”. Rather it’s about guys sitting around with a journalist making rude comments and putting their bad behavior on display.

Peter Navarro, professor of economics and public policy at U.C. Irvine, said:
We tried the “keep quiet when we are at war thing” and how did that work out?  24/7 if he is screwing up.

Hal Lewis, professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara, said:
That’s really deep. An army must have an undisputed leader—every army knows that—but there has to be a corrective mechanism if that leader is very wrong. The real issue is how to make those corrections without disabling the army. Our Founding Fathers made the President the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but it is important to remember that they were thinking of George Washington, for whom the choice was unambiguous. When an administration sees two enemies, the enemies of the country and the opposing politicians, and has trouble telling the difference, it gets harder. I have enough real experience in some earlier administrations of seeing at first hand how politicians in power can take the defense of the nation very lightly indeed, and some corrective mechanism for that is essential. I think that going to Rolling Stone was idiotic, but I also think that military concerns at the highest levels should not be suppressed by a show of raw political power. We have a country to defend against sworn enemies, and that comes first.